George Edmund Street

Architect, born in Woodford, Essex, SE England, UK. He was assistant to Sir George Gilbert Scott, and started his own practice in 1849. He restored Christ Church in Dublin, and designed neo-Gothic buildings, including the London Law Courts and many churches.

George Edmund Street (20 June 1824 – 18 December 1881), English architect, was born at Woodford in Essex. He was the third son of Thomas Street, solicitor, by his second wife, Mary Anne Millington.

At an early age Street became deeply interested in the principles of Gothic architecture, and devoted an unsparing amount of time and labor to studying and sketching the finest examples of medieval buildings in England and on the Continent. In 1855 he published a very careful and well illustrated work on The Brick and Marble Architecture of Northern Italy, and in 1865 a book on The Gothic Architecture of Spain, with very beautiful drawings by his own hand. In 1856/7 Philip Webb was Street's senior clerk and the young William Morris one of his apprentices. These two designers worked together on Red House (London) that became an iconic memorial to William Morris's design principles and includes work by many of his now-famous friends.

Street's personal taste led him in most cases to select for his design the 13th century Gothic of England or France, his knowledge of which was very great, especially in the skillful use of rich mouldings. By far the majority of the buildings erected by him were for ecclesiastical uses, the chief being the convent of East Grinstead, the theological college at Cuddesden and a very large number of churches, such as St Philip and St James's at Oxford, St John's at Torquay, All Saints at Clifton, St Saviour's at Eastbourne, St Margaret's at Liverpool and St Mary Magdalene, Paddington. Thus, the judges wanted Street to make the exterior arrangements and Charles Barry the interior, while a special committee of lawyers recommended the designs of Alfred Waterhouse. In June 1868, however, Street was appointed sole architect;

Street was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1866, and a fellow in 1871; at the time of his death he was professor of architecture to the Royal Academy, where he had delivered a very interesting course of lectures on the development of medieval architecture. Street was twice married, first on 17 June 1852 to Mariquita, second daughter of Robert Proctor, who died in 1874, and secondly on 11 January 1876 to Jessie, second daughter of William Holland, who died in the same year.