Sydney Perks was born on 2 January 1864 in the City of Westminster to Charles Perks and Emily Marian Perks (née Warner) as one of eight children, and was baptised at St Martin-in-the-Fields in Westminster on 22 January. Sydney's father worked as a stationer, and the family lived at 110 St Martin's Lane, Westminster. By 1871, Sydney and five of his siblings (Emily, Frank, Annie, Walter and Marian) lived with their parents and two domestic servants at Soho Lodge on All Farthing Lane, Wandsworth, London. In the 1881 census, Sydney is listed as a scholar, and his mother was a widow. Sydney is first listed as an architect in the 1891 census.[1]
Sydney Perks was Surveyor to the City of London from 1905 until 1931.[1] In his capacity as city surveyor, Perks had regularly ascended the Fire Monument and used a plumb bob to measure its straightness, and monitored cracks in the Tower of London which expand and contract with changing weather conditions.[3]
Sydney Perks also designed the 1929 Fruit and Wool Exchange in Spitalfields, which functioned as a fruit and vegetable market until 1991, and later housed multiple small businesses until it was controversially demolished in 2015 to be redeveloped into offices. The original facade designed by Perks was preserved and incorporated into the new building, which was completed in 2018.[10]
Perks wrote a number of books about the history of architecture in London, and spoke before the Royal Society of Arts.[11]
Sydney Perks died aged 80 on 2 November 1944 at his home, Claridge House, in Sevenoaks, Kent.[1]
Buildings designed by Sydney Perks
Gresham College building (1912)
Snow Hill Police Station (1926)
London Fruit and Wool Exchange (1929)
Notable publications
Residential Flats of All Classes (1905)
The Restoration and Recent Discoveries at the Guildhall, London (1910)
The History of the Mansion House (1922)
Essays on Old London (1927)
The Water Line of the City of London after the Great Fire (1935)
