Known as Ted. Architect, Q.M., Lg. Hon., O.B.E.
Born: 1879
Died: 8th May 1955 in Graveley, Herts
Funeral at Roman Catholic cathedral Welwyn Garden City
Became Catholic in 1914. Married to Elsie. 2/3 Daughters.
Military
Fought in the Second (?) Boer War under Lord Roberts.
On the 12th June 1915, Ted obtained his aviators’ certificate as a Lieutenant in a Maurice Farman biplane, at the British Flying School , Le Crotoy, France (ref. here). He later became a Flying Instructor.
As Squadron Leader, Ted served under Eisenhower as a ‘Monument Man‘ during WW2, apparently one of three involved in the Normandy Landings in 1944 (see below). We think his expertise in church architecture was of particular importance.
References to Ted on the internet:
JSTOR: Memoir of the Ranking Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Officer in the ETO during World War IIJanet Flanner, Annals of Crime, “The Beautiful Spoils,” The New Yorker, March 8, 1947, p. 38
Excerpt: “… ANNALS OF CRIME about art treasures looted by the Nazis. Article deals with the creation of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Division; its personnel, their work in finding & restoring art treasures to their rightful owners Monuments men were present during the invasion of Normandy They were Major Bancel LaFarge, U.S.A. & Lt. George Stout, U.S.N.R. & one Englishman, Squadron Leader J. E. Dixon-Spain, R. A. F. In the autumn on 1945, shortly after the German capitulation, the staff swelled to 84 officers & men. The chief adviser was the Slade Professor of Fine Arts from Cambridge University, Lt. Col. Geoffrey Webb. Some of the luminaries of the earlier American Monuments men were Lt. Lamont, Moore, Lt. Sheldon Keck. Lt. Calvin Hathaway, Capt. Everett Lesley, Pfs. Lincoln Kirstein, Capt. Robert Posey, Capt. Walker Hancock, Lt. James Rominer, Walter Huchthausen, and Capt. Ralph H. Hammett … ”
from High Art and National Socialism by Monika Ginzkey Puloy in the Journal of the History Colloections 10, No. 2 (1998)
“The optimistic programme outlined early in 1944 for the MFA&A envisaged a well-structured Allied advisory staff headed by a lieutenant-colonel with sixteen majors, assisted by a number of field outfits, each with a minimum of twelve junior officers, plus an officer attached to the HQ_ of each army, with three more officers assisted by six enlisted men to ensure a constant flow of information from the front.67 They would all dash about Europe in trucks and jeeps, armed with cameras and typewriters, sending constant reports to the rear. What actually seems to have happened was that about a fortnight after the Normandy landing, two MFA&A officers, Captain Bancel LaFarge and Lieutenant George Stout, and one Englishman, Squadron Leader J. E. Dixon-Spain, set out, without back-up or equipment, explaining and persuading their way into action in order to make a start on salvaging the art treasures of Europe.68 By the summer’s end, three further Americans and two more British MFA&A officers had joined them. The amazing accomplishment of these eight men, who at first had to make their way by ‘riding on anything from the regimental laundry trucks to liberated bicycles’, ended in the fragmentary arrival of the Allies’ full war-time art group, which, despite lofty ambitions, never reached more than about a dozen men up to the end of hostilities. None the less, they scoured France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg and Germany ‘with unbelievable efficacy and ubiquity and actually inspected 3,145 monuments and archives, or what was left of them’.”
The Monuments Men is to be filmed by George Clooney:
from the Catholic Pamphlets Website: “John Edward Dixon-Spain, O.B.E., F.R.I.B.A., was also the son of a parson; he was the architect of many public buildings in various parts of the world. He became a Catholic at the beginning of the first World War, and in the second was Fine Arts Officer with the First United States and Second British Armies from Normandy to the Rhine …”
Architecture
- Gaumont Cinema, Streatham
- New Gallery Cinema, Regent St.
