Is St. Paul's Cathedral the "Finest Building in the World"?

Abstract

For the October 1900 issue of The Strand Magazine, Frederick Dolman asked nine leading architects of the day "Which is the Finest Building in the World?" Among the eight responses he received, three architects selected works by Sir Christopher Wren, with St. Paul's Cathedral heading the list. Dolman framed his question as a search for a "present-day ideal" in architecture, and the architects' answers reveal how in the late nineteenth century Wren's works, and St. Paul's in particular, served as architectural models in the creation of a "Wrenaissance." At the same time as this renewal of interest in Wren's work occurred the demolition of over a dozen of Wren's city churches, raising the question of whether Wren's works were understood as having value in their own right. Given The Strand was a magazine aimed at the general public, Dolman's article points to a broader interest in Wren and his works beyond the architectural profession. This public interest in Wren is also evident in several late Victorian novels- Mrs. J. H. Riddell's Mitre Court: A Tale of the Great City (1883), Sir Walter Bessant's The Bell of St. Paul's (1889), and Emma Marshall's Under the Dome of St. Paul's: A Story of Sir Christopher Wren's Days (1898)-where Wren and his works are vividly portrayed. In addition to the fictional portrayals of Wren and architects' commentaries on his works was the use of St. Paul's Cathedral as a backdrop to some of the most prominent moments in London history, including funerals of dignitaries, and The Illustrated London News prominently displayed St. Paul's Cathedral as a symbol of London on its masthead. This curious combination of popular and professional portrayals of Sir Christopher Wren and St. Paul's Cathedral solidified their prominence in the Victorian imagination as symbolic of both the city of London and English nationalism.

Headnote

ABSTRACT

For the October 1900 issue of The Strand Magazine, Frederick Dolman asked nine leading architects of the day "Which is the Finest Building in the World?" Among the eight responses he received, three architects selected works by Sir Christopher Wren, with St. Paul's Cathedral heading the list. Dolman framed his question as a search for a "present-day ideal" in architecture, and the architects' answers reveal how in the late nineteenth century Wren's works, and St. Paul's in particular, served as architectural models in the creation of a "Wrenaissance." At the same time as this renewal of interest in Wren's work occurred the demolition of over a dozen of Wren's city churches, raising the question of whether Wren's works were understood as having value in their own right. Given The Strand was a magazine aimed at the general public, Dolman's article points to a broader interest in Wren and his works beyond the architectural profession. This public interest in Wren is also evident in several late Victorian novels- Mrs. J. H. Riddell's Mitre Court: A Tale of the Great City (1883), Sir Walter Bessant's The Bell of St. Paul's (1889), and Emma Marshall's Under the Dome of St. Paul's: A Story of Sir Christopher Wren's Days (1898)-where Wren and his works are vividly portrayed. In addition to the fictional portrayals of Wren and architects' commentaries on his works was the use of St. Paul's Cathedral as a backdrop to some of the most prominent moments in London history, including funerals of dignitaries, and The Illustrated London News prominently displayed St. Paul's Cathedral as a symbol of London on its masthead. This curious combination of popular and professional portrayals of Sir Christopher Wren and St. Paul's Cathedral solidified their prominence in the Victorian imagination as symbolic of both the city of London and English nationalism.

INTRODUCTION

"Why not St. Paul's?" the architect Thomas Colleutt (18401924) responded when asked by Frederick Dolman (18671923), writing for The Strand Magazine's "Which is the Finest Building in the World?" For the article, published in October 1900, Dolman interviewed nine architects to determine the "present day ideal" of architecture.! The twenty buildings named by the architects in response to his question were geographically, stylistically, and chronologically diverse. Six of the choices he received were English, and two of these-St. Pauls Cathedral in London and the Greenwich Hospital-were by Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723). No other architect had two buildings in the list, and St. Paul's, with its two votes, tied with the Pantheon, St. Mark's in Venice, Amiens Cathedral, and St. George's Hall in Liverpool. It may seem obvious in hindsight, but the selection of Wren's works as the "finest" in the context of the late-nineteenth century represents something of a reversal of fate for the architect, and it tells us much about the professional and popular admiration for Wren at that moment. This admiration is evident in the breadth of publications, ranging from professional to popular fiction, showing the extent to which Wren had permeated English culture and which of his works had become tangible symbols for both the profession and the nation.

By the time of Dolman's article, Wren's works had come to signify England, and London in particular, both within and outside of the architectural profession. Wren himself had been elevated to the level of genius, achieving an almost mythic status. This had certainly not always been the case. As Andrew Saint points out in his essay "The Cult of Wren," appreciation for the architect's works faltered over the course of the century, experiencing a rollercoaster of acceptance, rejection, and rediscovery." Revered in the early-nineteenth century, Wren's works were pushed to the side during the Gothic Revival, but with the rise of interest in the Renaissance in the 1870s at the end of the Gothic Revival, they regained their status within the profession.

