Joseph Aloysius Hansom (1803-82)

In Joseph Aloysius Hansom (1803-82), An Unfortunate Genius, biographer Penelope Harris portrays an imaginative, eclectic architect of around two hundred buildings across the British Isles and into France, mainly for Catholic and gentry patrons. Starting from humble origins, but blessed with his upbringing in York, driven by passion and not afraid to defy convention, Hanson is now perhaps unfairly as well remembered as the inventor of the Hansom Cab as he is for his many wonderful architectural masterpieces. Using original research material such as the meticulous diaries of his clerk of works who recorded their daily building routine, Harris shows how that far from being a self-seeking egoist Hansom attempted to set up a college for budding architects and promoted building skills through his journal The Builder.