Basic Biographical Details

Name: Bradshaw Gass & Hope
Designation:  
Born: 1902
Died: After 2008
Bio Notes: Bradshaw Gass & Hope was founded by Jonas James Bradshaw in 1866. Born in 1837 Bradshaw came from a liberal non-Conformist family. He was articled to the little-known Joseph Marsden in 1855 and remained with him for seven and a half years as his managing clerk before setting up on his own at 16 Nelson Street, Bolton. Living nearby was William Hesketh Lever, later to be an important client.

Bradshaw’s earliest major commissions were town workhouses, Clitheroe and Eaves Lane, Chorley, built 1868-72, the latter in association with Leigh Hall. The Clitheroe example is decent north country Italianate, Chorley much larger and French-roofed. Bradshaw’s practice was otherwise predominantly industrial but included villas and a couple of gothic country houses, Greenthorne and Watermillock, built in 1880-86, and the Spinners’ Hall in Bolton of 1880. Because of the industrial nature of the practice it was multidisciplinary from the beginning with its own structural engineer and measurer, an arrangement which was to remain a feature of the practice and which had much to do with its success. Among Bradshaw’s apprentice engineers was Joseph Parkinson (1861-1935) later to practice as an architect of skyscrapers in the USA. Bradshaw’s chief assistant for most of his career was James William Wallace (1850-1926) who formed a socialist and literary group known as the Eagle Street College at his home. It had links with Walt Whitman with whom they corresponded and with the socialist Edward Carpenter who influenced Raymond Unwin in his formative years. Wallace must have been well-paid as he visited Whitman in 1891 but he never became a partner.

By 1871 Bradshaw’s practice had outgrown the Nelson Street office and moved to 19 Silverwell Street where it still remains. In that year he was joined by his nephew John Bradshaw Gass, born in 1855 at Annan, Dumfriesshire, the son of George Pool Gass and his wife Alice who was Bradshaw’s sister. Gass was brought up in Bolton and educated privately. He then studied at Bolton School of Art and became a fine watercolourist, exhibiting at the Royal Academy from 1879: in his later years he was to travel North Africa, Asia and India in his search for subjects. After a short period as a teacher of mathematics and art, he was articled to his uncle, remaining with him as managing assistant from 1876 in parallel with Wallace. During that period he studied civil engineering at Owen’s College, Manchester from 1874 in order to equip himself for the predominantly industrial nature of the practice. He won the Ashbury Exhibition Prize in 1878 and was Art Prizeman in 1879.

Gass then obtained a place in the office of George & Peto in London, enabling him to study at the Royal Academy Schools from July 1880. In the same year he made a study tour of Belgium, returning with superb measured drawings of the 15th and 16th century houses which had such a strong appeal for George. He passed the qualifying exam and was admitted ARIBA on 3 January 1881, his proposers being Arthur Cates, James Thomas Knowles and Octavius Hansard. His uncle then made him a partner, the practice title now being Bradshaw & Gass. Further study tours in France, Holland and Germany followed over the next few years, and in 1883 he won the Godwin Bursary. He took time out from the practice to undertake a study tour of New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington in 1885. In the course of it he visited the offices of H J Hardenburgh, R M Hunt, W Le Baron Jenney, H H Richardson and others, returning with a splendid collection of photographs of their work. This visit resulted in a number of papers given over the next decade, notably on the American methods of construction which were applied to the large number of four to six-storey warehouses and mills he built on his return: some of these had quite imaginative detail. He was admitted FRIBA in 1 March 1889, his proposers being Bradshaw, Knowles and William Alfred Royle: Bradshaw himself had been admitted only three years earlier on 18 January 1886, his proposers being Edward Graham Paley, Richard Knill Freeman and Ernest George.

After Gass’s American tour the practice moved quickly into the national league. The Wesleyan church became a very important client commissioning large buildings in Finsbury, London, 1902, Liverpool 1904 and Wigan 1908; other major commissions were the Victoria Halls in Bolton, 1898-1900, the Royal Friendly Society, Southampton Row, London, 1902-04, the Northern Stock Exchange, Congregational Church House and Cooperative Insurance Headquarters, all in Manchester in 1907-09. A London office opened at 31 (later 108) City Road to supervise the London commissions. These buildings were in vigorous neo-Baroque with elements drawn from George, Shaw and American practice, but there was an arts-and-crafts side to the practice in the houses and other buildings for Lever at Port Sunlight, in a large half-timbered country house at Withnell Fold, Chorley and in the Wesleyan Church, Haulgh, Bolton.