Architects in the early part of the century had reveled in the study of Wren's buildings. С. В. Cockerell's masterful drawing A Tribute to Sir Christopher Wren (1838) gathers the master's works together as though for a family portrait of domes and spires. A decade later, in the late 1840s, The Builder published drawings of all of Wren's churches, and in 1859 the architect George Wightwick (1802-1872) won the R.I.B.A. Silver Medal with his essay "On the Architecture and Genius of Sir Christopher Wren," in which he summarized the pre-Gothic Revival interest in Wren's works and promoted his role as an architectural genius, central both to the profession and to the nation's culture.·

Wren's city churches, however, came under constant threat during the mid-nineteenth century, little of it to do with style or the prominence of their designer. Fourteen of Wren's city churches were demolished during the period 1841-1904, partly due to the 1860 Union of Benefices Act and sometimes as the result of whether the parish church had been incorrectly attributed to Wren. At the heart of the decision to demolish, historian Ben Weinstein argues, was a sharp population decrease in the city, financial constraints of the Church of England, and ideas of utilitarianism.· Nonetheless, people tried to hold tight to their local parish churches. The cleric and writer William J. Loftie (1839-1911) claimed that the Church had in some cases intentionally deceived parishioners by claiming that their local parish church was not designed by Wren, thus paving the way for its removal without protest.' Loftie implied that had parishioners known of the deception, they would not have allowed the church's removal. As evidence, Loftie points to a letter to the editor published in The Times in 1892, in which churchwarden H. A. Joseph insists that his congregation wanted to retain the spire of their church, which they thought to be designed by Wren. The congregation relented to its demolition, however, once told (untruthfully) that it was not by the English Renaissance master.

The removal of so many of Wren's churches erased the architect's professional impact by eroding his overall vision of London rebuilt from the Great Fire. For Wren's works to regain their prominence and perceived value by the end of the century, they had to be seen in both professional and popular circles as not only worth preserving but also as having importance well beyond an architectural concern for style. They had to become, as Weinstein writes, "historical texts" contributing to the heritage of the country.

DOLMAN'S QUESTION AND THE ANSWERS HE RECEIVED

The Strand Magazine, a monthly magazine founded by George Newnes (1851-1910) in 1891, was not a journal for architectural professionals but rather a general interest magazine directed toward the rising middle class, a group whose lives were increasingly recorded "in print." The Strand published short stories, interviews with famous people, and features about animals and children. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), the now iconic creator of Sherlock Holmes, serialized his works in The Strand, which became very popular with readers. The magazine also featured "curiosities"-such as a knife with two hundred blades and a cockleshell with Browning's "Sonnets from the Portuguese" written on it-which was captured using the new medium of photography and sent in to the magazine.· Superlatives provided a common theme for articles, such as "The Cleverest Child in the World," "The Most Beautiful Women in Painting," and "What is the Greatest Achievement in Music?" Each of these articles, including Dolman's inquiry into architecture, was illustrated with either drawings or photographs. The Strand was thus part of a larger group of publications that emerged at the close of the nineteenth century at "the intersection between photography, New Journalism, and the construction of celebrity."

The goal of the magazine was not to incite or galvanize public opinion but rather to provide light leisure reading. Dolman's article on the "finest buildings in the world" was not intended, therefore, to be professionally theoretical but merely entertaining-filling a few empty minutes of a commute by rail or a rainy afternoon. In spite of the magazines seemingly trifling content, Reginald Pound in his history of The Strand claimed that the magazine had "attained the status of a national institution," becoming "as much a symbol of immutable British order as Bank Holidays and the Changing of the Guard" The Strand was therefore a magazine that reflected British interests as well as shaped them.

The subtitle of Dolman's article, "The Choice of Our Leading Architects," reinforces the writer's criteria in the selection of the architects for the interview. He solicited opinions of some of the most prominent British practitioners and educators of the day: George Aitchison (1825-1910), Alfred Waterhouse (1830-1905), Richard Phené Spiers (1838-1916), John Belcher (1841-1913), Richard Norman Shaw (1831-1912), Sir William Emerson (1843-1924), Thomas Collcutt (18401924), Thomas Blashill (1831-1905), and Walter Emden (1847-1913). Four of the men had served as president of the Royal Institute of British Architects (R.I.B.A.) or would do so in the years following; four had won the R.I.B.A. Gold Medal for their designs; several were named Associates of the Royal Academy; and all but one had well known buildings to their credit. These were men who had not only successfully navigated the radical changes in architecture over the course of the century but had also influenced the architectural profession through their work, publications, and teaching.

Dolman instructed the architects to choose one building "regardless of time or country, encouraging them to look beyond the works called out in guidebooks such as Cook's or Murray's to find "poems in stone and marble." In addition to St. Paul's Cathedral and the Greenwich Hospital, the architects selected the Pantheon in Rome, Santa María della Salute in Venice, Amiens Cathedral, St. George's Hall in Liverpool, Charles Garnier's Opera House in Paris, St. Marks in Venice, St. Peters in Rome, the Temple of Theseus in Athens, Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, Holland House in London, the Maison Carrée in Nimes, St. Sophia in Constantinople, the Cháteau at Blois, the Houses of Parliament in London, the Taj Mahal in Agra, Chartres Cathedral, the Palais de Justice in Brussels, and Michelangelo's Medici Chapel in Florence. While most of their choices could have been found in guidebooks, the selections reveal the types of buildings to which Wren's works were perceived as equals. If you count the Maison Carrée as Roman, not French, the six English works chosen are matched by six Italian ones, indicating a strong parallel being drawn between the two countries. There are Gothic and classical examples, as well as revivals of both, in addition to Byzantine and Mughal. Each building is an exemplar of its style and type, with Wren's works being the epitome of the English Renaissance.

Of the three men who selected buildings by Wren- Belcher, Collcutt, and Spiers-Belcher's support was the most emphatic. Answering Dolman's question with "little hesitation," he named Greenwich Hospital as "an almost perfect example of architectural art."" The choice surprised Dolman in light of Belcher's preferences towards the Gothic." Initially drawn to classical architecture, Belcher became interested in the Gothic in his twenties while on a trip to France at the recommendation of his father. Later, however, during his travels to Italy in the 1880s, his interest in classical architecture was "reborn." Even with Dolman's needling, Belcher held fast to his choice, stating that not only did Wren's design possess "both external and internal beauty," but it was also well sited, suited its purpose, and was both nationally and architecturally meaningful.'

