Whitwell, Thomas Stedman

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Whitwell, Thomas Stedman (1784–1840). English architect. He was responsible for numerous buildings in Birmingham and Coventry, most of which have been demolished. He designed (1819) a development to be called ‘Southville’ at Leamington Spa (with a church that was to be a facsimile of the Athenian Parthenon), and (1825–6) the model Utopian town (published 1830) of New Harmony, IN, for Robert Owen (1771–1858), but neither scheme was realized. When the roof of his Brunswick Theatre, Goodman's Fields, Whitechapel (1827–8), collapsed three days after the building was completed, with loss of life, his career virtually came to an end. He appears to have detested Soane, and may have been the author of two attacks (published 1821, 1824) on the great man. His proposed book, Architectural Absurdities (the MS of which appears to have been lost), never appeared. However, his On warming and ventilating houses and buildings by means of large volumes of attempered air, as applied to some of the public edifices of the University of Cambridge; and illustrated by the case of the new fever-wards of Addenbrooke's Hospital in that Town came out in 1834.

Bibliography

Colvin (1995);
W. Papworth (1892)

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