Gervase Wheeler

Gervase Wheeler (1815–1889) was a British architect of the Victorian era who designed homes in the United States. Wheeler moved to the U.S. in 1846 or 1847 and stayed until the 1860s, after which he returned to London.[1]

Gervase Wheeler
BornCirca 1815
England
DiedJanuary 1st, 1889
OccupationArchitect

Wheeler is best known for publishing architectural pattern books Rural Homes (1851) and Homes for the People (1855).[1] These books include house plans as illustrations, while the prose focuses on architectural best practices and Wheeler's personal opinions about American culture and aesthetics.

Wheeler's father, who was also named Gervase, worked as a manufacturer of gold, silver and gilded jewelry from 1832 to 1844. London directories indicate he worked at 28 Bartlett's Buildings in Holborn, then just outside London.[1]

In 1855, he boasted that "the desire to build, to have a home of one's own is implanted in the breast of every American, and I fancy statistics would show that the number of those who own homesteads in this country far exceeds England."[2]

Buildings designed

References
  1. GERVASE WHEELER: MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY BRITISH ARCHITECT IN AMERICA University of Pennsylvania thesis, 1988
  2. Ryan, Mary P. (1985). The Empire of the Mother: American Writing About Domesticity, 1830–1860. Harrington Park Press. p. 108.

Bibliography

Renée Tribert and James F. O’Gorman, Gervase Wheeler: A British Architect in America, 1847–1860 (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2012).


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