Withnell Fold was Gass’s work but the simpler arts-and-crafts idiom of the smaller houses built in those years seems to have been associated with the third partner Arthur John Hope. Born on 2 October 1875 he had been brought up in less affluent circumstances in Atherton and educated at Wigan Grammar School where his aptitude for mechanics induced him to study civil engineering at the Bolton Schools of Science and Art. He was articled to Bradshaw & Gass in 1892 but thereafter he neither sought London experience not attempted the qualifying exam. He was strong on structural engineering and quick to see imaginative solutions in the planning of buildings but had no patience with drawing them out. His assistant Ernest Wall Winks described him as one of those who ‘not only wrack their own brains but utilise those of everyone else with whom they came in contact’. Presentation drawings were entrusted to Roger Oldham, as subtle a watercolourist as Gass himself. Hope was taken into partnership in 1902. The practice title then became Bradshaw, Gass & Hope. He was not admitted to the RIBA until 20 July 1911, and then only as a licentiate, his proposers being Bradshaw, Gass and Paul Ogden.

Bradshaw died at Greenmount, Heaton on 28 April 1912, the practice title being amended to Bradshaw Gass & Hope by omitting the comma. It is unlikely that Bradshaw had designed much for the previous quarter century, but with the practice that now extended to Portugal, an increase in design staff was required, even though the London office had been closed. In 1913 Gass & Hope recruited James Robert Adamson. Born in 1883 and educated at Galashiels and George Watson’s College, Edinburgh, Adamson had been articled to John Burnet & Son in Glasgow 1901-05, and had studied at Glasgow School of Art and the Royal Technical College, remaining with Burnet as an assistant before moving to Newcastle as chief assistant to Graham & Hill.

In January 1914 Bradshaw Gass & Hope won the competition for the reconstruction of the Manchester Royal Exchange, their most ambitious project. At that date Gass gave the total value of the work executed since the Bradshaw & Gass partnership was formed in 1881 as being ‘upwards of four million pounds sterling’. Opened in October 1921, the Royal Exchange was the last project in the full neo-Baroque idiom associated with Gass. After the First World War the lead designer in the practice became Hope, working closely with Adamson who was made a partner on his marriage in 1920. Also a partner from some time after 1914 and before 1920 was William Scott, born in 1880 who had concentrated on the industrial side of the practice since about 1900: he was primarily a structural engineer and construction manager.

In the early 1920s the most important of the assistants was the Rome scholar Frederick Orchard Lawrence whose skill in presentation for a time enabled the practice to reduce the dependence on the free-lance work of Philip Dalton Hepworth and Cyril Farey when entering competitions. A considerable number of the staff were Scottish in the 1920 and 30s: most of them, like James Maclaren Honeyman, and the Edinburgh City architect Alexander Steele, came only for experience. But in 1925 Lawrence left and an advertisement for senior architectural draughtsmen brought an application from Robert Mackison McNaught, who had been a partner in the Dumbarton firm of Denny & Blain since 1921. Articled to Denny & Blain before war service with the Royal Engineers, he had studied at the Glasgow School of Architecture under Bourdon and Fulton and had spent the years 1919 to 1920 with Campbell & Hislop before returning to Denny & Blain. McNaught took charge of the Bolton drawing office, working under Hope, and became a partner when Gass died in July 1939. Adamson, who was for a time a vice President of the RIBA, died in September 1943, the surviving partners then being Hope, Scott and McNaught. Hope died in April 1960 and McNaught, by then senior partner, in 1969.

The practice remained hugely successful throughout the inter-war years. The Methodists and Congregationalists remained loyal clients, the former commissioning several churches, most notably the ambitious church and college at Medak, India, Gass going out to supervise its completion in 1925. In terms of civic buildings won in competition, Hope Adamson and McNaught were almost as prolific as Vincent Harris. The civic square at Bolton promoted by Lord Leverhulme and first mooted in 1910 came to them without competition in 1925, but they were successful at Wimbledon, Leith, Stratford, Lewisham, Luton, Chesterfield and Padiham town halls and only narrowly lost Manchester Library to Harris. Except for the very American Manchester design which was unique in having elements of the late Bertram Goodhue and early Raymond Hord, all of these were in a cool inter-war classical which continued after the war in the police stations at Burnley and Salford. The largest work of the inter-war years was the Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, 1927-55, which was rather more in Gass’s pre-war idiom with Norman Shaw-like details.