At the time of Dolman's interview, Belcher had been working with Mervyn Macartney (1853-1932) on the sixvolume folio series Later Renaissance Architecture in England (1897-1901) in which Wren's works figure prominently (Figure 1).7 The folios include photographs and drawings of English Renaissance buildings, with a brief explanatory text for each. In the first volume Belcher and Macartney curiously foreshadow Dolman's question in their praise of Greenwich Hospital's planning, monumentality, composition, and role of representing Britain, claiming that "there are few public buildings of greater beauty and importance than the group known as Greenwich Hospital. Tt possesses all the elements and monumental qualities necessary to make it one of the finest and most successful buildings in this country, if not the world."

In his subsequent book, Essentials in Architecture: An Analysis of Principles and Qualities to be Looked for in Buildings (1907), Belcher begins the second chapter with a quote from Wren: "A good building ought certainly to possess the attribute of the eternal." To be eternal for Belcher meant having not only real strength but also the appearance of strength. A building must be firm on its foundation and solidly rooted like a tree. Drawing from Ruskin's Lamp of Life in The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849), Belcher notes that another aspect of the eternal in architecture was that it "should show evidence of life, and the methods of construction be such as are expressive of vitality and growth.20

Belcher used Wren's works to illustrate these characteristics as well as others that were essential to architecture including the use of color, balance, symmetry, and an understanding of materials. For example, he applauds Wren's use of the different brick colors (darker below and brighter above) at Hampton Court to "give the effect of a warm glow over the whole structure." Belcher also praises Wren's selection of Portland Stone for St. Paul's as demonstrating how the proper choice of material can enhance a design. Wren's works-and St. Paul's and Greenwich Hospital in particular -were exceptional because they possessed in abundance what Belcher saw as essential to architecture.

Despite his prior attraction to the Gothic, Belcher's own later designs drew strongly on Renaissance traditions, including those of Wren. The Institute for Chartered Accountants, Moorgate Place, London, of 1893, for example, designed with his assistant, A. Beresford Pite (1861-1934), and the sculptor Sir William Hamo Thornycroft (1850-1925), alludes to Italian Renaissance palazzi as well as the clubs along the Mall, London, but the effect of the moldings and sculpture is more exuberant. Like Wren's works, the building presents an interpretation of classicism that is both wholly original and celebrates the union of architecture and sculpture. Belcher's unsuccessful entry in the South Kensington Museum competition in 1891 likewise reflects a close study of Wren's buildings in its exterior arcade and the articulated silhouette, which punctuates the skyline with domes and towers. Here is a civic building of a grand scale and singular conception that is rich in complexity and nuance. Belchers monumental (and slightly confounding) Ashton Memorial of 1906-09 belongs to the Edwardian period and demonstrates Wren's continued influence on the architect for several decades. The memorial echoes the commanding qualities of the domes of Greenwich Hospital and St. Paul's but with even more dynamism and power. The paired columns stretch upward from the block of the ground level, with its convexly curved corners harkening back to Wren's great model for St. Pauls Cathedral.

For Belcher, the influence of Wren came in the sculptural and monumental character of civic architecture, the sense of a design conceived as a whole, and the use of traditional elements in ingenious new ways, rooted in both architectural strength and composition.

Unlike Belcher, who had chosen Greenwich Hospital as his answer to Dolman's question, Collcutt selected St. Paul's Cathedral, citing its details, proportions and overall impression. He stated that St. Paul's is "the finest Renaissance church," including St. Peter's in Rome, which he thought had better siting."' He asserts that any other country would have more properly sited St. Paul's to make it more visible for all to admire. The French, for example, "would take a more imperial view of the matter," as they would have cleared out the "drapers" shops and so forth" that cluttered the cathedral's site. As though trying to dissuade him from his selection, Dolman pressed Collcutt on whether he liked the interior as well as the exterior of the great English cathedral. Collcutt acknowledges that the interior was "not quite so good" and that the building had its critics, such as those who condemned the "masked wall" on the exterior that hid the flying buttresses. After a bit of discussion, Collcutt concludes that of all the buildings he had seen on the continent during his travels, he would still select St. Paul's. That students of architecture now drew Wren's masterpiece delighted him, adding that during his pupilage under G. E. Street, he had been required to draw Westminster Abbey in all its Gothic glory.

Direct influence of Wren on Collcutt's workis less evident in terms of the borrowing of specific elements, but his use of Renaissance motifs can be seen in light of what Belcher and Macartney call a "spirit of free inquiry and of desire for progress?· Collcutt's winning design for the Imperial Institute in South Kensington (1893) was completed a few years prior to the appearance of The Strand Magazine article. Now demolished, with the exception of the tower, this "greatest of all Victorian eclectic buildings" won praise at the time of its construction for its plan, detailing, and overall silhouette, all qualities that Collcutt had praised in Wren's works."

Spiers, the third architect to select a building by Wren, was more of an academic than a practitioner, and his taste was more catholic. As Master of Architecture at the Royal Academy since 1870, he had influenced a generation of architects through his teaching and publications.· Unable to confine himself to selecting a single building as Dolman had instructed, Spiers listed twelve buildings, which he regarded as "best exemplifying successive periods and styles."?7 He listed: the Temple of Theseus, the Pantheon, St. Marks, Haddon Hall, Holland House, the Maison Carrée, St. Sophia, Amiens Cathedral, the Chateau at Blois, St. Paul's, and the Houses of Parliament.?® Dolman tried mightily to get Spiers to narrow his list to just one building, and at first Spiers adamantly refused, arguing, "As I would not have one destroyed 1 should hardly care to undertake that responsibility." Spiers eventually conceded, declaring, "I daresay in general estimation the first place should be given to the Houses of Parliament," one of four English buildings he had selected." Even a cursory glance at his list provides a sense of what Spiers perceived to be the primary characteristics of good architecture: buildings that have presence, that ornament the skyline with their prominent silhouette, and that are memorable and emblematic not just of their time, but also of their place. While ultimately not his top choice, Spiers's selection of St. Pauls among the other architectural icons strengthens the building's position within the changing canon of architecture's history, regardless of style.

