Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hadfield, George (d.1826)
HADFIELD, GEORGE (d. 1826), architect, was the son of an hotel-keeper at Leghorn in Italy, who is variously represented as an Irishman and a native of Shrewsbury. He studied in the schools of the Royal Academy, and in 1784 won the Academy gold medal for his 'Design for a National Prison.' Elected in 1790 to the travelling studentship, he went to Rome in that year. With Signor Colonna he made in 1791 drawings for a restoration of the temple at Palestrina, which are now in the collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects. These, with drawings of the temples of Mars and Jupiter Tonans, he exhibited at the Academy on his return to London in 1795. A drawing by him of the interior of St. Peter's, Rome, was much admired at the time. About 1800 he accepted an invitation to America to assist in the erection of the capitol at Washington. A dispute with the city commissioners led to his quitting this employment, but he continued to practise on his own account, and designed several buildings at Washington (Dunlap, Hist. of the Arts, &c., i. 336). Hadfield died in America in 1826. He was a brother of Mrs. Maria Cecilia Louisa Cosway [q. v.]
[Dict. of Architecture (Architect. Publ. Soc.), iv.2; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists, 1878, p. 191 ; cf. art. Cosway, Maria C.L., supra.]