(ii) Goold and his Architect Wardell

Goold and his architect Wardell

 

Goold controversially appointed Wardell also designed his local parish church St Mary’s, East St Kilda, in both its first and current form.

Charles Nettleton, ‘St Patrick’s Cathedral’,
1866, photograph. Melbourne: State Library of Victoria

The arrival of the Irish Jesuits in 1866, brought to Melbourne by Goold to run St Patrick’s College and the Richmond Parish, saw another Wardell plan ultimately realised. Wardell gave the Jesuits the plans for St Ignatius in gratitude for the way the English Jesuits had educated his sons. The focus in this project will be on the key relationship between Wardell and his first private patron, Goold. This relationship ultimately led to some of the finest examples of Gothic Revival architecture in the world, including in St Patrick’s the largest Neo-Gothic Cathedral completed in the 19th century. Ursula de Jong’s pioneering work on Wardell is now several decades old. De Jong did not investigate the relationship between Goold and his architect, though Wardell enjoyed working closely with patrons, as in the case of his relationship with Verdon, who commissioned the ANZ Bank. Our project will investigate Wardell’s English career before he emigrated to define the relationship between his English and Australian practice. Little has been written about Wardell’s English churches. An unpublished list in the ANZ archives lists some thirty buildings in England. Research will be undertaken in the Archives of the Incorporated Church Building Society held at Lambeth Palace in London. This archive comprises the minute books and some 16,000 files relating to applications for grants for the building and restoration of churches throughout England and Wales, from the foundation of the Society in 1818 until 1982. It contains detailed information on Wardell’s architectural commissions in Britain.

Edwin G. Adamson, ‘St Patricks Cathedral’, c. 1930,
photograph. Melbourne: State Library of Victoria