It bears repeating that no other architect had two buildings on the list. That Collcutt, Belcher, and Spiers chose Wren's St. Paul's Cathedral and Greenwich Hospital from all the possible choices emphasizes the power of Wren's works as inherently English architecture. These were buildings to which the architects wanted the public to pay specific attention and to likewise acknowledge Wren's genius.

WREN AS A TOUCHSTONE OF ENGLISH NATIONALISM

Style was still important to late Victorian architects. Many who had turned away from the Gothic, as had Belcher, sought a new architecture to meet modern urban needs and professional circumstances, and yet still represent Britain. Despite their admiration for Italian Renaissance architecture, English architects always saw it first as Italian, with all that implied. Therefore, a national connection had to be established to make the style an acceptable model for architects of the Victorian period. They began to look to the Renaissance in its English-i.e., national-interpretation. The works of Wren, along with those of Inigo Jones, became an important part of the repackaging of Renaissance architecture as an inherently "English" style. Belcher in his answer to Dolman mentioned that he often sends American guests to Greenwich Hospital to see "an example of the best in English architecture." In other words, Wren's buildings fit the bill.

The historian Peter Mandler defines national character as the "psychological or cultural characteristics in common" amongst a people "that bind them together and separate them from other peoples." Architecture-and monumental architecture in particular-binds people together by giving them a common landmark, a physical point of reference that everyone can recognize and to which everyone can relate. For Mandler, the strength and success of this bond requires communication.' Architecture as a physical object can communicate many things including national ideals, and the presence of architecture in publications as illustrations, settings, or descriptions only reinforces this bond.

It is not surprising, therefore, that publications on English Renaissance architecture increased in the final decades of the nineteenth century. In addition to the folio series by Belcher and Macartney, the flurry of publications included Arthur Mackmurdo's Wren's City Churches (1883), Wyatt Papworth's The Renaissance and Italian Styles of Architecture in Great Britain (1883), J. Alfred Gotch's Architecture of the Renaissance in England (1894), and Sir Reginald Blomfields A History of Renaissance Architecture in England, 1500-1800 (1897), among others.· In addition, books by non-architects such as Lucy Phillimore's biography of Wren, Sir Christopher Wren: His Family and Times (1881), became influential in its presentation of Wrens life and works to architects and non-architects alike.·· These books when taken together portrayed Wren, along with Inigo Jones, as a hero of a modern English architecture. The national characteristics of English Renaissance architecture outlined by the various authors consisted of "severe simplicity," a "freedom from extravagance in outward display and ornament," "vitality and vigour," a "grave and sober demeanour," a "quiet, dignified charm, full of power and admirable restraint," a "sturdy masculine feeling," and a "purity and dignity," all characteristics of Wren's architecture.' Belcher and Macartney praised Wren as having done "more than any other man of that age to increase the wealth of our national architecture."

The question of identifying a national style was key to describing an appropriate model for the time on which to base one's design. To develop a modern and national architecture in an age where almost every style had a revival meant a more selective return to the past. As Belcher and Macartney state,

If . . . there is to be a fresh development in our national architecture, it is only reasonable to suppose that the point of departure should be from the period in which it reached its greatest excellence. The increasing study of the "Later Renaissance" is a hopeful sign. . . Thus the gradual return to the principles which actuated Inigo Jones, Sir Christopher Wren, and their followers will bring about a purity and dignity in design, and that freshness and vitality which is the sign of a living art. "

To study Wren's buildings would lead to a new English architecture. Following this line of thought, Wren's works became linked with the Queen Anne Revival, recognizing that the stylistic inventiveness and Palladian influence in Wren's works were evident in that movement.° Also known as the Free Classic style, the Queen Anne Revival, with its red brick and white trim, had ties to Wren's work at Hampton Court and in his blending of Gothic and English Renaissance characteristics in many of his works.

WREN AS A GENIUS AND A MODEL FOR THE VICTORIAN ARCHITECT

Nationalism in England, according to Mandier, did not mean "uniformity" but individuality.22 The historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897) posited that individualism was central to the ideal of the Renaissance and thus to all modern architectural expression. The first sentence of his book The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance, initially published in German in 1867, emphasized the importance of the individual: "From the dawn of a higher culture in Italy, architecture was essentially dependent upon the sense of individuality among both patrons and artists, which developed here much earlier than anywhere else." These ideas were folded into a larger "cult of individuality" that occurred in the nineteenth century, which included social theories of self-improvement with their attendant aesthetic, political, and economic implications." They also fit nicely with the ideal of the professional Victorian architect who designed and oversaw the project as a whole. Blomfield stated that "since the days of the Renaissance a great work had to be the conception of a single mind, clearly foreseen from the first, and dependent for its full realization on the permanence of its initial impulse."·? An individual architect such as Wren therefore had the ability to advance the profession through his architectural contribution, which became the "personal equation of the architect."··

