RBH Biography: Henry Emlyn (1729-1815) (original) (raw)

Henry Emly n (1729-1815) Born: 1729 Architect Died: 10th December 1815 at Windsor, Berkshire

Henry Emlyn was an architect resided in Windsor. He published 'A Proposition for a New Order in Architecture, with Rules for Drawing the Several Parts' (1781). This consisted "of a shaft that at one-third of its height divided itself into two, the capitals having oak leaves for foliage, with the star of the Order of the Garter between the volutes". He introduced this order (the point of division being covered by an escutcheon, and the foliage being replaced by ostrich plumes) in the tetra-style portico at Beaumont Lodge, at Old Windsor, erected, except part of the west wing, by him for Henry Griffiths about 1785, and in the porch of his own house. King George III confided to him some alterations in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, which were executed, between 1787 and 1790, entirely after his designs and preserved a due harmony with the original work. The restoration included "the screen to the choir, executed in Coade's artificial stone, with the organ case, the altar, and the King's and additional stalls". Emlyn was elected FSA on 25th June 1795. He died at Windsor on 10th December 1815, in his eighty-seventh year, and was buried on the 19th in St. George's Chapel. A tablet was erected to his memory in the Bray Chantry.

Edited from Leslie Stephen's "Dictionary of National Biography" (1889).