Percy Richard Morley Horder

• Birth date            18 November 1870 at Torquay
• Marriage              6 April 1897 to Rosa Catherine Apperly or Apperley at Acre Street Meeting House, (Plymouth Brethren) Stroud
• Death date          7 October 1944 at the Stone House, Stone, Dartford, Kent
• Burial                 13 October 1944 at 3.13pm at East Meon Church, Hampshire 

Percy Morley Horder added Richard as another middle name. From about 1909 onwards he intermittently hyphened his name as Morley-Horder.

Percy Morley Horder was born in Torquay, Devon, on 18 November 1870. His father was the Revd. William Garrett Horder (1841-1922), a Congregational minister and hymnologist, and his mother, Mary Anne Morley (1841-1915). Like many successful Victorian ministers Garrett Horder married above himself; his wife's family, the Morleys of Leeds, belonging to one of the most influential of Congregational families. By 1880 Garrett Horder and his family had moved to Wood Green, London and from 1881-1886 Percy attended the City of London School, one of the first to move to the school's new premises on the Thames Embankment.

Morley Horde began his architectural career in 1886 when he was articled to George Devey and James Williams of Devey & Williams, probably through the influence of his uncle, Samuel Morley. Morley was a Liberal MP, Congregationalist, and temperance supporter whose residence, Hall Place, Kent, had been designed by George Devey. However, Morley Horder’s association with George Davey proved short-lived.  In November 1886, Devey died, leaving James Williams to continue his practice. Goodhart-Rendel's considered Devey to have been "one of the three most influential domestic architects in England of the nineteenth century", the first to run counter to what was customarily expected of architectural composition, for Devey was a pioneer of the English Free Style. Thus, Horder was placed at the heart of the English vernacular revival, classically tempered.

Sources generally indicate that Horder was in partnership with James Williams from 1895, (assumed to be Devey's former partner in the firm of Devey & Williams, who had taken responsibility for Horder’s training following Deveys death). While both men had offices at 99 Bond Street in 1895 evidence of a formal partnership has yet to be found. Certainly, Williams was in practice at Victoria Street by 1899 while Horder remained at Bond Street. Horder worked alone until after World War I. when he was joined by Briant Alfred Poulter from 1919 to 1925 as Morley Horder & Poulter, and with Verner O. Rees as Horder & Rees from 1926 to 1929.

His relationship with professional bodies was never easy. He was reinstated a member of Architectural Association in 1902 {B 29 Nov 1902 page 495] and was elected FRIBA on 4 January 1904, proposed by C E Mallows, E G Dawber, W H Seth-Smith. He resigned from the RIBA in 1926, resuming his membership from 1936 until his death. He became a member of the Art-Workers' Guild in 1916 but resigned in 1930. He exhibited at the Royal Academy in London between 1894 and 1922.

Morley Horder commenced independent practice in London in 1890.  In his first five years he received very few commissions. His first, in 1891, was a Congregational Mission Hall for Gravesend; his second, in 1892, a country house at Hill Wootton near Kenilworth for Caleb Williams. In 1893 he was described as architect to the London Congregational Union and during his career was responsible for churches at Leyton, Muswell Hill, Penge, Bushey and Brondesbury Park.

With his marriage to Katie Apperly of Stroud in 1897 there emerged a new strand to Horder’s commissions. The Apperly family were well-connected locally, providing several domestic commissions including Alfred Apperley's Rodborough Court, C.P. Allen's Farmhill Park (demolished), William Marling's Stanley Park. In addition, he undertook work for Godsells & Sons Brewery, and the Stroud Brewery. In Kelly’s Directory for 1897 Morley Horder was listed as occupying 11 Lansdown in Stroud, but did not appear in the 1902 directory, by which time he had returned to London.

Morley Horder described himself as a specialist in domestic architecture and the restoration of old houses.  By the turn of the century, he had gained an excellent reputation for such work and could be relied upon to build homes at a reasonable cost. His numerous country houses were mostly in the Home Counties, the Cotswold's and Dorset. These included David Lloyd George's house Cliftondown [Pinfold Manor], which was bombed by the suffragettes in 1913 during construction. For most of his houses he favoured the Arts and Crafts treatment then popular, with gables, dormers, prominent chimneys, mullioned windows, leaded lights, inglenooks, brick fireplaces, and panelling; but rarely used half-timber.

