Francis Greenway: His Life and Times by M H Ellis

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Previous owner has signed inside page. Dust jacket has ltearing to spine top and sunning to back cover. Dust jacket is now enclosed in a glossy protective cover. Interior and binding are still very good.

Francis Greenway (1777-1837), brilliant architect and condemned felon, is one of the strangest and most interesting figures in Australian history. Here is the full story of the man who escaped the gallows to become the first architect in a new continent and to bequeath to his unwillingly adopted country buildings whose beauty has remained unsurpassed to the present day.

The serene clarity of Greenway's work is in striking contrast to his turbulent career. An architect of standing in the west of England, but sentenced to death for forgery in 1812, he endured the misery of the hulks and the long, drawn horror of the voyage to New South Wales and emerged to become Civil Architect of the colony and to dine at the Governor's table.

He planned and supervised the erection of many buildings in Sydney and surrounding districts, including St James's Church, Hyde Park Convict Barrack, the Macquarie Lighthouse, Fort Macquarie, the Government House stables, St Matthew's Church at Windsor and St Luke's at Liverpool.