Jacob Owen (28 July 1778 – 29 October 1870) was a British architect, civil engineer, and public administrator of the nineteenth century. His architectural work is most closely associated with Dublin, Ireland. He also contributed extensively to shaping public architecture throughout Ireland, through his design and oversight of schools, asylums, prisons and other public buildings associated with British rule.
Biography Early life and training Jacob Owen was born on 28 July 1778 in Llanfihangel-yng-Ngwynfa, Wales, the son of Margaret Owen (née Ellis) of Llanfihangel and Jacob Owen of St Chad's parish, Shrewsbury.E.R. Morris, 'Jacob Owen' Montgomeryshire collections relating to Montgomeryshire and its borders 68 - Vol 60 (1967): 166-7 It is not known how long Owen's father remained in Llanfihangel. The Montgomeryshire historian E.R. Morris noted he had a peripatetic engineering career throughout Wales and Shropshire.
Following an education at Monmouth Grammar School,Sir Leonard Twiston Davies and Avery Edwards, Welsh Life in the Eighteenth Century (London:Country Life, 1939), 204 the younger Jacob Owen was apprenticed to the English canal engineer William Underhill, who was occupied on canal works in Staffordshire.
Owen's shift from civil engineer, the profession of his father, to architect was by no means guaranteed. After his apprenticeship, Owen moved south to London where he appears to have worked for the surveyor, Thomas Bush. The architectural historian Frederick O'Dwyer suggests that through Bush's military connections, Owen made the next important move in his career to the Royal Engineers department in the Board of Ordnance where, in 1805, he was appointed to the role of full clerk of works.Frederick O'Dwyer, 'Building empires: architecture, politics and the Board of Works 1760-1860,' Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies: The Journal of the Irish Georgian Society: V (2002), p. 150
Private practice in England
There is little published on the breadth of Owen's work in England. No significant engineering work has been recorded against his name for the Board of Ordnance. Somewhat more is known of his private practice. Much of his output in England seems to have been ecclesiastical and civic architecture, based close to his centre of operations at the Portsmouth Naval Base. He is known to have collaborated with James Adams on the design of St Paul's School, Southsea, in 1825. The school buildings, which were described as "chaste and elegant" shortly after completion in 1828,Henry and Julian Slight, Chronicles of Portsmouth (London: Lupton Rolfe 1828), 19-21 were destroyed during the Second World War, along with the neighbouring St Paul's Church. In the late 1820s, he set up an architectural practice with Thomas Ellis Owen, Messrs Jacob Owen and Son.Sue Pike, Thomas Ellis Owen Shaper of Portsmouth Father of Southsea (Portsmouth: Tricorn Books, 2011) The Owens notable works include All Saint's Church, Portsea (1825–1828) and the Crescent Terraces and Anglesey Hotel, Gosport (1830).
Owen was actively involved in the Church Building Commission from the 1820s, both as an architect and as a committee member of the Hampshire branch.Michael Harry Port, 600 Hundred New Churches: The Church Building Commission, 1818-1856 (London: Spire Books, 2006), pp. 124, 289 A number of church buildings attributed to Owen, including Church of the Holy Trinity, West Street, Fareham (1834–1837);Heritage at Risk: South East England Register (London: Historic England, 2015), 17 Former United Reformed Church, West Street, Fareham (1836); the Church of St Francis, Funtley Hill, Farnham (1836); and St John the Baptist, Rowlands Castle (1837) were completed following his departure for Ireland, suggesting that he kept up his English practice for several years after leaving Portsmouth.
Royal Engineers and departure for Ireland
Over the first third of the nineteenth century, Owen rose to prominence in the Board of Ordnance, in part through his close relationship with John Fox Burgoyne. Owen and Burgoyne's association likely began in the 1820s, when Owen took up the role of Chief Surveyor to the Royal Engineers at Portsmouth, then under Burgoyne's command. In 1831, Burgoyne was appointed chairman of the Board of Public Works in Ireland. Existing arrangements between the engineering and architectural divisions of the board were not viewed favorably by Burgoyne and his commissioners. Previously the roles of architect and engineer had been divided between two officeholders, but a reformist impulse amongst the new commissioners and the death of the chief engineer, John Killaly, presented the opportunity to combine the roles. Burgoyne expressed his view that Owen's 'abilities and integrity' made him an ideal candidate for the role of principal engineer and architect in the Board of Public Works, based in Dublin.Frederick O'Dwyer, "Building empires: architecture, politics and the Board of Works 1760-1860", Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies: The Journal of the Irish Georgian Society: V (2002), p. 149 Beginning in 1832, Owen held the appointment for 24 years. Owen's younger brother, John, also made the move to Dublin in the 1830s, becoming clerk of works and architect in the Royal Engineers in the Ordnance Civil Branch.Ciaran O'Connor, John O'Regan, The Architecture of the Office of Public Works, 1831-1987 (Dublin, PWO, 1987), 12Gentleman's and Citizen's Almanack (Dublin: Pettigrew and Oulton, 1837)156 It appears that John's career was more closely tied to Burgoyne as he returned to England at the completion of Burgoyne's tenure, becoming surveyor to Burgoyne in his later role as Inspector General of Fortifications.Thom's Directory of Ireland (Dublin: Alexander Thom, 1852) pp. 106-107
