Stiff Leadbetter

Stiff Leadbetter (c.1705– 18 August 1766) was a British architect and builder, one of the most successful architect–builders of the 1750s and 1760s, working for many leading aristocratic families.

Career

Leadbetter’s career began when he was apprenticed as a carpenter in 1719, and he worked for the next decade or so as a journeyman carpenter. By 1731 he had settled in Eton, marrying Elizabeth Hill (b. c.1709), daughter of a London timber merchant; and he worked as carpenter to Eton College from 1740. Leadbetter leased Eton College Wharf as his principal home and workshop from 1744. He was employed as a builder in his own right by the 1740s, and in the following two decades he worked both as a designer but primarily as a builder of many new country houses, hospitals and speculative urban development. In 1756 Leadbetter was appointed as surveyor of St Paul's Cathedral, and through this position also gained many ecclesiastical commissions.

Many of his buildings were built within a close distance of Eton.

He was an innovative and possibly influential planner at a time when the design of the British country house was undergoing rapid change. His country houses, though plain in their interior and external detail, are imaginative, varied, and above all practical in their planning.

As a builder he carried out the designs of other architects, notably Robert Adam and James Stuart.

Leadbetter’s patron was Francis Godolphin, second earl of Godolphin, and through him, Leadbetter was introduced to and employed by the dukes of Portland, Marlborough, and Bedford, the countesses of Essex and Pomfret, Lord Foley, Admiral Boscawen, Sir John Elvill, and others.

Personal life

Leadbetter and his wife Elizabeth had five children in their short marriage, before Elizabeth died in 1737. Four of Leadbetter’s children died before him.

Buildings designed, built or modified by Leadbetter (incomplete list)

• Bulstrode Park
• Elvills, Surrey
• Fulham Palace
• Hatchlands Park
• Langley Park
• Newton Park, Newton St Loe
• Nuneham House
• Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford
• Shardeloes

Sources

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) entry by Giles Worsley
• Worsley, Giles, 1991, "Stiff but not dull" Country Life 25th July 1991 (article about Elvills, Surrey)

External links

• Newton Park, Newton St Loe
• Langley Park
• Langley Park
• Shardeloes