On the Architectural History of Chester Cathedral

by Thomas Rickman

ON THE
Architectural History of Chester Cathedral,

BY THOMAS RICKMAN,
WITH AN
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR BY THE REV. CANON BLOMFIELD.

The MS. of the following Report by Thomas Rickman, on the Architectural features of Chester Cathedral, has been for many years in the possession of a gentleman in Chester, [3a] but has never yet appeared in print. It is supposed to have been drawn up at the request of Dean Cholmondeley, who was one of Rickman’s early patrons, and the date of it may be fixed at about 1812. It is therefore probably the earliest specimen of his style of architectural analysis. As, at the same time, it affords a valuable specimen of the accuracy of his observation, and the clearness of his discriminative judgment, it is thought right to present it to the public, through the medium of the Chester Architectural and Archæological Society.

The name of Thomas Rickman is familiar to every student of Gothic Architecture, as the author of the clearest and most comprehensive text book on the subject. He was the first to elucidate the true characteristics of Gothic Architecture, and reduce them to a simple and intelligible system. The nomenclature which is now universally received, was first brought into use by him. For though he adopted the title of “Early English” from Miller, who had suggested it in 1805, [3b] and that of “Decorated” from Britton, who applied it in his description of Malmesbury Abbey, in 1807; [3c] yet he was the first person who really gave substance and meaning to those terms by assigning to each its proper characteristics. The term “Perpendicular” he himself invented, as describing the features of the later style. Thus, arranging the whole series of Ecclesiastical buildings in this country under the four divisions of Norman, Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular, and accurately defining the special and distinctive features of each, he became in fact the founder of the modern science of Gothic Architecture, the author of the Grammar by which the study of it is still regulated and pursued.

Rickman therefore deserves a higher place in the temple of Fame than he appears at present to occupy. The habit of laborious and patient investigation, the sound and discriminating judgment, the faculty of nice and accurate comparison, which enabled him, wholly unaided by the science or labour of others, to work out for himself that simple yet clear and comprehensive system, which secured this branch of architectural science from the ignorance and bad taste of preceding centuries, and established it on a fixed and certain basis, ought to place him in the foremost rank of men who have contributed to the advancement of useful knowledge.

As the history of his life and labours is but little known, it may be an acceptable introduction to the reading of this Report on Chester Cathedral, if we preface it with a short biographical Memoir.

Thomas Rickman was born at Maidenhead on the 8th of June, 1776, and was the eldest son of Thomas and Sarah Packman, members of the Society of Friends. His father’s profession seems to have combined that of grocer, and chemist, and druggist, in which latter capacity he gave medical advice to his customers. Eventually he relinquished all but the medical department, and practiced as an apothecary, in which profession he wished to bring up his eldest son. Circumstances, and his son’s natural tendencies, determined otherwise. It appears that even the strict and unæsthetic notions of his father’s sect could not restrain the development of the son’s taste for order and beauty of arrangement, which manifested itself, in the first instance, in a passion for military display. As a boy, he was eager to attend every review and parade which he could possibly reach, and to make himself master of all the details of military evolutions. He employed his leisure moments at home in drawing figures of soldiers, cutting them out of pasteboard, and arranging them on tables in an upper room which he had appropriated to himself. He made several thousands of these pasteboard soldiers, both cavalry and infantry, and disposed them in order of battle, to illustrate some prints which he had procured of celebrated battles. He studied the history of the modern campaigns, and knew the services of all the officers in the Army List. He could tell the details of the uniform of every regiment, not only of his own country, but of most of the continental nations, and understood the strength and value of the various instruments of warfare better than most of those who used them. [5]

It does not appear that this early tendency to military tactics ever led Rickman to take an active part in them, though it may have served to unsettle his views for some time with regard to the choice of a profession. His father removed to Lewes in Sussex, in 1797, and Thomas then went to London, first as assistant to Mr. Stringer, a chemist in the Strand, and afterwards to Mr. Atkinson, an apothecary in Jermyn street. But disliking the profession, or the town, he removed to Saffron Walden, and entered into the service of Messrs. Day and Greer, grocers, in that town. From thence he again went to London, and prepared himself, by walking the hospitals, to act as his father’s assistant at Lewes, whither he went in 1801. But he was still unsettled, and again repaired to London in 1803, to enter into partnership with a cornfactor. While there he married his cousin, Lucy Rickman.