Career in Ireland
Owen's architectural work in Ireland is generally, though not exclusively, associated with the Board of Public Works. Owen proved himself a industrious and capable leader in his appointment to the newly formed board of Public Works in Ireland. Burgoyne reflected in 1835 that Owen was 'the most able man for the situation I ever met in my life.'Desmond McCabe, Major Figures in the History of the OPW: Celebrating 175 Years (Dublin: Government Publications, The Office of Public Works, 2006) Owen's works for the board include the Carriage and Stable block, Dublin Castle (1834), Arbour Hill Prison, Dublin (1835), the Garda Headquarters, Phoenix Park (1842), Talbot House (formerly the Female Teacher Training School) (1842), and the Criminal Lunatic Asylum, Dundrum (1850) among others.Christine Casey, Dublin: The City Within the Grand and Royal Canals and the Circular Road (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005).https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/50910295/coach-house-dublin-castle-dublin-2-dublinhttps://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/60220001/central-mental-hospital-dundrum-road-churchtown-lower-dundrum-co-dun-laoghaire-rathdownhttps://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/50010207/talbot-house-talbot-street-dublin-1-dublin-city
For much of his career, Owen had maintained a private architectural practice. He continued to pick up independent private commissions and work from other Crown departments for his first fourteen years in Ireland, thus expanding his mark on the landscape of civic architecture in Ireland. This can be seen in his design for St Patrick's Church, Dalkey (1839-1843) and his work for the National Education Commission on Tyrone House (1835) and the Model Infant School (1842). O'Dwyer has argued that the Great Famine and subsequent reorganization of public works finally led Treasury to put an end to Owen's free enterprise. However, the increased pressure on the Board's architectural staff, which had led Owen to commission outside architects for some of the Board's major building projects, was a more immediate factor in play. In lieu of his private practice work, his salary was increased by 25 per cent to £1,000.https://www.dia.ie/architects/view/4252/OWEN%2C+JACOB
As the work of the board increased, Owen expanded his role as administrator, and drew on the talents of non-board architects. The result of his efforts can be seen in Augustus Pugin's design of St Patrick's College, Maynooth, and in his collaboration with Decimus Burton at Phoenix Park. One of his greatest impressions on the history of nineteenth Irish architecture can be seen in his supervision of the design of Queen's College at Belfast, Cork and Galway undertaken by Charles Lanyon, Thomas Deane, and John Benjamin Keane respectively.
Reputation for nepotism
On arriving in Ireland, Owen bought with him a considerable family entourage.M J McDermott, 'Notable Irish architectural families: 7. The Owens,' The Architectural Forum (Dublin), 1982, 96-98 Owen had married Mary Underhill, the daughter of his former master William Underhill, by whom he had seventeen children, including the naval architect Jeremiah Owen, the theologian Joseph Butterworth Owen and the architects Thomas Ellis Owen, James Higgins Owen, William Henshaw Owen, and Henry Higgins Owen. According to O'Dwyer, Owen set about 'founding a dynasty that would dominate the new board of public works for the first sixty years of its existence.' Four of his sons either won commissions or held posts on the board, while the marriages of architects Charles Lanyon and Frederick Villiers Clarendon into the Owen family increased his sphere of influence in Ireland (both architects were successful in winning major public works commissions and securing office on the board). Both Lanyon and James Higgins Owen served as presidents of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland.https://www.riai.ie/the-riai/past-presidents
Contemporaries too perceived a 'dynasty in the making.' Moves against Owen were made within the first years of his appointment. In 1837, Decimus Burton had suggested building villas adjacent to Phoenix Park, reflecting the design of London's Regent's Park. Owen tendered for these blocks, but the plans soon became mired in controversy.Dana Arnold, 'Trans-planting National Cultures,' in Dana Arnold, Cultural Identities and the Aesthetics of Britishness (Manchester: Manchester university Press, 2004), 83 In June 1838, a pseudonymous letter was sent to the Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Mulgrave, accusing Owen and those who worked with him of acts of financial misconduct, and for being "brother conservatives and Orangemen." Owen denied these accusations, pointing to the fact that he had never expressed political views in Ireland, that members of his family supported the Whigs, and that he regretted to report "of all, my greatest sin is that of being an Englishman."Frederick O'Dwyer, 'Building empires: architecture, politics and the Board of Works 1760-1860,' Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies: The Journal of the Irish Georgian Society: V (2002),154 Other accusations relating to the appointment of his children and apprentices as county surveyors followed but no misconduct was found. Called before a parliamentary select committee to assess Owen's examinations for vacancies on the Board, Burgoyne was asked whether Owen was a "gentleman of considerable experience", to which he responded "perhaps as much as any man I ever met with."Minutes of Evidence Taken before the Select Committee on Country and District Surveyors in Ireland,' 7 August 1857, 97 His son, James Higgins Owen, succeeded his post.
Personality, power and politics