aniel Porter Fordham (1844-1889) was born in Ongar, Essex, in 1844. It is possible that his father, John Porter Fordham was the cornfactor whose property adjoining the maltsters was reported to have been damaged by lightning in the storm of September 1840 (The Times, 19 September: 7). His mother was Martha née Belsham and they were married at the village of Heybridge, near Maldon, about twenty miles from Ongar. on the in April 1838. His father died in 1846 when DPF was aged two, and by 1851 the widowed mother and her four children had moved to Market Hill, Maldon. The household included one servant and one nursemaid. So it is clear that they were not destitute, and perhaps being support by Martha’s family of origin in Heybridge.
At the time of the 1861 census, Fordham was a boarder at a house of Edward Taylor (1831-1908), in Stonegate, York. His occupation is given as "architect pupil" and Taylor himself identified as an architect, so it is reasonable to assume that Fordham had been articled to him – this was the usual route into the profession. In 1871 he is found as an "architect’s clerk" lodging in a house nearer his family again, in Duke Street, Chelmsford, the county town of Essex, presumably in employment in an architect’s office somewhere in the town, perhaps that of the "extremely prolific" and widely respected Frederick Chancellor (1825-1918) (Bettley and Pevsner 57).
By 1872, Fordham had returned north and was employed as an assistant architect in the extensive practice of the noted Chester architect John Douglas (1830-1911) who had a wide range of commissions, including church alterations and additions, and much secular work in Gothic and vernacular styles. In 1881 he was a lodger at 6 Abbey Street, Chester, the home of a glass and china dealer, and his occupation was given as architect’s assistant. Abbey Street led into Abbey Square where (by coincidence) Douglas’s first home and office was also in number 6. This continued to house the architectural practice for the rest of Fordham’s career, though Douglas himself had moved to number 4 by 1872, and subsequently to grander houses. In 1884, Fordham was taken into partnership by Douglas and they worked together until Fordham was forced to retire in 1898 due to ill health.
After over a decade working for Douglas, Fordham would have absorbed much of his design style, and it is not possible to distinguish which of the practice’s commissions might have been his responsibility, or indeed even if he was allowed free rein by his senior partner on any of the practice’s projects. In his full-length account of Douglas's career, Edward Hubbard was only able to find some tangential evidence suggesting that he might have been responsible for some of the practice’s work at Port Sunlight.
Fordham was evidently regarded as an excellent pen and ink draughtsmen, and on his retirement was described as an "able partner" (Hubbard 6). His work was probably valued by the practice, as mourning notepaper was used for a time after his death in 1899. Whatever his contributions were, they remain hidden in the shadow of his senior partner who was described by a contemporary as "[a] good architect but a poor hand in accounts" noted for being very tardy in sending out his claims for fees (Hubbard 15). Fordham never married, and his lifestyle seems to have been a less affluent one than Douglas’s, so perhaps he always remained the junior partner.
In 1891 he was living in 19 Raymond Street, Chester with his unmarried sister, Emily Belsham Fordham and one general servant, his occupation being given as an architect. By the end of that decade, he had contracted tuberculosis, resulting in the dissolution of the architectural partnership due to his ill health. Fordham then moved to Bournemouth, presumably in the hope of improving his health, together with his unmarried sister, Emily. He died there in April 1899.
Bibliography
Bettley, James, and Nikolaus Pevsner. Essex. Buildings of England series. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007.
British Library Newspapers.
Census returns for 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881 and 1891.
Douglas and Fordham. Manchester Victorian Architects. Web. 28 November 2025.
Hartwell, Clare, Matthew Hyde, Edward Hubbard and Nikolaus Pevsner. Cheshire. Buildings of England series. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011.
Hubbard, Edward. The Work of John Douglas. Huddersfield: Northern Heritage Publications, 2013. [The significant references to Fordham in Hubbard's book are on pp. 6-7, 15, 146 and 170-1.]
John Douglas. Dictionary of Scottish Architects. Web. 28 November 2025. https://www.scottisharchitects.org.uk/apex/r/dsa/dsa/architects?session=191130561267
Created 28 November 2025