Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Webb, Philip Speakman

by May Morris

WEBB, PHILIP (SPEAKMAN) (1831–1915), architect, was born in Beaumont Street, Oxford, 12 January 1831, the second of the eleven children of Charles Webb, by his wife, M. E. Speakman. His grandfather was the well-known medallist, Thomas Webb, of Birmingham. His father, who died in 1848, was a medical man of standing in Oxford, with many accomplishments, including a taste for drawing and an aptitude for natural history. Philip Webb was brought up in the house in St. Giles's which formerly belonged to the dukes of Marlborough and is now used as the judges' lodgings. He was educated at Aynho grammar school. He early developed that intimate knowledge of wild life shown in all his designs. He was articled to John Billing, architect, of Reading, and after serving his time entered the office of George Edmund Street [q.v.] in Beaumont Street, Oxford. Here he met William Morris [q.v.], and their subsequent friendship brought him into the brilliant group whose story is so well known.

In the firm, known as Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, & Co., founded by Morris in London in 1861, which effected a revolution in contemporary decorative art, Webb was for long the most active member. He had left Street's office about 1856, and while building up his own professional practice, first at 7 Great Ormond Street and afterwards at 1 Raymond Buildings, Gray's Inn, he produced designs of the most varied description for Morris's firm in its Red Lion Square and Queen Square days. These include church and house decoration, designs for symbols, animals, birds, traceries for stained glass, embroideries (e.g. the altar-frontal at Llandaff Cathedral), tiles, grates, candlesticks, metal-fittings, table-glass, and jewelry. The furniture design was entirely his own, always remarkable for its distinction and practical quality. As time went on, and his practice expanded, his decorative design grew in scope and was no longer restricted to the needs of the Morris firm. Much of his early work can be seen in the churches built by George Frederick Bodley [q.v.] in Scarborough and Brighton. Some of the actual painting of the roofs is by his hand. The interior of the dining-room (1867) at the Victoria and Albert Museum is perhaps the most important of Webb's decorative schemes which have been left intact. The wall-decoration is full of variety and interest, the frieze of animals in relief with touches of bright colour, and the main walls with olive boughs in flower and fruit (also in relief) being specially noticeable. Webb's working-drawings are exquisite in colour and finish, and the pen-and-ink studies of beasts and birds show the vigour and delicacy of a great master's hand. Among his later small designs are to be noted the animals for some of the Morris tapestry. One of his last pieces of design is the mace for the university of Birmingham.

Webb's career as an architect extends from about 1856 to 1900. He built some fifty or sixty fine houses and one church (Brampton, Cumberland, 1875), refusing to undertake any work which he could not personally superintend. He was especially successful in his additions to old houses, such as Berkeley Castle and Pusey House, Berkshire, satisfying modern needs without either jarring on the harmonies of the old work or trying to reproduce its features. The addition to Forthampton Court (1891), now much altered, was a fine example of his genius. Three houses in London are notable as different types of his work: 1 Palace Green (built for the Hon. George Howard, afterwards ninth Earl of Carlisle, 1868), West House, Glebe Place, Chelsea (for G. P. Boyce, 1873), and 19 Lincoln's Inn Fields (c 1870). The last-named is a ‘street-house’, standing unobtrusively when it was built, for all its originality, in the block of old buildings of which it formed part. Among his country houses may be mentioned Joldwynds, near Dorking (for Sir William Bowman, 1873), Rounton Grange, Yorkshire (for Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, 1875), Clouds, Wiltshire (for the Hon. Percy Wyndham, 1881–1886), and Standen, East Grinstead (for Mr. James Beale, 1892). At Arisaig, in the Highlands, is a fine example (1863) of his use of local material. Webb's first house, Red House, Upton, Kent, built for William Morris in 1859, marks the birth of modern domestic architecture. His constant aim was to carry on and develop English architectural tradition without copying any particular style, and as a consequence he founded no school, but his influence on modern architecture is a deep and growing one.

In 1877 Webb, with William Morris, founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, which has so powerfully influenced public opinion on the subject of ‘restoration’. To this society he gave inestimable help, not the least of which was his invention of a method of strengthening the interiors of decaying walls by clearing out the loose core and filling the cavity with strong new material. This method was first used in repairing the tower of East Knoyle church, Wiltshire (1893), and has since been developed by the society's builders with the best results.

Webb avowed himself a socialist at the same time as Morris, and though he was never prominent in the public eye, his influence on the internal policy of the movement was an important factor in the building up of the party to which both men belonged.

In early life Webb was an accomplished horseman, a good shot, and interested in many field sports. But all such pursuits as dealt with the destruction of life were early given up, as his study of birds and beasts and his love for them developed. Though a town-dweller he never lost his sympathy with country life, and came it back to it simply and easily in his latter days. He had a keen wit; at the same time he enjoyed greatly the humours of the country people with whom he came into relations in the course of his work. A certain dryness of manner in ordinary intercourse veiled a kindliness easily divined by those who knew him. To the group of young men around him he was an encouraging and stimulating influence; reserved by nature, he was always ready to discuss their ideas and theories and to share with them the results of his own experience.

Webb never married. He retired from practice in 1900 and lived in a cottage at Worth, Sussex, on the estate of his friend, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. Here he died 17 April 1915, and his body was cremated at Golder's Green, his ashes being scattered by his direction.

The following are some of the notable houses built by Webb in addition to those already mentioned:—

1861—houses and shops, Worship Street, Finsbury. 1864—house in Melbury Road, Kensington, for Val Prinsep, R.A. 1868—Oakleigh Park, Barnet, for Major Gillum. 1873—house at Freshwater, Isle of Wight, for G. F. Watts, R.A. 1875—church, vicarage, and house for estate agent, at Brampton, Cumberland. 1880—house at Welwyn, Hertfordshire, for his brother, Dr. H. S. Webb. 1886—Coneyhurst, Ewhurst, Surrey, for Miss Ewart. 1887—25 Young Street, Kensington, for Sir Frederick Bowman. 1896—chapel at the Rochester Deaconess Institution, Clapham Common. 1902—cottages at Kelmscott, Oxfordshire, for Mrs. William Morris.

[Webb's papers; private information; personal knowledge. See also W. Hale White, Letters to Three Friends, 1924. ]

M. M.