Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Deane, Thomas Newenham
DEANE, Sir THOMAS NEWENHAM (1828–1899), architect, was born at Dundanion, near Cork, on 15 June 1828. He was the son of Sir Thomas Deane (1792–1871) [q. v.] by his second wife, Eliza, daughter of Robert O'Callaghan Newenham, and granddaughter of Sir Edward Newenham [q. v.] Deane was educated at Rugby and at Trinity College, Dublin, graduating B.A. in 1849. He received his early professional training from his father, whose firm of Deane & Woodward he joined in 1850, and was thus concerned in the important buildings carried out at Oxford and elsewhere between 1850 and 1860 [see Deane, Sir Thomas, the elder]. On the death of his father in 1871 Deane, who thus became the sole member of the firm, worthily sustained its traditions, and thenceforward occupied the first place in his profession in Ireland. His work at this period included a number of important additions to Dublin architecture, of which St. Ann's church in Dawson Street, 1867, and the Munster bank in Dame Street are perhaps the chief. He also designed the Clarendon laboratory and examination schools at Oxford. In 1876 he was joined in his work by his eldest son, Thomas Manly Deane, with whom he remained in partnership till his death, and continued to be actively employed in various works of importance in Ireland.
Unquestionably the work for which Deane will be longest remembered is the Science and Art Museum and National Library of Ireland in Dublin, a work carried out at a cost of upwards of 110,000l., and which ranks as the most remarkable achievement of the nineteenth century in Ireland in original architecture. The work, which was entrusted to the firm as the result of a public competition, was begun in 1885, the foundation stone being laid by the Prince of Wales (afterwards Edward VII), and it was completed in 1890. At the public ceremony, at which the building was declared open, Deane was knighted by the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, the Earl of Zetland. This work was followed by important additions to the Natural History Museum and the National Gallery, and by the building of the Royal Dublin Society's Lecture Theatre, all of these forming part of the noble group of buildings of which Leinster House is the centre.
Deane was keenly interested in the movement for the preservation of the national monuments and ancient monuments of Ireland, which led to the passing, mainly through the instrumentality of Sir John Lubbock, of the Ancient Monuments Protection Acts of 1882 and 1892. He was appointed to the post of inspector of national and ancient monuments in connection with these acts, a congenial office, which occupied much of his time and attention in later years.
He continued the active pursuit of his profession till his death, and was constantly employed in his later years on various works of importance in and out of Ireland, notably the University Physiological Laboratory and Anthropological Museum at Oxford, the McArthur Hall, Belfast, and the Church of Ireland Training College, Dublin. The sustained repute of the firm was shown by its being among the five selected competitors for the Imperial Institute at South Kensington, and by the submission of its name by the Royal Institute of British Architects to the commissioners of works for selection for the new government buildings in Whitehall and Parliament Street.
Deane died suddenly in Dublin on 8 Nov. 1899. He married on 29 Jan. 1850 Henrietta, daughter of Joseph H. Manly of Ferney, co. Cork, by whom he had several children.
He was a man of a light and elastic temperament and social disposition, and enjoyed a wide popularity in Dublin. He was a member of the Royal Hibernian Academy and the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland.
[The Builder, 18 Nov. 1899; the Architect and Contract Reporter, 1? and 24 Nov. (with portrait) 1899; Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 25 Nov. 1899; the British Architect, 17 Nov. 1899; Sir William Gregory's Autobiography; private information; personal knowledge.]