The competition to build Birmingham Town Hall was won by "the unknown young Joseph Hansom, a man of various talents, who later built Roman Catholic Churches in Gothic style (e.g. Arundel in Sussex), founded The Builder, and invented the Hansom Cab. [Dixon and Muthesius 149]
Biographical Material
- Joseph Aloysius Hansom (1803-82): A Short Biography
- Robert Owen and the Architect Joseph Hansom: An Unlikely Form of Co-Operation (Review)
Architectural Works
- Birmingham Town Hall (1832-34; with Edward Welch)
- The church of Our Lady and St Philip Neri, Sussex (1868-73; later designated cathedral status as Our Lady and St Philip Howard)
- Church of the Holy Name of Jesus, Manchester (1869-71)
- Harmony Hall for Robert Owen (1841-43)
Architectural Works not Illustrated
- Victoria Terrace, Beaumaris, Isle of Anglesey (1830-35)
- Baptist Chapel, Leicester (1845) (known as the Pork Pie Chapel)
- St Bueno's College, Tremeirchion, Clwyd (1846-49)
- St George's Church, York (1849-50) (first pro-cathedral of York)
- St Cuthbert's College, Ushaw, Co. Durham (1849-51) (Exhibition Hall and Great Library)
- St Walburge's Church, Preston, Lancs (1850-54 and 1866) (tallest church spire in England)
- Liverpool School for Training Catholic Schoolmistresses (1853-56)
- St Clare's Abbey, Darlington, Co. Durham (1855-57)
- Plymouth Cathedral, Devon (1856-58)
- St Wilfrid's Church, Ripon, Yorks (1860-62)
- Lartington Hall, Barnard Castle, Yorks (1862) (substantial additions and alterations including landscaping and porte-cochère)
- Fort Augustus, Loch Ness, Scotland (1876-1878) (conversion of Hanoverian fort to Benedictine Abbey)
Other Works
- The Hansom Cab (patented 1834)
The Hansom Dynasty
- St Francis Xavier Catholic Cathedral, Adelaide (1856-60), by Joseph's younger brother, Charles Francis Hansom
- St Joseph's Roman Catholic Church and Priest's House, Greenwich, London (1880-81), by Joseph's eldest son, Henry John Hansom
Select Bibliography
Curl, James Stevens. Oxford Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Dixon, Roger, and Stefan Muthesius. Victorian Architecture. 2nd ed. London: Thames and Hudson, 1985.
Evinson, Denis. Joseph Hansom. Unpublished MA dissertation. University of London , 1966.
"Hansomly done." Country Life. 8 April 2009: 58-61.
Harris, Penelope. The Architectural Achievement of Joseph Aloysius Hansom (1803-1882), Designer of the Hansom Cab, Birmingham Town Hall, and Churches of the Catholic Revival. New York and Lampeter: Edwin Mellen, 2010.
Jones, Nick. "The Many Lives of Joseph Aloysius Hansom." Building. Issue 17 (30 April 2010): 42-44.
Pevsner, Nikolaus, and co-authors in the Buildings of England series, as specified for individual works (please see these works, where further bibliographical sources can be found).
Last modified 15 August 2014