Deane & Woodward
Established 1851.

Deane & Woodward - Irish partnership which played a key part in the Ruskin-inspired revival of Gothic architecture in Victorian England. The firm of Deane & Woodward was an offshoot from the Dublin-based practice of Thomas Deane, father of Thomas Newenham Deane (b. Cork, 1828; d. 1899). Deane Jr had been educated at Trinity College Dublin before joining his father’s practice in 1850. There he met Benjamin Woodward (b. Tullamore, 1816; d. 1861), who had originally trained as an engineer. His enthusiasm for medieval architecture had led him to change professions; he entered Thomas Deane’s office in 1845. Both Deane and Woodward were made partners in 1851. Their first major building was Trinity College Museum (1852-7), which established the character of Victorian Gothic architecture in line with the tenets of Ruskin. In practice this involved the creation of a monumental building based on a regular, almost classical plan form, with a richly embellished exterior. Deane and Woodward went on to design a number of buildings in Oxford, notably the Oxford Museum (1855-61), the first Gothic public building in Victorian England since the Houses of Parliament. In this case Ruskin was active in the development of the decorative scheme of the building. After Woodward died (1861), Deane continued to practise on his own, mainly in Dublin and Oxford. In 1878 he formed a new partnership with his son, Thomas Manly Deane, who subsequently took over the practice.

List of major buildings / works
Trinity College Museum, Dublin, 1852-7.
Oxford Museum, Oxford, England, 1855-61.
Oxford Union,, Oxford, 1857-9.

Bibliography
Stefan Muthesms, The High Victorian Movement in Architecture 1850-1870, London, 1972. Eve Blau, Ruskmian Gothic: The Architecture of Deane and Woodward, 1845-61, Princeton, 1981.