CHAMBERS, SIR WILLIAM (1726-1796), British archi tect, was the grandson of a rich merchant who had financed the armies of Charles XII., but was paid in base money, and whose son remained in Sweden many years endeavouring to obtain re dress. In 1728 the latter returned to England and settled at Ripon, where William, who was born in Stockholm, was educated. At the age of 16 he became supercargo to the Swedish East India Company, and, voyaging to Canton, made drawings of Chinese architecture, furniture and costume which served as basis for his Designs for Chinese Buildings, etc. (1757). Two years later he quitted the sea to study architecture seriously, and spent a long time in Italy, devoting special attention to the buildings of classical and Renaissance architects. He also studied under Clerisseau in Paris, with whom, and with the sculptor Wilton, he lived at Rome. In 1755 he returned to England where his first im portant commission was a villa for Lord Bessborough at Roe hampton, but he made his reputation by the grounds he laid out and the buildings he designed at Kew, among them being the pagoda in the gardens, between and 1762 for Augusta, princess dowager of Wales. He published (1759) a Treatise on Civil Architecture and in 1772 a Dissertation on Oriental Garden ing, which attempted to prove the inferiority of European to Chinese landscape gardening. As a furniture designer and in ternal decorator he is credited with the creation of that "Chinese Style" which was for a time furiously popular, although Thomas Chippendale (q.v.) had published designs in that manner at a somewhat earlier date. He became architect to the king and queen, comptroller of his majesty's works, and afterwards sur veyor-general. In 1775 he was appointed architect of Somerset House, his greatest monument, at a salary of £2,000 a year. He also designed town mansions for Earl Gower at Whitehall and Lord Melbourne in Piccadilly, built Charlemont House, Dublin, and Duddingston House, near Edinburgh. He designed the market house at Worcester, was employed by the earl of Pembroke at Wilton, by the duke of Marlborough at Blenheim, and by the duke of Bedford in Bloomsbury. Although his practice was mainly classic, he made Gothic additions to Milton Abbey in Dorset. Sir William numbered among his friends Dr. Johnson, Goldsmith, Sir Joshua Reynolds, David Garrick and Dr. Burney.