An Architect Earl, Edward Augustus Stratford (1736-1801), 2nd Earl of Aldborough
Edward Augustus Stratford (1736-1801), 2nd Earl of Aldborough, was a talented amateur architect, an ambitious builder and developer and enthusiastic patron of the arts. During the last quarter of the eighteenth century this entrepeneurial nobleman completed threee major building projects, each of considerable architectural merit. From 1775 he built, to an advanced design, the model industrial village of Stratford-on-Slaney in County Wicklow. He built Stratford Place, off Oxford Street, one of the most notable small developments of late Georgian London and, from 1792-8, Aldborough House, the last great mansion to be erected in Dublin before the Union. In addition he remodelled and embellished the extensive gardens and grounds surrounding the now vanished family seat at Belan, County Kildare.
A liberal in politics, he was active in the reforming movements for greater Irish independence. He was a life-long friend of Henry Flood and Lord Charlemont and played a prominent part in the Volunteer movement, raising his own Volunteer Legion, which is commemorated in Francis Wheatley's
Review at Belan, perhaps the finest painting of contemporary Ascendancy life.
Fully documented and richly illustrated this book gives the most complete account to date of his family and background and of his persistent dedication to their aggrandizement, in spite of long-running family disputes created by his father's will. There is a full examination of the most dramatic event of his career - the bitter quarrel with Lord Clare, the Irish Lord Chancellor, which led to his imprisonment for six weeks.
A portrait of a restless and successful entrepreneur, who was the friend and patron of artists, and who was admired for his personal cultivation, the book gives unexpected insights into the artistic, cultural and social life of Enlightenment Ireland.
Author: Ronald W. Lightbown
Pages: 471
Type: H/B
ISBN: 9780956082602
Publisher: OLL Editions in association with the Irish Georgian Society
Date of Publication: 2009