PUGIN, AUGUSTUS WELBY NORTHMORE 1852) , English architect, son of Augustus Charles Pugin (1762 1832), a Frenchman who settled in London as an architectural draughtsman, was born in Store Street, Bedford Square, on Mar. I, 1812, and died on Sept. 14, 1852, at Ramsgate. He was edu cated at Christ's Hospital and in his father's office, where he helped to prepare a large series of works on the Gothic buildings of England. All through his life he made numerous drawings and sketches, in pen and ink or with sepia monochrome, perfect in their delicacy and precision of touch. After his reception into the Roman Catholic Church in 1833, he became a leader in the English Gothic revival. In 1837-43 he assisted Sir Charles Barry by working out the details of the designs for the new Houses of Parliament at Westminster; and though his exact share was the subject of bitter controversy after both he and Barry were dead, there is no doubt that the excellence of the details was partly due to him and to his training of the masons and carvers. Many of his executed works suffered from the fact that his designs were altered, both by cutting down their proportions and by introducing shams, such as plaster groining and even cast-iron carving. The cathedral of St. George at Southwark, and
the church in Farm Street, Berkeley Square, London, are melan choly instances of this. The cathedral of Killarney and the chapel of the Benedictine monastery of Douai best express the origi nal conception. Pugin was very broad in his love for the mediaeval styles, but on the whole preferred the Perpendicular of the 15th century as being best suited to modern requirements. He used this with success in his own house at Ramsgate and in the stately Adare Hall in Ireland built for Lord Dunraven.
In 1836 Pugin published his Contrasts; or a Parallel between the Architecture of the 15th and 19th centuries; True Principles of Christian Architecture (1840 ; Glossary of Ecclesiastical Orna ment ; and Treatise on Chancel Screens and Rood Lofts (1851). He was a skilful etcher.
See B. Ferrez, Recollections of A. W. Pugin and his Father (1861) ; Paul Waterhouse, "The Life and Work of Welby Pugin" in the Archi tectural Review, iii., iv. (1898).