Benjamin Dean Wyatt

Benjamin Dean Wyatt (1775–1852) was an English architect.

He was the son and pupil of the architect James Wyatt, and the brother of Matthew Cotes Wyatt. Before setting up as an architect in 1809, he joined the Civil Service of the East India Company, working in the office of Lord Wellesley, in Calcutta. Afterwards, in Dublin he was employed as private secretary to Wellesley's brother Arthur, later the Duke of Wellington.

In 1811, Wyatt won the competition to rebuild the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, which had been destroyed by fire in 1809. Construction began in October 1811, and the theatre opened a year later. Wyatt based the design of the auditorium partly on that of the theatre at Bordeaux, which was reputed to have the best acoustics in Europe. In 1813 he published Observations on the Design for the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

He succeeded his father in the post of surveyor at Westminster Abbey from 1813 to 1827.

When Arthur Wellesley returned from the Peninsula War in 1814, he was created 1st Duke of Wellington, and the government offered to buy him a residence. Wellington called in Wyatt to advise him. Wyatt advocated a building that produced "a very magnificent & imposing effect" without "the monstrous expense of a Fabrick extended to the dimensions of Blenheim [or] Castle Howard".

Without having found an appropriate site, he drew up a set of plans, which he presented to Wellington in Paris, a few months after the Duke's victory at Waterloo. His idea was to lay out the buildings around three sides of a large courtyard with rounded corners, entered through a colonnaded screen. The main block of the house was planned around an octagonal staircase hall, with a coffered dome pierced by an oculus, in the manner of the Pantheon in London, designed by his father James Wyatt. The architect had to produce a number of variations before the Duke finally gave his approval in November 1815. Wyatt then produced a set of working drawings, which included detailed instructions for the Neoclassical decoration. In 1817 the trustees appointed by Parliament to provide the duke with a house bought an estate at Stratfield Saye, Hampshire, for Wellington's use, and Wyatt was confident that the palace would be built there, despite the coolness that the trustees had previously shown towards his designs. However, in early 1818, it was decided that the existing house could be modified; Wyatt was paid for his drawings and the project shelved.

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