Philip Brannon

Philip Brannon (born 27 February 1817: Newport, Isle of Wight – died 11 June 1890: London) was an artist, engraver, writer, printer, architect and civil engineer. In the 1850s he wrote and illustrated various guidebooks to Southampton, Bournemouth and other south coast places. He designed the Church of the Saviour in Southampton (1859), and a concrete bridge over the River Axe (Lyme Bay) at Seaton, Devon (1877) which pioneered the use of the material. He was granted patents relating to the use of concrete in building design, and also for “navigable balloons”, of which he was a keen advocate.

As a young man, Brannon worked with his father, George Brannon (1784-1860), a printer, engraver and publisher, originally from Antrim in Ireland. George Brannon was the author and publisher of Vectis scenery, an illustrated guide to the Isle of Wight first published in 1821, which was reissued and adapted many times during the following decades. Philip Brannon contributed some engravings to later editions. He was active in the Ragged School movement and in the cause of Chartism on the island, retaining his left-leaning sympathies in later life (he campaigned for the Liberal interest while living in Southampton).

In the mid-1840s he married and moved to Southampton, where he set up as a printer, engraver, publisher and jobbing artist. As well as illustrating his own publications, he collaborated on a geological textbook, a book of maritime charts, a description of the Great Exhibition and a work on the design of shop fronts. He exhibited a series of watercolours depicting aerial views of Southampton in Roman, Tudor and modern times in 1856.

In 1850 Brannon published The Picture of Southampton, a guide to the town which he wrote and illustrated. This work, later entitled The stranger's guide and pleasure visitor's companion to Southampton and the surrounding country, went through more than twenty editions by the early 1870s. It provides a comprehensive survey of the town at the point of its transition from a spa resort to a major commercial port, and makes a plea for the conservation of historic architectural features, notably the old town walls, which were then under threat from development.

In the same year he published a companion work, The stranger's guide and pleasure visitor's companion to Netley Abbey, a description of the ruined Cistercian monastery at Netley near Southampton.

Brannon then turned his attention to the nearby seaside resort of Bournemouth. His Illustrated historical and picturesque guide to Bournemouth, issued in 1855, was soon expanded to include the nearby towns of Poole and Swanage (1856–58). The Bournemouth guide was the first substantial guidebook to the town: a 19th edition was published as Sydenham's Illustrated, Historical and Descriptive Guide to Bournemouth and surrounding district in 1893, although by that time it had been much revised and Brannon was no longer acknowledged as the author.

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