Horatio Walter Lonsdale

Horatio Walter Lonsdale (1846-1919) was an English painter and designer.

Life and works

Lonsdale was born in Mexico in 1846. After training as an architect, Lonsdale established a long partnership with the architect William Burges, working with him as his principal artist on many of his major commissions, including Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral, Cardiff Castle, Castell Coch and Burges's Yorkshire churches. Lonsdale worked so closely with Burges's, particularly in the design of stained glass, that "it is often hard to say how much of any given design is Burges's and how much is (Lonsdale's) — designs were often initialled by both." He also designed the zodiac windows and celestial ceiling at Mount Stuart House. and the silver casket in which the heart of Burges's great patron, John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute was transported to Jerusalem for burial in 1900. Burges's biographer, Joseph Mordaunt Crook, sums up Lonsdale's career thus, "a draughtsman of exceptional precision, his best work was all for Burges. Without the master's control, much of his later work tends to be mechanical and vapid".

Sources

• Crook, J. Mordaunt (2013). William Burges and the High Victorian Dream. London, UK: Frances Lincoln. ISBN 978-0-7112-3349-2.
• Hannah, Rosemary (2012). The Grand Designer: Third Marquess of Bute. Birlinn. ISBN 9781780270272.
• Walker, Frank Arneil (2000). Argyll and Bute. The Buildings of Scotland. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300096705.