The practice opened an Edinburgh office after the Second World War to deal with the reconstruction of the bomb-damaged Leith Town Hall and other projects. It celebrated its centenary in 1962: Bradshaw’s nomination paper shows that he did not in fact commence full independent practice until four years later in 1866, but may have had a small practice of his own while working as Marsden’s managing clerk. In their excellent volume on the practice the Lingards state that Bradshaw completed his articles with the other Bolton architect Thomas Haselden, but that does not correspond with the information that Bradshaw himself gave in his RIBA nomination paper: there is however some evidence that Bradshaw may have taken over Haselden’s clients on the latter’s death in 1888.

Private and Business Addresses

The following private or business addresses are associated with this :
 AddressTypeDate fromDate toNotes
Item 1 of 516, Nelson Street, Bolton, Lancashire, EnglandBusinessc. 1866  
Item 2 of 519, Silverwell Street, Bolton, Lancashire, EnglandBusiness1871After 2008 
Item 3 of 531, City Road, London, EnglandBusiness1902  
Item 4 of 5108, City Road, London, EnglandBusiness1906 *  
Item 5 of 55, South Charlotte Street, Edinburgh, ScotlandBusiness1964 *  

* earliest date known from documented sources.


Employment and Training

Employees or Pupils

The following individuals were employed or trained by this (click on an item to view details):
 NameDate fromDate toPositionNotes
Item 1 of 23Alexander Steele  Assistant 
Item 2 of 23Hugh Campbell Connell  Assistant 
Item 3 of 23Jonas James Bradshaw19021912Partner 
Item 4 of 23John Bradshaw Gass1903 *After 1929Partner 
Item 5 of 23Arthur John Hope1903 *After 1943Partner 
Item 6 of 23James Robertson Adamson19131920Chief Draughtsman 
Item 7 of 23Thomas Duffy19141920Assistant 
Item 8 of 23James Maclaren Honeyman19201922Senior Draughtsman 
Item 9 of 23James Robertson Adamson1920After 1930Partner 
Item 10 of 23Alexander MackenzieApril 1920Before 1931Assistant 
Item 11 of 23Herbert Henry Reid19221925Senior Assistant 
Item 12 of 23William Caie Walker1924 or 19251926 or 1927Assistant 
Item 13 of 23James Home Kerr Hislop19251927Assistant 
Item 14 of 23Robert Mackison McNaught1925Before 1935Assistant 
Item 15 of 23James Harrison BallAfter 1925Before 1930Senior Assistant 
Item 16 of 23Robert Mackison McNaughtAfter 1925December 1935Chief Assistant 
Item 17 of 23Richard Rennie Alexander19291931Senior Assistant 
Item 18 of 23James Watson Ritchie19291933Assistant 
Item 19 of 23Donald Dex HarrisonMay 1930September 1930Assistant 
Item 20 of 23Alexander Mackenzie1931 * Senior Assistant 
Item 21 of 23Colin Macaulay MiddletonNovember 1934Before 1937Assistant 
Item 22 of 23Robert Mackison McNaughtJanuary 1936After 1943Partner 
Item 23 of 23Ronald McDonald Malcolm19611963Senior Architect 

* earliest date known from documented sources.


Buildings and Designs

This was involved with the following buildings or structures from the date specified (click on an item to view details):
 Date startedBuilding nameTown, district or villageIslandCity or countyCountryNotes
Item 1 of 41928Leith Town Hall and Public LibraryLeith EdinburghScotlandWon competition to secure job
Item 2 of 41936CottagesAnnan DumfriesshireScotland 
Item 3 of 41961Blackhall Library  EdinburghScotland 
Item 4 of 41968Danish Food Centre  GlasgowScotland 

References

Bibliographic References

The following books contain references to this :
 Author(s)DateTitlePartPublisherNotes
Item 1 of 4Gray, A Stuart1985Edwardian Architecture: A Biographical Dictionary  p185
Item 2 of 4Lingard, Jane and Timothy2007Bradshaw Gass & Hope: the Story of an Architectural Practice London, Gallery Lingard 
Item 3 of 4Municipal Annual1964Scottish Municipal Annual1964-1965  
Item 4 of 4Redman, Austen2007Bolton Civic Centre and the Classical Revival Style of Bradshaw Gass & Hope From Clara Hartwell and Terry Wyke (eds): Making Manchester: essays in honour of H G Archer