CHAPTER XIV - Royal College of Organists
This building was erected in 1874–5 to
accommodate the National Training
School for Music (Plate 71a; fig. 36).
As early as 1853 the Prince Consort had contemplated
housing a musical society on the 1851
Exhibition Commissioners' estate, where the
Royal Academy of Music had asked for a site for
a 'Music Hall'. (ref. 1) Nothing came of this but in 1865
(Sir) Henry Cole took the matter up again through
the Society of Arts, which appointed a committee
under the Duke of Edinburgh to work for the
establishment of a national training scheme for
music. During the next eight years various
attempts were made to effect this by the proposed
removal of the Royal Academy of Music to
South Kensington, first to the Museum and then
to the Albert Hall. But, like the Prince Consort,
Cole and his supporters wanted the teaching
institutions at South Kensington to be nationwide
in scope and sustained by an extensive scheme
of scholarships rather than by private pupils, and
the Academy proved resistant to this transformation
of its character. (ref. 2) Finally in May 1873 the
Duke's committee determined to build a training
school independent of the Academy. The cost
was expected to be between £15,000 and
£20,000, to be raised by debentures on the
security of the site and building. (ref. 3) Already,
however, Cole's friend and fellow-member of the
Society of Arts, the great speculative builder
C. J. Freake, had told Cole of his intention to
build the school at his own risk, if the Commissioners
would provide the site, and the informal
work of planning a building had begun. (ref. 4)
(Cole's diary mentions various musical entertainments
staged by the Freakes at their house, No.
21 Cromwell Road.) The site west of the Albert
Hall recommended itself partly as 'one which, for
strange sounds caused by practising, will be the
least inconvenient to the neighbourhood'. (ref. 5) In
July the Society of Arts accepted the arrangement,
and turned its main effort to financing scholarships
at the school. (ref. 3) By November the site had
been leased to Freake by the Commissioners for
99 years at £80 per annum, (ref. 6) and the foundation
stone was laid by the Duke of Edinburgh in
December. (ref. 3)
The architect, who gave his services free, (ref. 7) was
Lieutenant H. H. Cole, R.E. (1843–1916),
Henry Cole's eldest son. (A younger son, Alan,
was to be honorary secretary of the school.)
Lieutenant Cole had returned in 1871 from
India, where he had been Superintendent of the
Archaeological Survey, North-West Provinces,
and his previous architectural work seems to have
been confined mainly to publications on ancient
Indian architecture and archaeology, and the
preparation of casts for the Indian section of the
South Kensington Museum, which he catalogued. (ref. 8)
(fn. a)
He was not left to design the school on
his own. It was evolved in consultation with his
father, (ref. 14) and was subjected to criticism by
members of the Science and Art Department. (ref. 15)
A committee of management was appointed in
July 1873 (the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince
Christian, Lord Clarence Paget, Sir William
Anderson, Generarl F. Eardley Wilmot, Major
J. F. D. Donnelly and Sir Henry Cole), of which
the Duke of Edinburgh and Sir Henry Cole
formed a superintending sub-committee. (ref. 16) A
protégé of Sir Henry and teacher at the National
Art Training School, F. W. Moody, designed the
panels of sgraffito-work, which were executed by
his students. (ref. 17) Like other buildings under the
Department's influence its form developed gradually
through the making and revision of models. (ref. 18)
The school was deliberately designed to contrast
with the Albert Hall, (ref. 19) and the favourite
red brick and terra-cotta of South Kensington
were therefore abandoned. There was, however,
some thought of linking the two buildings by a
bridge, an idea given up soon after the opening. (ref. 20)
Figure 36:
Royal College of Organists, formerly National Training School for Music
The Department's aesthetic philosophy appears
in the 'sound principles' guiding the use of plasterwork.
This was employed in decorative panels
rather than in architectural mouldings, which
Lieutenant Cole thought to be 'against good taste
and truth'. Large windows were provided to give
the necessary light. The outcome was more
piquant and unusual than might have been
expected from the disingenuous profession of its
architect, who thought that 'the old English style
of the fifteenth century, when large windows and
plaster ornament prevailed, seems to be exactly
suitable'. (ref. 21) As has recently been remarked, the
building 'has a feeling of having strayed from
Istanbul', (ref. 22) with its flat oriel windows on
conspicuous brackets, while another precedent
might be found in Venice. Rather strangely, this
foreign-seeming aspect of the building was
evidently not noticed. The Graphic, indeed,
thought it more nineteenth than fifteenth century
in character, and pronounced the building 'novel,
instructive and satisfactory'. (ref. 23)
The Building News,
similarly admiring its 'peculiarly novel and
decorative character', nevertheless detected 'semiGothic
features'. The careful colour-scheme of
the front was originally a little more variegated
than now. (ref. 7) Inside, Sir Henry Cole recommended
'great simplicity', (ref. 24) and the interiors are very
plain.
The cost of the building to Freake—probably
some £10,000, or 1s. per cubic foot—was considerably
less than the committee had envisaged
for its own project. (ref. 25) Some economy may have
been effected by making the work wait on the
phases of Freake's other house-building. (ref. 26) By
Freake's direction the builder was nominally his
associate, J. Waller, probably the executant of
alterations then being made to Clarence House
for the Duke of Edinburgh. (ref. 27) The building was
finished in 1875 and opened, under (Sir) Arthur
Sullivan as Principal, in May 1876. (ref. 28)
Its use was given free for five years by Freake,
whose ground rent was remitted by the Commissioners
for the same period. By 1878 Freake
had made over all his rights in the building to the
Prince of Wales, (ref. 29) who was interesting himself in
the extension of the school's work. In 1882 the
school was closed to make way for the newlyfounding
Royal College of Music (and in the
same year Freake's work for the school procured
him a baronetcy on Gladstone's recommendation (ref. 30) ).
The new college was inaugurated here by
the Prince of Wales in May 1883. (ref. 31) By 1887 it
was preparing to move to a larger site: at least
one of the staff, the future Director, Professor
(Sir) Hubert Parry, detested the old building,
and its internal sound-proofing is said to have
been defective. (ref. 32) After standing vacant from 1896
these old premises were leased by the Commissioners
in 1903 for 99 years to the Royal
College of Organists, which had been founded in
1863. Alterations, including the removal of many
internal partitions, were supervised by John
Belcher. The organ, by Norman and Beard, was
replaced by another by Hill, Norman and Beard
in 1967 (architect, Ralph Covell). (ref. 33)