With the completion of Cheshunt College Cambridge, erected in 1913-14, new opportunities arose in the field of higher education. Later work at Cambridge included Westcott House, extensions to Jesus College, and the large National Institute of Agricultural Botany (1919), where Horder adopted the classical vernacular of Wren, with steep roofs and bold chimneys. At Oxford his new buildings for Somerville College (1934) complied very skilfully with the local tradition in stone; and in his little Institute for Research in Agricultural Economics he ingeniously incorporated Regency houses in a simple design.

About the same time, he began work on the rebuilding of Boots Cash Chemist branches for Jesse Boot, those at Windsor (1914( and Bristol (1916( being among the earliest. His friendship with Sir Jesse Boot (later Lord Trent) led to the important commission for Nottingham University College, where in 1925-1928 he produced a great group of stone buildings in Italian Renaissance style. However, much of the credit for the design of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in Bloomsbury (1926–1929)  must be ascribed to his partner, Verner Owen Rees. Horder also built St Christopher's School at Letchworth, showrooms for the Tottenham District Power Company, and a village hall at Turnham Green.

Horder possessed the artistic temperament in excess: he cultivated a bohemian appearance and could exasperate his clients and contractors alike by his erratic, wayward, and unbusinesslike behaviour. In his office his pupils nicknamed him 'Holy Murder'. However, he managed to retain the goodwill of his patrons, and most of those who employed him professionally continued to entrust him with commissions and to recommend him to their friends.

Percy Morley Horder was married on 6 April 1897 to Rosa Catherine (Katie) (b. 1872/3), daughter of Ebenezer Apperley, dental surgeon, of Stroud, Gloucestershire; they had two daughters. Barbara Morley Horder (1898–1986) who became a noted actress. and Joanna Morley Horder born June 1917.

 He died at the Stone House, Stone, Dartford, Kent, on 7 October 1944 and was buried at East Meon Church, Hampshire. His wife survived him.

Address
1890-1894    Percy Morley Holder 99 Bond Street, London
1895             Percy Morley Holder, 99 New Bond Street London W (PO Directory)
1899             Percy Morley Holder, 118 New Bond Street London W (PO Directory)
1902             Percy Morley Holder, 148 New Bond Street London W
1917-1919    Percy Morley Horder FSA 3 Arlington Street, Piccadilly, London SW (Royal Academy)
1920-1924    Percy Morley Horder FSA 5 Arlington Street, Piccadilly, London SW (Royal Academy)

Residence
1897             Percy Morley Horder, architect, 11 Lansdown, Stroud, Gloucestershire (Kelly Directory)
1903-            6 (now 18) Hamilton Terrace, St John’s Wood London W
1917             40 Hamilton Terrace (Times -06-17 births)
1937-1944    Court House East Meon Hampshire

Death Notice    Times 11 October 1944 page 1
Obituary     Times 12 October 1944 page 7
Obituary     The Builder vol. 167, 20 October 1944 p.317
Obituary     RIBA Journal vol. 51, October 1944 p. 320
Obituary     RIBA Journal vol. 51, November 1944 pp. 24-25

Reference

•    Directory of British Architects 1834-1914. Compiled by Antonia Brodie, et al. Volume 1: A-K. London; New York: British Architectural Library, Royal Institute of British Architects/Continuum, 2001
•    M. S. Briggs, ‘Horder, Percy Richard Morley (1870–1944)’, rev. Catherine Gordon, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2011
•    Gray, A. Stuart. Edwardian architecture: a biographical dictionary. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., Ltd., 1985
•    Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720-1840
•    Dictionary of Scottish Architects 1660-1980
•    Parks & Gardens UK
•    Historic England - over 50 records relating to P. R. Morley Horder
•    British Listed Buildings - 38 records relating to P. R. Morley Horder
•    UK Modern House - 19 houses by P. R. Morley Horder