Alfred Waterhouse
b. Liverpool, 1830;
d. London, 1905.

Alfred Waterhouse was an English Victorian famous architect. A Quaker by birth, Waterhouse was educated at the Grove House Friends’ School in Liverpool. In 1848 he became an assistant to Richard Lane in Manchester; after five years’ training he made an extensive trip around Europe, returning to set up practice in Manchester in 1854. Success in the 1858 competition for the Manchester Assize Courts brought him national recognition, and he went on to design Manchester Town Hall. His best known London work is the Natural History Museum, executed in a Romanesque variant, unlike his Manchester buildings, which display their allegiance to mainstream Gothic. By working in both the Gothic and classical idioms Waterhouse succeeded in exploiting the stylistic divide of the High Victorian era. He was also willing to exploit new building material such as structural ironwork and terracotta. But his real skill lay in his ability to devise simple plans of great clarity, as exemplified by works such as the Prudential Assurance Building and the National Liberal Club, both in London.

Major buildings / works:
Assize Courts, Manchester, 1858-64.
Town Hall, Manchester, 1867-77.
Natural History Museum, London, 1871-81.
Prudential Assurance Buildings, London, 1876-9.
National Liberal Club, London, 1884-7.

Bibliography:
M. Girouard, Alfred Waterhouse and the Natural History Museum, New Haven and London, 1981. CS