CHAPTER XVII - Royal School of Needlework
In 1872 the School was founded in Sloane
Street, as the School of Art Needlework, with
the purpose of reviving the art of decorative
embroidery. (ref. 1) Its President was Queen Victoria's
third daughter, Princess Christian of SchleswigHolstein,
and in a prospectus attention was
'specially called to the fact that all Members of the
School, including those who have charge of the
showroom, are Gentlewomen by birth'. In 1875
the School moved into premises on the 1851
Exhibition Commissioners' estate west of Exhibition
Road, previously occupied as the Belgian and
Australian annexes of the 1871–4 Exhibitions.
Here the School had a display-room fitted up with
'thoroughly artistic furniture' made by W. H.
Lascelles's joinery firm to Norman Shaw's
designs. (ref. 2) In 1883 Princess Christian was thinking
of a connexion with the neighbouring City and
Guilds College: (ref. 3) by the standards of the time this
would have made an unusual social conjunction.
In 1892 the School obtained an impressive site
on the northern corner of Imperial Institute and
Exhibition Roads (plan c between pages 54–5)
for a permanent building. (The lease from the
Commissioners for 999 years from 1898 was
concluded in 1901.) It was to cost about £12,500
and to be designed by the Lady Superintendent's
brother, the architect Fairfax B. Wade. A view
exhibited by him at the Royal Academy in 1893
shows a building in a kind of Jacobean style with
shaped gables, and greatly pleased The Builder. (ref. 4)
Work did not, however, begin until 1898, by
which time the style had been radically changed,
and the proposed cost had risen to £32,000. The
School had less than half this sum in hand but
borrowed the remainder from the Commissioners
at 3frac;34 per cent. The Prince of Wales laid the
foundation stone in June 1899. (ref. 5) The construction,
by G. H. and A. Bywaters and Sons, was of
fine quality and at 1s. 3d. per cubic foot not
thought disproportionately expensive, but Wade's
control of the cost was proving inadequate and by
1901 the estimated sum for completin had risen
to £53,000: the Chairman of the Technical
Education Board of the London County Council
commented that parts of the front walls were almost
soldi masonry, and that there were 'very few
buildings erected nowadays with such a depthof
bedding provided in the Portland stone'. The
Commissioners gave another small loan, and to
help the finances parts of the building, to include
well-equipped electrical engineering laboratories,
were let off to the City and Guilds College. (ref. 3) The
building was finished for occupation in 1903.
Beneath it a portion of subway was made on the
line of a possible continuation of that from South
Kensington station. (ref. 6)
Figure 38:
Royal School of Needlework, plans in 1902
Wade's choice of materials gave pleasant, fresh
colours—green Westmorland slates, Bracknell
red bricks and Portland stone banded with blue
Pennant. The excellent stone-carving was by
Henry McCarthy. (ref. 7) The design, in which the
influences of Belcher's Chartered Accountants'
building and Aston Webb's competition design
for the South Kensington Museum are discernible,
was praised at the time for the breadth of treatment
that enabled the building to hold its own with the
larger neighbours to west and north by Collcutt
and Waterhouse (Plate 73a, b; fig. 38). (ref. 8) The
latter had approved Wade's design on behalf of the
Commissioners. It is significant of a diminished
habit of enrichment that in 1952 the design was
called, not broad, but 'pretty' and 'busy'. (ref. 9)
(Whether Wade was wholly responsible for this
design, so different from that of 1893, was doubted
by Mr. Goodhart-Rendel, who was inclined to
give the credit for it to Wade's assistant, J.
Leonard Williams. (ref. 10) )
In 1934 Imperial College took over the lease, (ref. 2)
and in 1949 the School moved to smaller premises
in Princes Gate. (ref. 11) The building was demolished
by the College, as part of its expansion, in 1962.