The romantic ideal of the genius architect-a heroic man designing monumental buildings-appealed to Victorian architects whose professional status was often called into question. Architectural practice had undergone radical changes over the course of the nineteenth century with the rise of professionalism, the formalization of architectural education, the emergence of the general contractor as a new authority on the job site, and the advent of new materials and methods of construction. These changes led to the increased use of drawing in architectural practice and the formalization of architectural specifications. The architect John Dando Sedding (1838-1891) connects the use of drawing to the English Renaissance in a lecture published in The Builder in May 1887 where he declares that Wren and Jones had carried "ominous looking portfolios under their arms."·· These portfolios stuffed with drawings were the means by which the architect transmitted his conception of the design to the builder and the client. Victorian architects found architectural drawings fascinating as displays of both technical and artistic knowledge. An exhibition of drawings organized in 1884 by the Burlington Fine Arts Club included drawings by Inigo Jones and a copy of a drawing by Wren. The catalogue notes disappointment that Wren's drawings could not be displayed because they had been bound into books." The display of these works was a nod to the importance of drawing in architecture. Drawings as a mode of communication for the architect could therefore be traced back to Jones's and Wren's own working method. By this means, late-nineteenth-century architects made the connection to the English Renaissance as not merely a stylistic or aesthetic decision but as a both professional and methodological one.··

ST. PAUL'S IN THE NEWS

The perception of Wren's buildings as iconic, and of the man himself as an icon, permeated not only architectural publications but also those aimed at the general public, such as The Strand. The increase in non-professional books and articles on Wren's designs from the 1880s onwards paralleled that of architects' interest in them." The visual appeal of his buildings coupled with technological advancements in the publication of images in newspapers and magazines further imbedded Wren's works within the national psyche. Papers such as The Illustrated London News, The Graphic, and The Penny Illustrated represent only three of the more than a dozen in circulation by the 1890s, each fighting for readership with front-page images designed to catch the eye and demand attention.·· These papers were not as news-driven as, say, The Times as they often included human interest articles along with serialized stories illustrated by engravings, photogravures, and photographs. St. Pauls was featured regularly as it served as a setting for funerals, weddings, and other prominent events such as the Queen's Jubilee in 1897, thus cementing its role as the site for important and historic events."

The Illustrated London News, for example, depicted the funeral procession of Lord Napier of Magdala in 1890 and the memorial service of the late Duke of Clarence in 1892 in fullpage illustrations." The funeral of Lord Leighton in 1896 was illustrated in the paper with a front-page engraving of the distinguished mourners looking toward the wreath-laden bier and two additional images inside the paper of the casket at the Royal Academy and its transfer to St. Paul's (Figure 2).5! Most striking, however, is the inclusion of St. Paul's in The Пlustrated London News in the design of the paper's masthead since the paper's first issue in May 1842. At the top ofthe front page of every paper, directly between the words "London" and "News," sits Wren's great cathedral, St. Paul's (Figure 3). Seen across a Thames River busy with paddle steamers and barges, St. Paul's dome and towers command the London skyline and present the cathedral as the symbol of the city.

The cathedral steps and plaza also served as the stage for less official events such as the celebration of New Year's Eve, marked by the chiming of the bells at midnight. In 1897 The Illustrated London News reported, "The gathering of a great crowd around St. Paul's on New Year's Eve has now become almost as fixed a characteristic of the Londoner's Christmastide and New Year festivities as any of the most venerable customs of the season?" The pealing of the bells had been stopped in prior years in an attempt to tame the rowdiness of the crowds, but people still gathered there despite the "roystering element" to sing in the new year. The full-page engraving of the raucous celebration on the front page of the paper focused on the scuffles in the crowd, with a background so dark as to make the cathedral almost invisible in the midnight shadows.

The public was kept up to date on ecclesiastical news that was connected to St. Paul's and other of Wren churches as the papers covered announcements such as the appointment of new priests and bishops, the topics of sermons, the acquisition of new gold communion ware, and the casting of "Great Paul," a new bell for the northwest tower of the cathedral." The Graphic did several features over a period of a week to document the casting of the bell, its transfer, and its installation with full-page illustrations.··

The seedier stories that these papers covered (although they were not typically illustrated) also occasionally occurred in Wren's buildings. Examples involving St. Paul's include a suicide that took place during a service in 1890, and an 1883 incident in which a man leapt onto the altar in protest against the Church of England, throwing the cross and candlesticks to the ground before being arrested." As integral parts of the city's fabric, St. Pauls was documented in the press as the site of the full range of human actions, from celebrations and memorials to everyday life events.

WREN AND HIS BUILDINGS IN FICTION

The prominence of Wren's works and St. Paul's in particular, served in published fiction, too, as signals of Englishness as well as London. To place a fictional event at St. Pauls meant that most readers would know exactly the location in the city and the importance of the event. St. Paul's was known to those outside of London as well as those within it. Charles Dickens, for instance, clearly understood the power of Wren's cathedral as a way of geographically locating the reader within a story. In his work "Master Humphrey's Clock" (serialized 1840-41), the tolling of the bell of St. Paul's causes Master Humphrey to ponder the moment in which the cathedral was completed:

As I looked afar up into the lofty dome, I could not help wondering what were his reflections whose genius reared that mighty pile, when, the last small wedge of timber, fixed, the last nail driven into its home for many centuries, the clang of hammers, and the hum of busy voices gone, and the Great Silence whole years of noise had helped to make reigning undisturbed around.

Dickens's story skillfully collapses two moments in time in the life of the great cathedral: one as witnessed in the present, and the other as daydreamed in the past, at the end of the building's noisy, chaotic construction. The duality reveals St. Paul's timeless presence in London.

