{{Short description|English Gothic Revival architect}} {{Use British English|date=September 2014}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2026}} '''Joseph John Scoles''' (1798–1863) was an English Gothic Revival architect, who designed many Roman Catholic churches.
==Early life and education== Scoles was born in London on 27 June 1798, the son of Roman Catholic parents Matthew Scoles, a joiner, and Elizabeth Sparling. He was educated at the Roman Catholic school at Baddesley Green and then, in 1812, apprenticed for seven years to his relative, Joseph Ireland, an architect who was extensively employed by John Milner,<ref name=dnb/> then the Roman Catholic vicar-apostolic of the Midland District.<ref name=east130/> Ireland built several Roman Catholic churches, one of the earliest of which was at Hinckley, in Nottinghamshire. He was probably advised on the Gothic detailing of these designs by John Carter.<ref name=east130>Eastlake 1872, p.130</ref> Between 1816 and 1819 Scoles was resident at Hassop Hall, Bakewell, and in Leicester, superintending works for Ireland.<ref name=dnb>{{cite DNB|wstitle=Scoles, Joseph John|author=Samuel Joseph Nicholl|volume=51|no-icon=1}}</ref>
==Travel== thumb|St Francis Xavier, Liverpool In 1822 Scoles left England in the company of Joseph Bonomi the Younger for further study. He carried out archaeological and architectural research in Rome, Greece, Egypt, and Syria, often in the company of Henry Parke and Frederick Catherwood. In 1829 he published an engraved map of Nubia, showing the area between the first and second cataracts of the Nile, from a survey made in 1824 jointly by him and Parke, and a map of the city of Jerusalem; his plan of the church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, with his drawings of the Jewish tombs in the valley of Jehoshaphat, was published by Robert Willis in 1849.<ref name=dnb/>
==Early secular work== In 1826 he returned home and resumed architectural work. In 1828 he planned and carried out the building of Gloucester Terrace, Regent's Park, for which John Nash supplied the general elevation. Gloucester Villa, at the entrance to the park, was built completely to his design. At around this time he constructed a suspension bridge over the River Bure at Great Yarmouth. It collapsed with fatal results in 1845, due to concealed defects in two suspending rods.<ref name=dnb/>
==Anglican churches== Scoles designed three Anglican churches: St Mary's Chapel, Southtown, Yarmouth (1830), St Peter's Church, Great Yarmouth<ref name=dnb/> (a commissioner's church, 1831),<ref>Eastlake 1872, p.373</ref> and St George's Church, Edgbaston, for Lord Calthorpe. His only other work for the established church consisted of some small additions and restorations to Burgh Castle and Blundeston churches in Suffolk.<ref name=dnb/>
==Roman Catholic buildings== right|thumb|Interior of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, London His works for the Roman Catholic church included Our Lady's Church, St John's Wood (1832), St Peter's Church in Stonyhurst College, Lancashire (1832), Our Lady Church, Bangor (1834, now closed), St Ignatius, Preston, Lancashire (1835), St James the Less and St Helen Church, Colchester (1837), St Mary's, Newport, Monmouthshire (1840), St David's, Cardiff (1842), St John the Evangelist Church, Islington (1843), the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, London (1844), St Francis Xavier's, Liverpool (1844), Our Lady Immaculate, Chelmsford (1847), St Mary's Church in Great Yarmouth (1848–1850), the chapel of Ince Hall, Lancashire (1859), and the Holy Cross, St Helen's, Lancashire (1860).<ref name=dnb/>
His design for the church of St John in Duncan Terrace, Islington – a neo-Romanesque brick building with stone facings<ref>{{NHLE |num=1195583 |accessdate=27 March 2013}}</ref> – was censured by Pugin in an article on "Ecclesiastical Architectures" in the ''Dublin Review'' in 1843.<ref name=dnb/>
In 1853 he designed a group of buildings for the London Oratory at Brompton, consisting of the Oratory House – a building in a simple Italianate style, incorporating a chapel, known as the Little Oratory, and a library<ref>{{NHLE |num=1080763 |accessdate=27 March 2013}}</ref> – and a plain red brick temporary church, which survived until 1880.<ref name=survey>{{cite web |url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50008 |title=The London Oratory|first1=F.H.W.|last1=Sheppard|publisher=Institute of Historical Research |year=1983|work=Survey of London:volume 41: Brompton|accessdate=27 March 2013}}</ref> He also built a convent nearby in Sidney Street.
The chapel of Prior Park College, Bath, designed by Scoles, was erected after his death by his son.<ref name=dnb/> Unlike Scoles' other ecclesiastical work, this was Neoclassical in style, in sympathy with the mansion to which it was attached. It was built to a simple aisled basilican plan with an apse.<ref>{{cite book|first=Bryan|last= Little|title=The Building of Bath|publisher=Collins|location=London|year= 1947|page=126}} Little calls the chapel "a work of noble conception".</ref>
==Royal Institute of British Architects== Scoles was elected a fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1835, was honorary secretary from May 1846 to May 1856, and vice-president in 1857–1858. Most of his contributions to the society's ''Proceedings'' were about the monuments of Egypt and the Holy Land, studied during his early travels.<ref name=dnb/>
==Family== He died on 29 December 1863 at his home, Crofton Lodge, Hammersmith. He was survived by four sons and eight daughters from his marriage to Harriet Cory of Great Yarmouth, whom he had married in 1831.<ref name=dnb/> The eldest was Ignatius Scoles who followed his father as an architect, then joined the Jesuits and designed Georgetown City Hall and St Wilfrid's Church, Preston.<ref>[http://www.guyanatimesinternational.com/?p=14068 Guyana Times International] accessed 26 March 2013</ref> His third son was Alexander Joseph Cory Scoles who became a Roman Catholic priest and canon and followed his brother and father in becoming an architect. He designed many lancet style Gothic Revival churches in the south of England.<ref name=history>Slevin, Malachy ''St Francis Church Handsworth'' (Birmingham, 1994) pp.1–17</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Sources== *{{cite book |last1=Eastlake |first1=Charles Locke |title=A History of the Gothic Revival |url=https://archive.org/details/ahistorygothicr00eastgoog|year=1872 |publisher= Longmans, Green & Co|location=London}} *{{cite DNB|wstitle=Scoles, Joseph John|last=Nicholl|first=Samuel Joseph |volume=51|vb=1}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Scoles, Joseph John}} Category:19th-century English architects Category:Gothic Revival architects Category:1798 births Category:1863 deaths Category:English ecclesiastical architects Category:People from Hammersmith Category:English Roman Catholics Category:Architects from London Category:Architects of Roman Catholic churches