John Brandon-Jones

John Brandon-Jones (18 September 1908 – 1 May 1999) was a British architect. His work was heavily influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, of which he was a noted architectural historian.

Brandon-Jones was born in Hendon into a family with a strong Unitarian tradition, and was christened by the Rev Charles Voysey (with whose grandson Brandon-Jones would later enter into an architectural partnership). Brandon-Jones' father was an art teacher, while his mother studied dress at the Central School of Arts and Crafts and wrote books on embroidery.

The family moved to Harpenden and Brandon-Jones' father was engaged as an art teacher at Berkhamsted School, and where Brandon-Jones was enrolled in 1919. However, after contracting tuberculosis in 1921, he was sent to Bembridge School on the Isle of Wight, which most likely influenced his decision to become an architect. While at Bembridge he learned his skills in wood working, engraving and printing, as well as becoming passionate about building and sailing boats.

At the age of 18, he was apprenticed to the architect, Oswald Milne (former assistant to Edwin Lutyens), and in 1929 attended the Architectural Association School of Architecture. However, he found the new Le Corbusier style of Modern Architecture unappealing, preferring to honour continuity with the past in his designs. Before adopting the Arts and Craft idiom he designed a small development of Moderne houses for Charles Wicksteed who had also created Wicksteed Park on the same plot of land.

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