George Wightwick

George Wightwick
Born	26 August 1802 Flintshire, Wales
Died	9 July 1872 Portishead
Nationality	British
Occupation	Architect
Buildings	Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, Falmouth

George Wightwick (26 August 1802 – 9 July 1872) was a British architect based in Plymouth, and possibly the first architectural journalist.

In addition to his architectural practice, he developed his skills and the market for architectural journalism. His views of church design disagreed with those of churchmen with power to commission new churches and this work dropped off after he published his ideas in Weale's Quarterly papers on Architecture in 1844/5. He married twice but had no children and died at Portishead on 9 July 1872.

Wightwick was born in Alyn Bank, near Mold, Flintshire, Wales and trained in London under Edward Lapidge. Following a year of travel and study in Italy, he published Select Views of Roman Antiquities (1828) .

In the late 1820s, Wightwick moved to Plymouth, and worked with John Foulston, succeeding to Foulston's practice after six months. From then until 1852, when he retired to Bristol, he completed many public and domestic buildings, mostly in Plymouth, Devon and Cornwall.

Wightwick, who was a member of The Plymouth Institution (now The Plymouth Athenaeum), was well known in Plymouth as an architect and as an amateur actor and comedian.

He completed designs by Foulston for Bodmin County Lunatic Asylum and designed the Plymouth Mechanics' Institute, Athenaeum Terrace, the Esplanade, the Devon and Cornwall Female Orphan Asylum and the Post Office at Devonport.

In Devon, he designed Calverleigh Court, and Watermouth Castle, near Ilfracombe.

Among the buildings that he designed in Cornwall were country houses at Luxtowe in Liskeard and Trevarno, near Helston, Penquite at Golant and alterations to Tregrehan House at St. Blazey.

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