Lancashire Lantern
Lancashire Lantern: Lancashire Pioneers
Part of the Lancashire Lantern network, the Pioneers gives details of people who were famous local people in science, technology and innovation. These pioneers were either born in Lancashire or their endeavours made a significant contribution to the development of the County.
Edmund Sharpe - Biography
Edmund Sharpe was born in 1809 in Knutsford and educated at Greenwich and Sedbergh. At St John's College, Cambridge, he met Dr. William Whewell, a family friend and native of Lancaster, where the Sharpes were then living. Whewell was largely responsible for guiding him towards architecture as a career and introduced him to Thomas Rickman, the famous church architect.
Sharpe opened his office in Lancaster in 1836 and practised there for fifteen years, initially alone and later with Edward Paley, designing around thirty-five churches including his famous “Pot” or terracotta churches in addition to a number of country houses and some smaller commissions. In 1843 he married Elizabeth Fletcher of Bolton and they had three sons and two daughters.
In 1844 he produced his first book, Architectural Parallels, to be followed by a number of other scholarly works on medieval and especially Cistercian architecture. It was for his writings that he received the RIBA Gold Medal in 1875.
By 1851, losing interest in the practice of architecture, he retired in order to devote his time to railway work at home and abroad and to running the Phoenix Foundry in Lancaster. He designed only one more church—St Paul's, Scotforth, in 1874, which is described as ‘an anachronism beyond belief.'
A man of inexhaustible energy and catholic interest, he was a fine cricketer, oarsman and archer, a founder-member of the Choral Society, hymn-writer and organist. He owned and ran the Athenaeum and became a Councillor in 1841 and Mayor in 1847-8. During his time on the Corporation he energetically pursued the reform of the sewerage system and the provision of a clean water supply for the town from Wyresdale. He played a leading role in ensuring the application of the first Public Health Act to Lancaster.
Characteristically he was in North Italy gathering material for a history of Gothic Architecture in 1877 when he fell ill and died in Milan. His body was brought back and buried in Lancaster Cemetery.
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