Ernest George

Sir Ernest George RA (13 Jun 1839–1922) was an English architect, landscape and architectural watercolour painter, and etcher.

Born in London in 1839, Ernest George began his architectural training in 1856, under Samuel Hewitt, coupled with studies at the Royal Academy Schools 1857-1859. After a short period in the office of Allen Boulnois, he went on a sketching tour of France and Germany, which inspired him to the architectural style that would make him famous.

On his return to London, he set up an architectural practice in 1861 with Thomas Vaughan. They had their breakthrough in 1869, when Ernest George was contacted by the tea and spice importer and Member of Parliament Henry Peek (son of James Peek who started the biscuit business Peak Frean & Co). He was about to buy the village of Rousdon in Devon, and wanted George to build him a large mansion house south of the village, plus several other buildings. This complex became eventually known as the Rousdon Estate, and from 1930 to 1998 the George designed mansion house served as the private boarding school Allhallows College.

Vaughn suddenly died in 1869, forcing George to find another partner. He chose the young Harold Peto, mainly because of the Peto family's vast contact network in the building industry. During this partnership, George designed houses in London for the Cadogan Estate in Chelsea and Kensington. In 1881 they designed Stoodleigh Court at Tiverton for Thomas Carew. In 1891 they designed an extension to West Dean House for William James, creating the Oak Room, now Oak Hall in West Dean College.

In 1891, Harold Peto decided to leave London for health reasons, and to devote more time to his interests in garden design, at which point George made a former pupil, Alfred Bowman Yeates, his new partner.

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