Buckeridge, John Hingeston

BUCKERIDGE, John Hingeston (1857-1934), architect, was a descendant of an ancient coat-armour family of England, distinguished in both the church and army. He was born in Oxford, eldest son of Charles Buckeridge (1833–1873), an ecclesiastical architect of Oxford and London, and Annie Burlison, and a brother of the church decorative artist, Charles Edgar Buckeridge (1864–1898). In 1871, living with the family was an articled pupil, George John Hazel (1853-1886). After his education at Magdalen College School and the early death of his father, Buckeridge was articled from 1874 to 1879 to John Loughborough PEARSON, a leading ecclesiastical architect and a friend of Charles Buckeridge. JH Buckeridge also studied at the Royal Academy of Arts and the Architectural Association, London, and from 1874 to 1878 he served in the Artists’ Rifles. He worked first as a draftsman for the London School Board, then for six years as chief assistant to the London architect Ernest Turner (1844-1895). During a brief period of private practice in London Buckeridge undertook important works for the Anglican Church, including at Lambeth Palace, the official residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1886 when Buckeridge was mourning his first wife, Emma Lythgoe Shinn, and their daughter who both died in 1886, he accepted a call to “seek fresh fields” in Queensland on the recommendation of the archbishop and his former master JL Pearson. Dr Webber, the Bishop of Brisbane, needed a suitably qualified architect to take charge of his ambitious building program for the diocese – then extending as far as Rockhampton – and to supervise construction of Pearson’s proposed Anglican Cathedral for Brisbane. After Buckeridge’s arrival the cathedral project was postponed, but the program to erect “substantial and permanent” church buildings proceeded despite pleas from small congregations like Blackall’s that the bishop’s plans were “far too good for a bush town”. During Buckeridge’s official appointment as Diocesan Architect from February 1887 he designed about 60 wooden churches throughout southern Queensland, besides many rectories and Sunday school halls, and eventually church and mission buildings in British New Guinea.

Other members of Buckeridge’s family emigrated, including a cousin Frank Buckeridge, who became a stockbroker in Brisbane. An early task as Diocesan Architect was to increase the seating capacity of St John’s Pro-Cathedral, completed in mid-1887 by alterations to the choir and chancel. On 10 September 1890 Buckeridge married Ada Emily Stanley of Gympie at the Pro-Cathedral in a lavish double wedding ceremony shared with his younger sister Ethel who married the cathedral organist. By then the “clever young architect” was at the height of his success, having undertaken commissions for a major hospital, the Lady Bowen Hospital, Brisbane’s “best-appointed” hotel, the Gresham, and for a large grandstand for the Queensland Turf Club, in addition to his church and residential work. Buckeridge became a Fellow of the newly formed Queensland Institute of Architects in 1889 and a council member in 1890. By 1890 he also served on the committees of the Brisbane School of Arts and the South Brisbane Musical Society. In February 1892 Buckeridge was bankrupt, a plight shared in the succeeding months by other architect and contractors when the local building trade collapsed along with the colony’s economy. The contents of his riverside villa, Cliveden, in Sutton Street, Kangaroo Point, were auctioned. In April, on six months leave of absence, he moved to Sydney, leaving his Brisbane practice in the care of GHM ADDISON. The relocation proved permanent, but Buckeridge held the appointment of Diocesan Architect of Brisbane until 1902, that is for the remainder of Dr Webber’s term, delegating supervision of his plans to Addison until 1899, and thereafter to HALL & DODS. Announcing the opening of his Sydney office with a circular which brought unwarranted rebuke from the New South Wales Institute of Architects, Buckeridge continued to undertake work for the Anglican Church. In 1894 he won a limited design competition for the Anglican Church at Tenterfield. In 1898 he applied for a position with the Queensland Public Works Department, but the Chief Draftsman Thomas PYE commented: “He would not be a suitable man to employ on Classic work”. Later Buckeridge remodelled the interior of St James’ Church, King Street, Sydney, and worked on the completion of Newcastle Cathedral before he joined the New South Wales Public Works Department in 1907. He died in Sydney in June 1934, survived by his wife and 11 children. His eldest son Charles Stanley Buckeridge was killed in action at Gallipoli. Some of his records are in the Fryer Library.