Richard Harding Watt
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Watt was born, apparently out of wedlock, to Richard Harding Hethorn (c. 1816–53) and Zillah Watt on 27 August 1842 and was baptised in St John's Church, Deansgate, Manchester, on 17 November of that year,[1] contrary to claims that he was an orphan of Boer parents.[2][3] In later life, Watt travelled widely and sketched many buildings. In 1864 he travelled to Australia, where his sketches were published in nine volumes. Returning to England, he planned to train as an art teacher, but instead became a glove merchant in Manchester.[4]
Practice
Watt designed some buildings himself, but usually used four architects to execute his plans, namely Walter Aston, John Brooke, Harry S. Fairhurst, and William Longworth.[5] In 1898 Watt bought a tannery on Drury Lane, to the north of the town centre and, with Fairhurst, adapted the buildings into a laundry and cottages. One of Watt's other buildings. the King's Coffee House and Gaskell Memorial Tower, is located in the centre of the town, and a series of more eccentric houses were built between 1900 and 1907 on Legh Road, to the southeast of the town.[6] Watt lived in one of these, The Round House, until 1913.
