CHAPTER XVI - Royal College of Music
Established in 1883 in the present
building of the Royal College of Organists,
the Royal College of Music was by 1887
seeking a larger site and early in that year was
informally offered one on the west side of Exhibition
Road, on behalf of the 1851 Exhibition
Commissioners. As the City and Guilds Institute
had done, the College hankered after a location in
Queen's Gate, (ref. 1) but would probably have gone to
Exhibition Road if late in that year an ironmaster
from Leeds, Samson Fox, had not offered the
Prince of Wales, as patron of the College,
£30,000 towards its new building. (ref. 2) (The donor
of the students' hostel nearby, (Queen) Alexandra
House, that was similarly under the patronage of
the Prince and Princess, had just been given a
baronetcy.) The prospect that the College would
be able to house itself handsomely probably helped
a change of plan by the Commissioners, whose
own ideas for the rearrangement of their estate
were fluid. By February 1888 this would have
placed the College centrally on the estate's axis
(as it was ultimately to be built), a little north of
its present position, and facing across a garden to a
new road on its south, not its north, side. The
Director of the College, Sir George Grove, had
the architect J. J. Stevenson prepare drawings in
May: a theatre on the plan of Bayreuth was
contemplated, but for want of space the Conservatoire
at Brussels was taken as a model instead. (ref. 3)
Then in the summer opinion among the Commissioners
veered against any building on this
axis, south of the Albert Hall. The Prince of
Wales, who as well as fostering the College had
responsibilities as President of the 1851 Exhibition
Commissioners, seems himself to have had doubts
about so prominent a position for 'château Fox'. (ref. 4)
A site in Exhibition Road was again appointed for
the College, an architectural competition was
projected in July, and a building committee, on
which Fox was to be active, held its first meeting
in November. (ref. 5) It was soon arranging to compare
the recent buildings of academies of music in
Leipzig, Frankfurt, Vienna, Rome, Milan,
Boston and Cincinnati as well as of the Guildhall
School of Music. (ref. 6) But Grove and Fox both
thought the site too small. (ref. 7) Then the Commissioners,
dropping the idea of an open vista south
of the Hall, offered to the College for a nominal
rent the present site, on the south side of a new
road (Prince Consort Road, plan c between
pages 54–5). It was valued at £45,000. (ref. 8) The lease
of the site, a square of 200-feet sides, for 999 years
from Midsummer 1890 at £5 per annum, was
dated 30 December 1891. (ref. 9)
By February 1889 the College had been told it
would have to have its design approved by a
consultant architect of the Commissioners, and
to spend more than £30,000 on the building. (ref. 10)
There seems to have been some pressure from the
Commissioners for prompt action by the College
if it wanted to accept the offer of the site. Partly
to save time and partly (no doubt) to be more
certain of the Commissioners' approval the
College abandoned the architectural competition
and appointed the experienced (Sir) A. W.
Blomfield in March to provide the design for submission
to Alfred Waterhouse as the Commissioners'
adviser. (ref. 11) (Blomfield himself, however,
later said simply that he had been chosen on the
recommendation of the Prince of Wales. (ref. 12) )
By May Blomfield had sketch-plans ready, to
an estimated cost of £45,000. Fox promptly
supplied the extra £15,000 over his former
benefaction. (ref. 13) (In April a disappointed J. J.
