Frederick Wheeler

Frederick Wheeler (1853–1931) (FRIBA) was a British architect, born in Brixton, Surrey, in October 1853. His parents were Christopher and Mary Ann Wheeler. He was articled to Charles Henry Driver (1832–1900), whose offices were at 7 Parliament Street, London SW1, and who is best known as the architect for the Victoria Embankment and Abbey Mills.

Wheeler began his career as an architect working on a number of commissions in south London. In 1880 Sussex House, on the corner of Tooting Bec Gardens and Ambleside Avenue, was constructed as the Sussex House School (now residential). He designed a number of terraces around Mitcham Lane and Streatham station in what Pevsner calls a 'competent Queen Anne style'. At that time he favoured the use of dark red brick often carved into swags and floral designs. He was the architect for the 1880 Sussex House, on Garrads Rd, Wandsworth

In 1891 Wheeler lived with his wife Elizabeth (born in Dublin) at 21 Carfax, Horsham, and in 1897 he designed the Westminster bank in the town's main square – one of his many commissions for this bank.

Wheeler's best known work is St Paul's Studios on Talgarth Road, London, W14 in 1890 which have much in common with the hundreds of other domestic studios constructed towards the end of the 19th century. St Paul's studios were built by Wheeler for James Fairless, a fine‑art publisher, to house bachelor artists. Wheeler had previously built a similar house on the same street, at number 151, for Sir Coutts Lindsay, founder of the Grosvenor Gallery, which was the main showroom for artists of the aesthetic movement such as Whistler. Sir Edward Burne-Jones painted his last canvas there, and his son, also a painter, lived there for many years.

The spaces for art and life at St Paul's Studios comprised three rooms on the ground floor, a studio 30 feet long and 22 ft wide (9.1 m × 6.7 m) with a 20-foot-high (6.1 m) ceiling on the top floor, and a basement flat (which was originally for the housekeeper).

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