Regency Personalities Series
In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the many period notables.
Charles Heathcote Tatham
February 8 1772 – April 10 1841
Charles Heathcote Tatham
Tatham was born in Westminster, the youngest of five sons of Ralph Tatham and Elizabeth Bloxham. The father was first a “Spanish merchant”, went bankrupt, became a horse breeder in Essex, went bankrupt again. Ralph was asked by Captain Geroge Brydges Rodney to be his secretary in his command of the Leeward Islands fleet. Ralph Tatham, at 47 accepted but died of cholera on his way to the position.
Charles was educated at Louth grammar school in Lincolnshire. Returning to London at the age of 16, he was engaged as a clerk by Samuel Pepys Cockerell, architect and surveyor. He ran away, returned home and studied the five orders of architecture, French ornament and mathematics.
When he was nearly 19 Henry Holland received him into his house, and two years later offered him £60 a year for two years to enable him to pursue his studies at Rome. Tatham designed and drew all the ornamental decorations for Drury Lane Theatre. The whole proscenium was marked off from his drawings by Charles Catton the younger, who painted the designs in fresco. The executed design for the boxes in the theater were by John Linnell and they survive at the V&A in the Print Room.
Together with Samuel Wyatt they designed Dropmore House for Lord Grenville, later the Prime Minister.
With Holland’s help, and a loan of £100 from John Birch, in 1794 he travelled to Italy. He spent his time in Rome and Naples.
Tatham’s friends in Italy were Canova, Angelica Kauffman and her husband; Abbate Carlo Bonomi, Sir William and Lady Hamilton; and lastly, Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle. He left Rome a month or so before Bonaparte’s first attack on the papal states in 1797; returning through Dresden, Berlin, and Prague. As the result of his studies he etched and published in 1799 Ancient Ornamental Architecture at Rome and in Italy.
Holland, had commissioned him to collect antique fragments relating to ornamental architecture. Tatham got together a noble assemblage. Tatham published a description of them in 1806. Tatham first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1797, and continued to do so until 1836.
In 1799 the treasury issued a general invitation to artists to send competitive designs for a national monument of a pillar or obelisk two hundred feet high upon a basement of thirty feet “in commemoration of the late glorious victories of the British navy.” Tatham sent in three designs. He published them as etchings, with descriptive text and a dedication to the Earl of Carlisle, in 1802.
In 1802 Tatham designed the sculpture gallery at Castle Howard, and did work at Naworth, for the Earl of Carlisle; in 1807 the picture gallery at Brocklesby for Lord Yarborough. He designed for the Duke of Bridgwater a portion of Cleveland House.
He eventually lost his practice. In 1834 he fell into difficulties and his house and objects of interest were sold. It seemed that he would have to begin life anew. His friends, however, rallied round him, and in 1837 obtained for him the post of warden of Holy Trinity Hospital, Greenwich.
Tatham married, in 1801, Harriet Williams, the daughter of a famous button-maker. They had four sons and six daughters.
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