Wren's buildings also were the backdrop for action in several Victorian novels. The popular novelist Mrs. J. H. Riddell (Charlotte Riddell) sets part of her story Mitre Court: A Tale of the Great City (1883) in a house that had formerly belonged to Wren. She also spends a good bit of one chapter lamenting the destruction of Wren's city churches." Another popular writer of both fiction and history, Sir Walter Besant (1836-1901) uses Wren's cathedral in his romance The Bell of St. Paul's (1889) as not only a physical landmark but also an auditory one, given the ringing of the cathedral's bells. The story's interconnected subplots revolve around a family who lived across the Thames from St. Paul's and were unable to see the cathedral except for the top of its dome and the lantern but could hear its bells. The tolling of St. Paul's bells regularizes everyday life for the family:

When the cathedral bell began to strike nine, in the leisurely and dignified manner proper to a cathedral bell, Althea put down her work and proceeded to make certain arrangements. That they were part of the daily routine was manifest by the unhesitating and mechanical manner in which she performed her task.'

Another character in the novel, Clement Indagine, a poet who has isolated himself for more than twenty years, returns to "the world" with his daughter. They walk through a city unrecognizable to him until they reach St. Paul's. There, they climb the cathedral steps and look down at the crowd of people around them. A turning point in the novel, the sight of the cathedral incites Indagine to remember his first poem: "Upon the great cathedral steps I stood/Alone amid the mighty throng." The cathedral is a point of stability against both the transformations of time and the swirling crowds. St. Paul's here signifies London, its people, and culture, and it serves as a landmark in the novel when all else seems to have changed.

Perhaps the most dramatic use of Wren and his works in Victorian popular writing is Emma Marshall's novel Under the Dome of St. Paul's: A Story of Sir Christopher Wren's Days (1898). Marshall (1828-1899), a prolific and popular author of numerous books for adults and young adults, wrote many historical romances of which this work on Wren is one." The Spectator promoted the novel as a "complete success; noting that Marshall had brought Wren to life and "made him very real" Using the Parentalia (1750), a compilation of documents of Wren's life by his son, and Lucy Phillimore's 1881 biography of Wren as guides, Marshall used historical and personal events to weave the famous architect into the story as a main character." The novel's plot follows the exploits of Dame Dorothy, ejected from her home in the country by her stepson's new wife, causing her to move to London with her two children. Her first introduction to the city is the "new" St. Paul's, rebuilt by Wren after the devastating fire of 1666, and it is in its shadow that she lives. Soon, her friend Hugh Perry introduces her to Wren, who is apparently a distant relative. Throughout the story Wren serves as Dorothy's friend and advisor, taking an interest in her son's education and wellbeing and warning her of those in the royal court who might disgrace her daughter. Wren silently watches the budding romance between Dorothy and Perry, nudging Perry to tell her how he feels as Perry was loath to risk the friendship. The image of Wren that Marshall paints is that of not just a genius committed to his work but also a man who deeply loved his family and friends.

At one point in the story, Dorothy praises Wren's "mighty dome which dominates London," the "noble Hospital at Greenwich," and "all the steeples of churches which pierce the sky? She concludes that it must bring him much happiness to see them. Wren, however, can only see the errors and the mistakes, resigned that "imperfection must leave its mark on all earthly cities. We must wait for perfection till we enter the city with foundations, whose builder and maker is God." It is as though Marshall cannot see the errors in the buildings that Wren can. She praises Wren's genius and highlights the greatness of his works.

The novel incorporates the completion of the cathedral, with Dorothy and her son accompanying "Master Wren" to the ceremony to lay of the final stone in the lantern of the dome. Her son is allowed to climb to the top with Wren while his mother waits below under the dome." It is there, at the top that her son, Ambrose, could "see all the spires and steeples of the churches Sir Christopher has built." He watches Wren as the architect "looked around him without speaking, almost as if the whole event was too much for him." It is the point in the novel when Ambrose sees the possibilities of what he can learn and his joy at moving to London.

The dome-and by association the entire building- stands as "a silent and majestic witness" to the life that goes on under it. Toward the end of the novel, Dorothy and her step-grandson Ranulf happen upon an aged Wren sitting in the great crossing under the dome "with eyes uplifted and hands clasped as if in prayer" She tries to quiet the eager child when he asks who the old man is, and she counsels him to "remember all your life that you saw the great man who built this church under its dome." Despite her attempts to not disturb Wren, the old man recognizes her voice as she whispers to her grandson, and Wren extends his hand to her and Dorothy kisses it. At this gesture, Wren stands and leaning on the arm of his son, he acknowledges that he can now leave the great building. "And so, with a loving, longing look on lofty, spacious nave and aisles," Marshall writes, "the great Master Builder passed for the last time out of the cathedral his genius had created."

Marshall's fictionalization of Wren humanizes him while still promoting his genius. The cathedral becomes a character itself in many cases, reflecting emotions and housing events. Neither degraded nor defamed, the authors of these works take a certain care in their fictionalized portrayals of the architect and his works, making sure that they are represented positively to reflect their iconic status. Thus, the incorporation of Wren and St. Paul's into the storylines indicates how central the cathedral had become to the story of the city and the nation, as well as to peoples lives.