- St Joan of Arc
- St Alphage’s Hendon
- St Hugh of Lincoln, Letchworth
- Qaer-El-Aini Hospital and Medical School, Cairo
- City Hall, Northumberland Road/College Street, Newcastle upon Tyne
- The Rock Hotel, Gibraltar
————————————–
From ENGLISH HERITAGE REVIEW OF DIOCESAN CHURCHES
2005 (EXTRACT)
St Joan of Arc, in Farnham
John Edward Dixon-Spain (1878-1955) went into partnership with Charles Nicholas in 1905, and the two men remained together throughout their careers. Dixon-Spain was the son of an Anglican vicar but converted to Roman Catholicism in 1914. His best known works are the Quasr el Aini State Hospital, Cairo, Newcastle Public Hall and Baths, the Rock Hotel, Gibraltar, and the Church of St Joan of Arc, Farnham. He also designed a number of film studios and, after 1945, was chiefly involved with designing RC primary and secondary schools. His obituary in the RIBA Journal says He was a great worker, devoted to architecture, and his standards both for himself and others were very high. With his passing the profession has lost an architect of great ability and unerring judgement. He was a man of complete integrity whose quiet manner masked a very strong character which was illuminated by a slightly sardonic wit.
It is likely that Dixon-Spain only built two churches, of which the more important is the one at Farnham. His other church, St Alphage, Hendon, never received its intended campanile and was, in any case, damaged in the war. The Church of St Joan of Arc is built in red brick with a steeply pitched tiled roof and tall, open-arched, campanile. The style is, loosely speaking, Romanesque, but the pitch of the roof and form of the campanile break away from this tradition. The cubic volumes of the building are emphasised by the plain surfaces and crisp lines. The “formal yet vigorous” statue of St Joan over the entrance to the narthex is the work of Roger de Villiers.
Inside, the church has white walls and the windows are filled with clear glass, something that Father Robo, who commissioned the building, was anxious to maintain. In contrast to the plainness of the structure, it contains a number of fine fittings. The paving in the sanctuary, of Roman stone with large porphyry star, is now hidden under carpet, but the gilded baldacchino over the altar can still be seen. The 17th century gilt wood reredos, on the other hand, that was once beautifully framed by the apsidal niche in the east wall, is no longer in place. A small crucifix, made by a local artist, now hangs in the niche. The two statues in niches to either side of the High Altar are by Vernon Hill, as are the statues in the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin (completed 1935) and the Chapel of St Catherine and St Margaret (completed 1937). Finished before either of these chapels, however, was the Baptistery with its fine Sienese marble fittings and bronze screen. The painting of the Baptism of Christ that hangs behind the font is the work of a Catholic artist, Geoffrey Burnand. There is a grassy expanse to the west of the church, with an avenue of cherry trees leading up to the hedged ‘piazza’ in front of the main entrance.
SOURCES: Obituaries, Builder, 13 May 1955 and RIBA Journal, 1954-5, 62;
Etienne Robo, The Story of A Catholic Parish (1938); Dr Michael Straiton, St Joan of Arc – The Saint and her Church in Farnham (2005).
STATEMENT OF IMPORTANCE
The Church of St Joan of Arc is one of the best works of John Edward Dixon-Spain and, as far as I know, the only complete church built to his design. Although the style of the church is traditional, there is nothing slavish in the way the architect makes use of earlier forms. In fact, with its sharply defined cubic shapes and open-arched campanile, it is unlike any other church I have seen. The west front of the church is further enhanced by the formality of its setting with its hedged ‘piazza’ and avenue of cherry trees leading towards the main door. In my view this church certainly deserves inclusion on the government List of Buildings of Special Architectural and Historical Interest.
