Transcript

of

Joseph Arthur Reeve [Obituary]

Trans. Devon Assoc., XXXVI, vol. 47, (1915), p. 55.

by

Maxwell Adams (Ed.)

Prepared by Michael Steer

The obituary was read at the Association’s July 1915 Exeter meeting. Mr Reeves was a celebrated ecclesiastical architect - see, for example, the ceiling of St John's Church, Hoxton. The obituary, from a copy of a rare and much sought-after journal can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.

Mr. Reeve was the second son of the Rev. Andrewes Reeve (an amateur musician and composer), and was born in 1850 at Yarrow Bank, Kingswear, the house which his brother, the Rector of Lambeth, afterwards bequeathed to him, and where he died on 10 May, 1915. Mr. Reeve was a great architect. He first became the pupil of Mr. E. J. Turner, and afterwards went into the office of Mr. W. Burges, where he met and became the friend of Walter H. Lonsdale, R. Willes Maddox, and others. In 1873 Mr. Burges recommended him to the Marquess of Ripon for the work of surveying and making drawings of the ruins of Fountain's Abbey, which resulted in a folio volume containing forty-six plates, a general plan of the abbey, sketches of conjectural restoration of various parts of the building, historical notes, and a full description. This was printed by Sprague, and issued to subscribers in 1892. Among the many notable works carried out by him, which are too numerous to detail in this notice, the restoration of Ramsbury, formerly the Cathedral church of the diocese of Sarum, and the design and construction of the memorial of the five Archbishops of Canterbury (Maimers Sutton, Howley, Sumner, Longley, and Tait) buried in Addington churchyard may be mentioned. By his death the Church of England particularly has lost a great and sympathetic architect.
He became a member of the Devonshire Association in 1911, and although he is the author of many professional papers, he contributed none to its Transactions.
He married, in 1886, Miss Catherine Vansittart Frere (daughter of Mr. C. Frere, of the Middle Temple, Examiner for Standing Orders to both Houses of Parliament and Taxing Master), who survives him.