John Whichcord Jr.

John Whichcord, Jr. (11 November 1823 – 9 January 1885) was an English architect, who designed several office buildings in London and, also, the Grand Hotel in Brighton.

He was born in Maidstone, Kent in 1823, the son of John Whichcord Snr, an architect who had designed several public buildings in Kent. John Jnr., after education at Maidstone and at King's College, London, became, in 1840, assistant to his father, and in 1844 a student at the Royal Academy, London. After a period of travel in Europe and the Middle East (1846–1850), and a tour in France, Germany, and Denmark (1850), he went into partnership (until 1858) with fellow architect Arthur Ashpitel.

With Ashpitel he carried out additions (1852) to Lord Abergavenny's house in Birling, Kent, and in 1858 built fourteen houses on the Mount Elliott estate at Lee in the same county (now in London). His subsequent work consisted largely of office premises in the City of London, such as 9 Mincing Lane, 24 Lombard Street and 8 Old Jewry; and Mansion House Chambers, the New Zealand Bank and the National Safe Deposit (all three in Queen Victoria Street, London), and Brown Janson & Co.'s bank, 32 Abchurch Lane.

He designed the Grand Hotel in Brighton and the Clarence Hotel in Dover (the latter demolished in 1949 after sustaining bomb damage during World War II), as well as St. Mary's Church and parsonage at Shortlands, near Bromley, Kent, where he also laid out the estate for building. One of Whichcord's best-known works was St Stephen's Club, Westminster (built 1874, demolished 1994), a classical building with boldly corbelled projections, facing Westminster bridge. He designed the internal fittings for the House of Parliament at Cape Town, South Africa. Whichcord was often employed as arbitrator in government matters, and he was one of the surveyors to the railway department of the Board of Trade.

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