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

admired, however. His lack of interest in social context and aesthetic appeal was disliked
by E A Freeman (1823-1892), the historian who in 1849, published what seems to have
been the first book to call itself A History of Architecture. Freeman specifically criticised
the purely factual approach of Willis and Whewell:
Though of equal merit in their own line, I cannot consider that line quite such a high one; at all events it is
not the same, nor so directly connected with my own view. Their writings treat as much of building as of
architecture; their aim is to exhibit the mechanical rather than the artistic view. 209
Ruskin’s Seven Lamps of Architecture, published the same year, reinvented the
picturesque sensibility for the Victorian age. But neither Freeman nor Ruskin was an
antiquary. The two elements that had combined to create romantic antiquarianism, the
sentimental and the analytic, were drawing apart.
In 1849 the Archaeological Institute held its annual congress at Salisbury. Exactly
sixty years after Gough’s attack on Wyatt the meeting marked ‘a memorable epoch’, as
Britton noted, ‘not only for the city but for the county’. 210 It was an epoch too in the
history of antiquarianism. The Institute, like its parent and rival the BAA, was, as Britton
also commented, ‘zealous, active, full of ability’ if ‘unfortunately distracted and
weakened by personal divisions’. 211 Given the circumstances Britton may well have
exaggerated the difficulties under which the two societies laboured, and he failed to
mention the considerable rivalry between them. His remarks came in the context of a
doomed attempt to seize back the initiative in architectural antiquarianism with an appeal
for a ‘National Historical, Archaeological, and Topographical Institution: for the
preservation of vestiges of antiquity, manuscripts, books etc’. 212 Such a body would,
Britton argued, draw together members of the various societies in the interests of
‘efficiency and centralization’. 213 That same year he attempted to reinvigorate the
Wiltshire Topographical Society, which had been languishing, by changing its name to
209 Freeman, A History of Architecture, p.xiii.
210 Britton, An Address from John Britton, p.2.
211 Britton, Autobiography, (1850), 2, Appendix, p.103.
212 Britton, Autobiography, (1850), 2, Appendix, p.103.
213 Britton, Autobiography, (1850), 2, Appendix, p.103.
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