Thomas Rayson

Rayson was born in Madras, India, on 5 December 1888, the second son of William John Rayson, who was then a railway engineer with the Locomotion Fabrication Plant for Indian Railways, and his wife Elizabeth A. English. The family returned to England in 1890 and Thomas’s father took over the Union Flag pub at 178 Lambeth Road.

In 1933 Rayson married Helen Hilton, and they had two children.

He enjoyed drawing and painting, and served as Chairman of the Oxford Art Society. He was also musical and ran a quartet with friends and played with the Oxford Orchestral Society.

He continued to work as well as draw and paint until ill health caused him to retire in 1973/4. He died at the Churchill Hospital, Oxford, on 28 January 1976.

Rayson served articles with Robert Curwen of Bishopsgate Street in London, and then studied under Professor Arthur Beresford Pite at the Brixton School of Building. He became ARIBA in 1918 and FRIBA in 1927.

Rayson first came to Oxford in 1910 as an assistant to the architect Nathaniel Harrison. He was unable to undertake active service in the First World as he had a collapsed lung. After spending time in Cambridge working on hospitals from 1916, in 1918 he was employed at the Ministry of Works, and was the site engineer of Witney Aerodrome in Oxfordshire.

He started his practice in Oxford in an office in Turl Street, but had moved to 15 Broad Street by 1922 and to 47 Broad Street by 1930. By 1926 he was Housing Architect to the Municipal Authorities at Witney and Tottenham, London, where he designed housing schemes.

Roundabouts, the house designed in c.1930 by Thomas Rayson for his family

In about 1930 he designed his own house called Roundabouts in The Ridings at the foot of Shotover.

In 1936 Rayson’s office at 47 Broad Street was one of the buildings demolished to make way for the New Bodleian Library (now the Weston Library), and he moved his office to 35 Beaumont Street. In the late 1940s he moved his office again, this time to 29 Beaumont Street.

Rayson, who is described by Geoffrey Tyack as “the last of Oxford’s Arts and Crafts-inspired architects”, disliked most modern architecture in Oxford, saying: “St. Catherine's is in brick. It shouldn’t be. St. Anne’s, Somerville, and St. Hugh’s – I should have liked them all to be in harmony with the Oxford tradition. The Law Library? Frankly I don’t understand it: why that great monolithic block with columns underneath. Two words describe a lot of modern building like a lot of modern painting and music: barren and empty. One longs for something to hang on to and enjoy.”

In 1966 he handed over his office at 29 Beaumont Street to his son Christopher Rayson, who was also an architect, and continued to work with him as a consultant.

The Oxford War Memorial in St Giles', Oxford, designed by Thomas Rayson and unveiled in 1921

• Job architect for the new Boswell’s building on the corner of Cornmarket and Broad Street (1912)
• The house “Shotover Edge” on Shotover Hill for Dr L. P. Jacks, the Master of Manchester College (1914)
• Council housing in Witney at Highworth Place in the Crofts, and at Hill Close on Oxford Road (1920s)
• Chester War Memorial, with Frederick Crossley (1921/2)
• Oxford War Memorial (1921)
• Civic Arts Association War Memorial
• Woodstock War Memorial, Oxfordshire (1920)
• Stanton St John War Memorial, Oxfordshire (1921)
• Cogges War Memorial, Oxfordshire
• Witney War Memorial, Oxfordshire
• The John Player Factory, Botanic Road, Dublin, with Philip Dalton Hepworth (1923)
• St Edward’s School Sanatorium, Oxford (by early 1920s)
• John Masefield’s theatre on Boars Hill, near Oxford (1924)
• Restoration of the former Plough Inn at 38 Cornmarket Street, Oxford (1925)
• Roundabouts, The Ridings, Oxford (1930s)
• Talbot House, Wellington College (1938)
• Restoration of 28 Cornmarket Street (1951)
• Headington School, Oxford, with Gilbert T. Gardner (1928–30)
• John Henry Brookes’ house at 195 The Slade, Oxford (1929)
• Remodelling of the interior of 75 High Street, Burford, Oxfordshire
• Substantial renovations to Cote House (1949–50)
• Extension at Keble College, with A.B. Knapp-Fisher (1955)
• Restoration of the Old Rectory, Epworth, Lincolnshire, the former home of John Wesley (1956)
• Restorations of Blenheim Palace (1950s/1960s)
• Extension to the Friends Meeting House, St Giles, Oxford (1958)
• Old Headington Village Hall (1959)
• Two extensions to Stone’s Almshouses in St Clement's, Oxford: Parson's Almshouses on the left (1960) and Mary Duncan Almshouses on the right (1964)
• 38 student rooms and two staff houses for Mansfield College, Oxford (1962)
• Rayson House, Eden Drive, Headington, Oxford (sheltered accommodation) (1964)
• Restoration of Wallingford Town Hall
• Numerous restorations to Oxfordshire churches, including Great Haseley, Cuddesdon, East Hendred, Ewelme, Fulbrook, Great Rollright, Ipsden, Lyford, Charney Bassett, North Leigh, North Moreton, Shipton-under-Wychwood, Oakley, Fyfield, Wootton by Woodstock, and St Giles' and St Peter in the East in Oxford itself.