Stevenson offered to give Blomfield access to the
results of his planning: Blomfield told Grove he
would 'no doubt' avail himself of the offer, but it
is not known if he did. (ref. 14) )
The site was in some ways imposing but apart
from the disservice done to any façade-design by a
north aspect it had the disadvantage that the new
road was made some eighteen feet above the site's
base-level. To compensate for the two basement
storeys required Blomfield wanted to omit an
upper storey but reinstated it at the representation
of Waterhouse, who insisted on the need for
height to enable the elevation to sustain proximity
to the two large blocks of flats that were then
intended to be built on either side. Blomfield's
plans were halted in November 1889, and again
in the early part of 1890. One change he made in
his planning at the latter period was the omission
of a large lecture room or hall from the main
building. Instead of occupying all the centre of
the second and third storeys it was to be placed at
the back, and the main block largely devoted to
practice or recital rooms. (ref. 15) Blomfield had been
insistent to his employers that his elevational
design must wait on the final arrangement of his
plan: (ref. 16) in the end he had the task of providing a
façade for a tall building consisting mainly of
small or moderate-sized rooms in storeys of nearly
equal and rather modest height (Plate 71c). The
ceiling-heights are, in fact, generally lower than in
the College's former, and smaller, premises. This
small-scaled subdivision made it difficult to design
a monumental elevation, and The Builder criticized
Blomfield's Royal Academy drawing of the
front in 1892 for lack of architectural interest. (ref. 17)
Unlike the old building, the College was
divided into halves for male and female pupils,
with separate entrances and staircases, although
lateral corridors joined them. (ref. 18)
The design was intended to be developed
backwards in two quadrangles, but this extension
was deferred. (ref. 19)
The foundation stone was laid in July 1890,
when Fox's Leeds Forge brass band provided some
music (and, in the recollection of a student,
'nearly blew the marquee away'). (ref. 20) The contractor
was John Thompson of Peterborough, whose
estimated price was £41,096. Blomfield thought
the total cost, including his own fees, would be
£47,000. (ref. 21) The specified materials included
Leicester or Bracknell facing bricks, dressings of
Weldon stone outside and Ancaster stone inside,
and green roof-slates. Except for the oak entrance
doors the wood was almost all from the Baltic.
Relatively little money was to be spent on internal
decoration except for the entrance hall where Fox
provided £1,000 for embellishment: the ceiling
here and in the Council Room was to be in
'Jackson's patent ornamental plasterwork'. (ref. 22)
(fn. a) A
columned basement room was also more elaborately
treated, at the expense of George Donaldson, to
house his collection of instruments: (ref. 24) spandrels in
the arcades were painted by the Belgian artist,
Gaston de Vaere. (ref. 25)
The organs were provided by Brindley and
Foster of Sheffield, the furniture by Hampton
and Sons and mosaic floors by Messrs. Diespeker
of Holborn Viaduct. (ref. 26)
Blomfield approved of the builder's work. (ref. 27)
The internal sound-proofing, for which use was
made of 'double cork pugging' and 'Willesden
paper', (ref. 28) set an acceptable standard for attempted
emulation in more recent additions.
The formal opening by the Prince of Wales
was on 2 May 1894. (ref. 29) A few days later Jerome
K. Jerome began a series of attacks on Fox in his
weekly To-day, asserting that Fox's benefaction
had been intended to give a false impression of his
commercial standing whereas his resources came
from fraudulent share-pushing. Fox (who died in
1903) was to obtain a place in the Dictionary of
National Biography as an 'inventor and benefactor',
but after a prolonged libel action in 1897 he
was awarded damages of only one farthing. (ref. 30) He
remained untitled.
The hall at the rear was a temporary erection
only, and in 1897 the College decided on a
competition between three architects—W. J.
Ancell, A. Blomfield Jackson and Sidney R. J.
Smith—to provide a permanent building for a
concert-hall-cum-theatre and an examination
room. (ref. 31) Sir Arthur Blomfield was indignant at
his supersession and appealed to the Prince of
Wales. In reply to the Prince's enquiries (Sir)
Hubert Parry, the Director, explained that this
was chiefly because of 'very lively disputes' in
1895 about Blomfield's charges. Also, the College
wanted to employ specialists in concert-hall
design. If not quite that, Sidney Smith was
included on the strength of 'a remarkably successful
Concert room' at the Cripplegate Institute, (ref. 32)
and it was his design that was chosen by the
assessor, John Belcher, in 1898. (ref. 33) It was built,
with an examination room underneath, by G. H
and A. Bywaters in 1899 and completed for
opening in 1901, when its resonant acoustics
were noticed (Plate 71b). The organ is by J. W.
Walker. (ref. 34)
After the war of 1914–18 the examination
room was converted into the Parry Opera
Theatre (opened March 1921). (ref. 35)
A canopy was added to the entrance in the
1920's. In 1949 all the windows of the front,
previously leaded, were fitted with plate glass.
A large extension on the south side, containing
teaching and practice rooms, library and recital
hall, was built in 1963–4 to the design of the
architects of the adjacent Imperial College,
Norman and Dawbarn (opened 1965). A
Museum of Historical Instruments designed by
Philip Radinger Associates was added on the
south-east side in 1968–9 and opened in 1970.
A new rehearsal block for the Opera School,
designed by Norman and Dawbarn, was opened
in April 1972. (ref. 25)