John Hayward (architect)

John Hayward (1807–1891) was a Gothic Revival architect based in Exeter, Devon, who gained the reputation as “the senior architect in the west of England”.

John Hayward was born in London on 26 September 1807, the son of a ‘house and ornament painter’, and related by marriage to Sir Charles Barry, the designer of the Palace of Westminster, with whom he served as pupil.

He was an accomplished painter and draughtsman; by 1826, he was exhibiting at the Royal Academy and, by 1834, he had left Barry and set up practice in Cathedral Yard, Exeter, Devon.

Hayward was official architect of The Exeter Diocesan Architectural Society, which meant that all new designs for the churches in the Exeter Diocese passed through him for approval, and a member of Cambridge Camden Society, later The Ecclesiological Society.

So popular was his work on local churches that St Andrew’s, Exwick was described by The Ecclesiologist in July 1842, as the “best specimen of modern church we have yet seen.”

This accolade soon led to further work; in Scotland, the Marchioness of Lothian commissioned Hayward to design St. John’s, Jedburgh in 1844, and in Oxfordshire he designed St. James' Church in Little Milton, Oxfordshire, to which he added the west tower in 1861.

But probably his most famous design was for The Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter. which opened in 1868 as a practical memorial to Prince Albert, and is the largest museum in the city.

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