Thomas (1) Taylor

BASE RECORD

• Born      about 1819 at Dublin
• Died       1891 at Dublin  

Thomas Turner was born in Dublin about 1819, probably the second son of the iron founders and glass-house specialist Richard Turner and his wife Jane Goodshaw. He was articled in that city to the Welsh architect Jacob Owen, architect to the Board of Works, probably about 1835, but moved to Belfast in the early 1840s as senior assistant to Charles Lanyon, County Surveyor of Antrim, and remained with him for ten years. Turner commenced independent practice in 1861 at 8-9 Donegal Place, Belfast, 1861, and the same year he opened a Glasgow office at 204 West George Street to deal with a large commission for the Houldsworths at Coltness, Lanarkshire but retained his interest in the Irish partnership at the same time. Turner died unmarried in 1891. He was an accomplished neo-classical and Italian Renaissance designer but rather less successful in Scots baronial and neo-Jacobean. He was described by Robert Young, who shared an office with him as a good-looking amiable man, easy and well-bred and 'a favourite at once in any company he entered'.

He was an inveterate participator in competitions, entering at least fifteen between 1849 and 1877. These included four in  Greater Manchester 

• 1859       Manchester Assize Court                                      Competition design - unplaced
• 1863       Lancashire Insurance Company Limited                  Competition design – placed first
• 1864       Bolton Town Hall                                               Competition design - placed second
• 1866       Manchester Exchange                                          Competition design - unplaced