Thomas Allom

Bird's Eye View from St Bride's Steeple: Looking east from Barbican to Bermondsey. By the renowned architect, draughtsman and artist, and founding member of what would become RIBA. Key to buildings available.

Thomas Allom was apprenticed to a London architect at the age of fourteen, later attending the Royal Academy Schools and benefiting from the tutelage of Sir John Soane and J.M.W. Turner. By the early 1830's he was in private practice and in 1834 he became a founding member of the Institute of British Architects (later RIBA) and formed a partnership with Henry Lockwood in Hull. From the early 1820's Allom's exhibitions at the Society of British Artists and the Royal Academy brought him to the attention of various publishers; the commissions he received over the next twenty years substantially supplemented his income and allowed him to travel extensively in Britain, Europe, the Near and Far East, producing fine illustrations for numerous publications.

After 1843, when the partnership with Lockwood was dissolved, he returned to independent practise designing several buildings in London to include Stanley Crescent and St Peter’s Notting Hill and Christchurch Highbury. Most notably Allom worked with Sir Charles Barry at Highclere and the Houses of Parliament. Allom was commissioned by Barry to paint two large watercolours of the new Houses of Parliament for presentation to Emperor Nicholas I during his visit in 1844. In that year he also exhibited the drawing of this view of London at the Royal Academy.

Allom continued to work until his death; he completed Holy Trinity Barnes in 1868 and held his last exhibition in 1871. His work is remembered for its unique vigour, clarity and accuracy.