Charles Robert Cockerell

Charles Robert Cockerell
Charles Robert Cockerell (portrait by Ingres, 1817)
Born	(1788-04-27)27 April 1788 London
Died	17 September 1863(1863-09-17) (aged 75) 13 Chester Terrace, Regent's Park, London
Nationality	English
Occupation	Architect
Awards	Royal Gold Medal (1848)
Buildings	Ashmolean Museum

Charles Robert Cockerell RA (27 April 1788 – 17 September 1863) was an English architect, archaeologist, and writer.

Charles Robert Cockerell was born in London on 27 April 1788, the third of eleven children of Samuel Pepys Cockerell, educated at Westminster School from 1802, where he received an education in Latin and the Classics. From the age of sixteen, he trained in the architectural practice of his father, who held the post of surveyor to East India House, and several London estates. From 1809 to 1810 Cockerell became an assistant to Robert Smirke, helping in the rebuilding of Covent Garden Theatre (the forerunner of today's Royal Opera House).

On 14 April 1810 he set off on the Grand Tour. Due to the Napoleonic Wars much of Europe was closed to the British, so he headed for Cadiz, Malta and Constantinople (Istanbul); from there he went to Troy, finally arriving in Athens, Greece by January 1811. In Constantinople he met John Foster (architect) who would accompany him on his tour. In April 1811 he was in Aegina where he helped excavate the Temple of Aphaea (which he called the Temple of Jupiter), finding fallen fragmentary pediment sculptures (these are now in Germany), which he discovered were originally painted. On 18 August 1811 he set out with three companions from Zakynthos on a tour of Morea, aiming for the temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae in Arcadia. The magnificent Bassae Frieze that Cockerell discovered at the temple was eventually excavated and sold to the British Museum. His tour continued visiting, Sparta, Argos, Tiryns, Mycenae, Epidaurus and Corinth returning to Athens. It was there that he met Frederick North, who persuaded Cockerell and Foster to accompany him to Egypt, setting off in late 1811, they travelled via Crete, where North abandoned the idea, so Cockerell and Foster decided to visit the Seven churches of Asia and visit Hellenistic sites along the way, the itinerary was: Smyrna, Pergamon, Sardis, Ephesus, Priene and Side. They arrived in Malta on 18 July 1812, where Cockerell was confined to bed for three weeks with a fever. By 28 August 1812 they were in Sicily, where they stayed several months studying the chief Greek temples, drawing a reconstruction of the Temple of the Olympian Zeus, Agrigento. From December 1813 to February 1814 he was in Syracuse, Sicily working on drawings for a projected book on Aegina, Phigalia and the Bassae Frieze, he left to return to Athens where he continued work on the book, only to fall ill again on 22 August, he was still ill on 10 November, when he wrote to his sister. On his recovery he continued his travels, in January 1814 he was in Ioannina, where he had an audience with Ali Pasha. Returning to Athens, before going on in May 1814 to Zakynthos to attend the sale of the Bassae Frieze. Back in Athens he met an old school friend John Spencer Stanhope and his brother, between August and October he was struck down by the fever again, but was well enough to attend a celebration of the anniversary of the Battle of Salamis at Piraeus on 25 October. In December 1814 he returned to the Temple of Aphaea for a fortnight to check and correct his drawings. In a letter of 23 December 1814 he details his re-discovery of entasis, he enclosed a sketch for Robert Smirke of one of the Parthenon columns showing its outline.