Richard Popplewell Pullen

• Born         27 March 1825. Knaresborough, Yorkshire
• Married     1859, Mary, sister of William Burges
• Died          30 April 1888 Brighton.

Richard Popplewell Pullan was born at Knaresborough on 27 March 1825 and was articled to Richard Lane in Manchester.  While in Lane's office he was subsequently acquainted with John Lowe and Alfred Waterhouse who was five years his junior.

In 1853 he worked with Sir Matthew Digby Wyatt and Owen Jones on the Byzantine and medieval courts at the Crystal Palace and from 1854 onwards made exploratory expeditions to the east, the first important one being in 1856 when he assisted Charles Newton with the excavations at Halikarnassos. In parallel he commenced independent practice as an architect first coming into prominence when he was placed second in the competition for Lille Cathedral in 1855. From at least 1859 he was closely associated with William Burges whose sister Mary he married in that year. From 1862 to 1869 Pullan was employed by the Society of Dilettanti on excavations at Teos and Priene and at Gulpinar in Turkey. While engaged on that work he made intensive studies of the Byzantine architecture in that area, joining forces with the Frenchman Charles Texier to publish 'L'Architecture Byzantine' in 1864 and 'The Principles Ruins of Asia Minor' in 1865.

Pullan maintained an office at 15 Clifford's Inn London and after his return from the east entered most of the major competitions and was invited to take part in a number of limited ones including that for Truro, but without success. His few executed works are mainly on the Continent, and much of his time appears to have been devoted to his books on Asia Minor (1876), eastern cities and Italian towns (1879) and a considerable number of books on church architecture, decoration and furnishing from 1873 onwards. On Burges's' death in 1881 the Pullans inherited Tower House, on which Pullan published a book in 1886. He also inherited Burges's practice, and with Burges's assistant, John Starling Chapple, he completed the work in hand and published several folios of Burges's drawings in 1883-87. He hoped to retain the patronage of the 3rd Marquess of Bute for the unbuilt Byzantine church at Troon - subsequently built at Galston - but the Marquess found him 'rather a brute' and appointed Robert Rowand Anderson instead.

In his last years Pullan suffered severely from bronchitis. He died at Brighton, 30 April 1888.

Obituary :  Builder Volume 54 5 May 1888 Page 319 and 12 May 1888 Page 341
Obituary : RIBA Transactions N S vol5 1890 Page 249-254.