CONCLUSION

The prominence of Wren in the answers to Dolman's original question, "Which is the finest building in the world? is just the tip of the iceberg of the permeation of Wren and his works into the public's imagination in the late-nineteenth century. St. Pauls and Wren's inclusion in novels, newspapers, and magazine articles as well as books of architecture and professional publications implies that the "Wrenaissance" was more than just the revival of yet another style (Figure 4). The regained popularity of Wren's works after the Gothic Revival signifies an embedding of Wren into English culture. Professionally, Wren's works fulfilled late Victorian architectural ideals and presented national examples of an appropriate architecture for England. As a great architect who shaped the profession's trajectory by creating a new architecture for his time, Wren was a model for the Victorian architect. For non-architects, Wren's buildings-particularly St. Pauls- provided physical and haptic landmarks throughout London, and the man himself served as a model for personal conduct, hard work, and individual genius. Wren and his works stood as symbols of both London and the nation. Perhaps Dickens's character Master Humphrey says it best in his description of the bell of St. Paul's:

Hearing its regular and never-changing voice, that one deep constant note, uppermost amongst all the noise and clatter in the streets below . . . it still performed its functions with the same dull constancy, and regulated the progress of the life around, the fancy came to me that this was London's Heart, and that when it should cease to beat, the City would be no more."

Footnote

ENDNOTES

1. This article began as a presentation at the Society of Architectural Historians Great Britain, "The Afterlife of Sir Christopher Wren 1800-2013" Conference held May17, 2014 at St. John's College, Oxford. Many thanks to the SAHGB and also to Matthew Walker for his work in organizing the conference. Frederick Dolman, "Which is the Finest Building in the World?" The Strand Magazine XX, no. 118 (October 1900): 410-419. Many thanks to the blind reviewers of this paper for this publication and Arris editors Vandana Baweja and Stathis Yeros.

2. Andrew Saint, "The Cult of Wren," in Architecture 8 Englishness, 1880-1914, eds. David Crellin and lan Dungavell (Oxford: Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, 2006), 37-58.

3. Saint, "The Cult of Wren," 42. George Wightwick, "On the Architecture and Genius of Sir Christopher Wren," Transactions of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 1° series (1858-59): 119-128. The handwritten transcript of Wightwick's full lecture is available in the Royal Institute of British Architects archives.

4. Ben Weinstein, "Questioning a Late Victorian 'Dyad': Preservationism, Demolitionism, and the City of London Churches, 1860-1904," Journal of British Studies 53, no. 2 (2014): 404-405, 413-14.

5. William J. Loftie, Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren, or, The Rise and Decline of Modern Architecture in England (London: Rivington, Percival & Co., 1893), 179-84.

6. Weinstein, "Questioning," 423.

7. Andrew King and John Plunkett, eds., Victorian Print Media: A Reader (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 1.

8. "Curiosities," The Strand Magazine XX, no. 118 (October 1900): 476-80. In many ways these can be seen as the ancestors of the viral images that currently travel the internet and Instagram.

9. The latter two pieces were also written by Frederick Dolman. For his article "What is the Greatest Achievement in Music?) Dolman followed the same pattern, posing his question to well-known composers and musicians and then compiling the answers without analysis or conclusion. Frederick Dolman, "What is the Greatest Achievement in Music?" The Strand Magazine XXI, по. 123 (April 1901): 429-34.

10. King and Plunkett, eds., Victorian Print Media, 378.

11. Reginald Pound, Mirror of the Century: The Strand Magazine, 1891-1950 (South Brunswick: Heinemann, 1966), 9.

12. Dolman, "Which is the Finest Building in the World?" 412-13.

13. Ibid, 414.

14. Ibid.

15. J. Joass, "The Work of the Late John Belcher," RIBA Journal 21, по.20 (1914): 98, 100.

16. Dolman, "Which is the Finest Building in the World?" 414.

17. Macartney served as Surveyor to the Fabric of St. Paul's from 1906 to 1931. John Belcher and Mervyn Macartney, Later Renaissance Architecture in England. A Series of Examples of the Domestic Buildings Erected Subsequent to the Elizabethan Period, 6 vols. (London: B.T. Batsford, 1897-1901).

18. Belcher and Macartney, Later Renaissance Architecture, vol. 1, 1. Emphasis added.

19. John Belcher, Essentials in Architecture: An Analysis of the Principles and Qualities to be Looked for in Buildings (London: В. T. Batsford, 1907), 27. Belcher identifies the following architectural "essentials": principles (truth and beauty); qualities (strength, vitality, restraint, refinement, repose, grace, breadth, and scale); factors (proportion, light, and shade, colour, solids and voids, balance and symmetry), and materials.

20. Ibid., 35.

21. Ibid., 102-03.

22. Dolman, "Which is the Finest Building in the World?" 418.

23. Ibid.

24. Belcher and Macartney, Later Renaissance Architecture, 1.

25. James Stevens Curl, Victorian Architecture: Diversity & Invention (Reading: Spire Books, 2007), 419.

26. Richard Phené Spiers, Architectural Drawing (London: Cassell & Company, 1887); William James Anderson and Richard Phené Spiers, The Architecture of Greece and Rome (London: B.T. Batsford, 1902), which Spiers finished after Anderson's death in 1900. These are just two of the several books and numerous articles that Spiers wrote.

27. Dolman, "Which is the Finest Building in the World?" 412.

28. Ibid., 413.

29. Ibid., 414.

30. Ibid.

31. Peter Mandler, The English National Character: The History of an Idea from Edmund Burke to Tony Blair (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 8.

