John Brandon-Jones, A.R.I.B.A.

John Brandon-Jones was born in Hendon on 18 September 1908, into a Unitarian household. He went to Berkhamsted School, where his father taught art, but contracted tuberculosis in 1921 and was sent to Bembridge School on the Isle of Wight, which was founded on Ruskin’s principles of creative education. There he developed a talent for woodworking and enjoyed learning skills such as engraving and wallpaper printing, an indication of the master craftsman he was to become. Not surprisingly, he was drawn to a career in architecture and joined the office of a former assistant of Sir Edward Lutyens, Oswald Milne, a successful designer of country houses, public-school buildings and Claridges Hotel.When, in 1928, Brandon-Jones embarked on formal training at the Architectural Association School, his preferences and prejudices in architecture were already formed. The turn of the century was his favourite period; his heroes were William Morris, W. B. Lethaby, Charles Voysey and Philip Webb and he was unshakeable in his belief that beauty and craftsmanship in buildings mattered more than fashion. In 1933 he joined the practice of Voysey’s eldest son, Charles Cowles-Voysey, first as an assistant and later as a partner. They specialised in civic buildings and together won a competition for the design of Watford Town Hall. There followed town halls for Worthing and Bromley, the Guildhall in Cambridge and the Festival House in Hull before Brandon-Jones moved to Liverpool University as lecturer in architecture in 1937. His war service was spent with the Royal Navy in charge of the civil engineer’s drawing office at Scapa Flow. Ordered one day to report on the suitability of a certain large house as a base for the naval top brass Brandon-Jones found it to be an impressively handsome stone building which, after some detective work, he realised was Melsetter House, designed by Lethaby in 1898 – a minor compensation for long hours of bleak Orkneys weather and excruciating boredom. The end of the war saw his return to London as senior tutor at the Architectural Association School and he again collaborated with Cowles-Voysey on municipal buildings, such as Hampshire County Council offices in Winchester, until the latter retired in 1955. In 1950, along with Nikolaus Pevsner and Stanley Morison, Brandon-Jones signed a letter to The Times inviting like-minded devotees to join them in founding a society to promote William Morris’s ethos and to explore its practical application today. Despite ups-and-downs, the William Morris Society grew steadily, due in no small measure to Brandon-Jones’s influence among his colleagues in the Art Workers’ Guild, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and the Victorian Society. Now, the William Morris Society attracts members from all over the world, notably the United States, and continues to flourish from its headquarters at Kelmscott House in Hammersmith. In 1951 Brandon-Jones joined the Art Workers Guild to the great benefit of both parties and was a popular and effective Master. When he celebrated his ninetieth birthday in 1998 the Guild presented him with an alphabet cut by John Nash and in return received a copy of William Morris’s The Waters of the Wondrous Isles, published by the Kelmscott Press. Brandon-Jones was president of the Architectural Association School in 1957-8, and a member of both the RIBA board of architectural education and the Architects Registration Council. Though a practising member of the Unitarian movement (he designed their library in Gordon Square) Brandon-Jones worked for the Anglican Church in its efforts to save redundant churches from decay and destruction. He influenced the younger generation of architects to appreciate the importance of the Arts and Crafts Movement and helped to promote interest in its architecture and artefacts among the public at large. A perfect example is Standen, near East Grinstead, designed by Webb in the 1890s and restored by Brandon-Jones for the National Trust. Not so grand in concept, but just as interesting, is the house he bought in 1952 in Redington Road, Hampstead, one of a pair designed by Webb. With his wife he returned it to its original state in every detail, even down to Morris’s pipe on his desk. Perhaps the house Brandon-Jones designed for his friend, John Betjeman, at Trebetherick may one day attract the attention they both lavished on William Morris, Philip Webb and their circle. Brandon-Jones, a handsome, charismatic figure and man-about Hampstead, died in his ninety-first year, on l May 1999. An obituary he would have treasured appeared in Private Eye, by ‘Piloti’ – the only serious obituary anyone could remember appearing in that paper.