————————————–
From A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 5
” … A mission church in East Road, Burnt Oak, dedicated to St. Paul and served from St. John, West Hendon, was consecrated in 1904; the building, which was of corrugated iron, had formerly been occupied by Burnt Oak National school. (fn. 89) It ceased to be used for worship in 1927, when the church of ST. ALPHAGE, Burnt Oak, was built in Montrose Avenue, as the centre of a new parish which covered the Watling estate; in 1970 the living was in the gift of the bishop of London. (fn. 90) The architect of the church, a plain brick building with a basilican plan in the Early Christian style, was J. E. Dixon-Spain; the church was restored in 1952 after war-damage. (fn. 91) … “
————————————–
from Architects in Egypt: A Preliminary Bibliography
Compiled by Omar Khalidi
C. NICHOLAS AND J.E. DIXON-SPAIN, ARCHITECTS
“Qaer-El-Aini Hospital and Medical School Competition: First Premiated Design, C. Nicholas and J.E. Dixon-Spain, Architects.” 1923. In Architects’ Journal 57, pp.532-37.
“Qaer el-Ain Hospital Competition.” 1921. Architects’ Journal 53, pp. 485-486.
————————————–
from Survey of London: volumes 31 and 32
No. 24 Golden Square
This site, the northernmost of those on the west side of Gelding Close allotted to Symball by the partition of 1675 (fig. 18), was the first to be developed in Golden Square and now contains its oldest surviving building. Although the house was not rated until 1686, it is clear from other evidence that building, possibly by Andrew Laurence or ‘Mr. Shaw’, had begun as early as April 1675. (ref. 123) Colonel Thomas Sackville was the first occupant. Later occupants include Lord George Howard (1694–5), who later lived at No. 34, John Hanbury (1706–7) and Orlando Bridgeman (1716–22). (ref. 28) From 1724 to 1788 this house, with the adjoining No. 23, was successively the Portuguese and then the Bavarian legation (see above, sub No. 23). In 1788 Nos. 23 and 24 Golden Square, with their back premises, gardens and stables extending to Warwick Street, were bought by Bishop James Talbot for the erection of a new Roman Catholic chapel. The present Warwick Street church was shortly afterwards built behind the two houses, No. 23 being let to tenants and No. 24 being retained as the church presbytery.
Except during the years 1832–53, No. 24 has been in continuous use by the priests serving the Warwick Street church. The Reverend James Archer, a celebrated preacher, lived here from 1794 to 1825. (ref. 72) In 1832 the priests moved out and the church trustees let the house on a twentyone-year lease for commercial use, at a rent of £110 per annum (only £10 more than the rent paid by Lord Masham for No. 21 in 1715). One of the ground-floor rooms at the back of No. 24, adjoining the church sacristy, was bricked off from the house and not included in the lease. (ref. 124) In 1854 the priests returned to the house. In 1959 the interior of the house was altered and improved to the designs of the architects Nicholas and Dixon-Spain. (ref. 125)
No. 24, with a much altered carcase of about the same date as No. 23, has a front in the style of the 1720’s, four storeys high and three windows wide, faced with stock bricks and dressed with red rubbers (Plate 123b). The sashed windows have exposed frames, slightly recessed in plain openings with jambs and segmental arches of red brick, and there is a narrow cornice of cut or moulded red brick below the attic storey. The doorway, on the right of the ground-storey windows, has a sixpanelled door and a radial fanlight of wood, set in a plain round-arched opening.
————————————–
A view of the City Hall, Northumberland Road/College Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, taken in 1930. The City Baths adjoin the City Hall, to the left.
The City Hall was designed by C. Nicholas and J.E. Dixon Spain, c.1928
————————————–
The Roman Catholic Church of St. Hugh of Lincoln which although quite massive, is set back from the street reducing the effect. By Nicholas and Dixon Spain started 1938 and completed 1962.
————————————–
The Rock Hotel, Gibraltar
Ted was also responsible for some of the interior of Hovenden House, Fleet, Holbeach. While this is not significant in any general sens, the house was frequented by Ted’s great great nephews as they attended their maternal grandfather for Christmas services during the 1990s.
from Recent English Domestic Architecture, Google Books we find this reference:
7 Comments