32. Ibid. 66.

33. Arthur H. Mackmurdo, Wren's City Churches (Kent: G. Allen, 1883); Wyatt Papworth, The Renaissance and Italian Styles of Architecture in Great Britain (London: В. T. Batsford, 1883); Reginald Blomfield reissued his 1897 A History of Renaissance Architecture in England, 1500-1800 in a condensed edition in 1900. Gotch published two works on the period: J. Alfred Gotch, Architecture of the Renaissance in England: Illustrated by a Series of Views and Details of Buildings Erected Between the Years 1560-1635 with Historical and Critical Text (London: B.T. Batsford, 1894) and J. Alfred Gotch, Early Renaissance Architecture in England: A Historical & Descriptive Account of the Tudor, Elizabethan, & Jacobean Periods, 1500-1625 (London: B.T. Batsford, 1901). For a larger context of St. Paul's Cathedral in the nineteenth century, see Dory Agazarian, "A Victorian Wrenaissance: Historical Narrative at St. Paul's Cathedral," Victorian Literature and Culture 49, no. 3 (2021): 389-422. For an in-depth discussion on the role of the acceptance of the English Renaissance in the nineteenth century, see Katherine J. Wheeler, "The Renaissance as an English Style," in Victorian Perceptions of Renaissance Architecture (Surrey: Ashgate, 2014), 101-23.

34. Lucy Phillimore, Sir Christopher Wren: His Family and Times (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co., 1881).

35. Belcher and Macartney, Later Renaissance Architecture, 4, 12.

36. Ibid., 8.

37. Ibid., 12.

38. Loftie, Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren, 279.

39. Mandler, The English National Character, 17.

40. Jacob Burckhardt, The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance, ed. Peter Murray, trans. James Palmes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 3. Emphasis added.

41. Edward Bristow, Individualism Versus Socialism in Britain, 1880-1914, Modern European History, A Garland Series of Outstanding Dissertations, ed. William H. McNeill (New York and London, 1987), 3.

42. Blomfield, A History of Renaissance Architecture in England, vol. |, 176. The focus on the individual architect as the sole designer was in conflict with the Ruskinian ideal of a group of artisans led by a master builder, where each artisan channeled his own divine inspiration, talent, and personal expression into the work.

43. Reginald Blomfield, Studies in Architecture (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1905), v.

44. John Dando Sedding, "On the Relation of Art and the Handicrafts," The Builder LIl, supplement (May 7, 1887): 691.

45. Burlington Fine Arts Club, Exhibition of Drawings of Architectural Subjects by Deceased Artists (London: Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1884), xii.

46. Wren's drawings of St. Paul's were briefly exhibited at a meeting of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society on April 10, 1865. This exhibit provided an opportunity for architects to see Wren's working method and gain further insight into his abilities. Wyatt Papworth, "Ownership of Drawings, 1," The RIBA Journal 2"" Series, 8, no.8 (February 11, 1892): 170.

47. Saint, "The Cult of Wren," 37-58.

48. King and Plunkett, eds., Victorian Print Media, 373-416.

49. All of Wren's works had a place in the news and fiction publications, but St. Paul's stands out for the range of types of writings and subject matter, and so will be the focus here. For the Queen's Jubilee see "The Jubilee Service at St. Paul's," The Illustrated London News 110, no. 3034 (June 12, 1897): 826.

50. "Funeral of Lord Napier of Magdala," The Illustrated London News 90, no. 2649 (January 25, 1890): 116. "The Late Duke of Clarence-Memorial Service in St. Paul's: The Dead March in "Saul," The Illustrated London News 100, no. 2754 (January 30, 1892): 145. It should be noted that while The Times carried the same news stories, it did not illustrate them.

51. "Lord Leighton's Funeral," The Illustrated London News 108, no. 2964 (February 8, 1896): 161, 163.

52. "New Year's Eve on the Steps of St. Paul's Cathedral: 'Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot?" The Illustrated London News 110, no. 3011 (January 2, 1897): 1,3.

53. "Gold Communion Plate for St. Paul's Cathedral," The Illustrated London News 109, no. 3008 (December 12, 1896): 798. See also "The Great Bell for St. Paul's," The Illustrated London News 80, no. 2228 (January 14, 1882): 30 and no. 2248 (June 3, 1882): 538.

54. "Great Paul: The New Bell for St. Paul's Cathedral," The Graphic XXV, no. 651 (May 20, 1882): 513; and "Great Paul' at St. Paul's Cathedral," The Graphic XXV, по. 652 (May 27, 1882): 528.

55. "A Tragic Incident Occurred on Sunday, Shortly Before Noon, at St, Paul's Cathedral," The Penny Illustrated Paper 59, no. 1531 (Saturday, October 4, 1890): 219; and "Outrage in St. Paul's Cathedral," The Penny Illustrated Paper 44, no. 1134 (Saturday, March 31, 1883): 207.

56. Charles Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood: Reprinted Pieces and Other Stories (London: Chapman and Hall, 1892), 301. Master Humphrey's Clock was a framework for the telling of several stories. Master Humphrey had stacked his clock full of manuscripts, and so he invited his friends around to take turn reading from their own stories.

57. J.H.Riddell, Mitre Court: A Tale of the Great City (London: R. Bentley and Son, 1885). See also the review in The Illustrated London News 88, no. 2437 (January 20, 1886): 28, 51ff.

58. Walter Besant, The Bell of St. Paul's (New York: Chatto & Windus, 1889), 65.

59. Ibid., 234.

60. Emma Marshall, Under the Dome of St. Paul's (New York: Macmillan, 1898). This seems to be a template for Marshall who also wrote Under the Salisbury Spire in the Days of George Herbert: The Recollections of Magdalene Wydville (London: Seeley 8 Co. 1890).

61. "Under the Dome of St. Paul's by Emma Marshall, The Spectator, no. 3,675 (December 3, 1898): 809.

62. Sir Christopher Wren, Jr., Parentalia: or Memoirs of the Family of the Wrens (London: T. Osborn 8 R. Dodsley, 1750; reprint Hants, 1965).

63. Marshall, Under the Dome, 112-13.

64. Ibid., 162, 165-68.

65. Ibid., 166.

66. Ibid., 325.

67. Dickens, The Mystery, 301.