Antiquaries in the Age of Romanticism: 1789-1851 - Queen Mary ...

In addition to his Dissertation and his chapel, Milner made other, more direct
contributions to the continuing debate about the nature and origins of Gothic and the
classification of styles. His History of Winchester, his essay ‘On the Rise and Progress of
the Pointed Arch’ of 1802 and his Treatise on the Ecclesiastical Architecture of England
of 1811 were all important works. They have been discussed by Frankl and others and
there will be more to say in this context about Milner’s account of Winchester cathedral
in comparison with Willis’s. 75 Milner’s principal importance for this study, however, is
for the turning point his work represents in architectural antiquarianism from the passive
to the active and in the annexing of subjective and aesthetic criteria to the antiquarian
cause, uniting taste with passion and both with scholarship.
In 1803 Milner was appointed Vicar General of the Midland District and Titular
Bishop of Castabala. He left Winchester and had less time for antiquarian pursuits. After
1817 he seems to have given them up altogether although the fact that he left money in
his will to build a Gothic chapel at Wolverhampton suggests he never changed his mind.
By the time of his death in 1826 the view of Gothic architecture that he had developed
was widely shared.
John Britton: Popularising Gothic
It was in 1789, that momentous year for antiquarianism, that John Britton met
Edward Brayley (1773-1854) in the shop of their mutual friend Mr Essex who ‘obtained a
very respectable livelihood by… painting the figures, &c. on watch faces’. 76 Essex, like
Britton and Brayley relieved the routine of trade by literary pursuits and his shop seems
to have been something of an informal salon. Britton and Brayley took an instant liking to
75
Frankl, The Gothic, pp.445-447; Pevsner, Some Architectural Writers of the Nineteenth Century, p.16
and Buchanan, ‘Robert Willis and the Rise of Architectural History’,Chapter 1.
76
Britton, Auto-biography, (1825) p.26.
55