Charles Henry Owsley

Charles Henry Owsley was born December 15, 1846, at Blaston Hall in Blaston, Leicestershire in England to William Poyntz Mason Owsley and Henrietta Jane (Farrer) Owsley. He was educated at Allesley Park College, a boys' school, in Coventry, and at the age of 16 intended to pursue a career in the Royal Navy. Owsley had difficulties on a trial voyage and deserted when the ship docked in a Welsh port. His father then arranged for Owsley, then aged 18, to be apprenticed to James Hoskins, an Abergavenny contractor and builder. Owsley later claimed to have worked on projects designed by Matthew Digby Wyatt and George Gilbert Scott during his apprenticeship. He completed his apprenticeship in January of 1868. Following his marriage and the death of his father in the same year, Owsley and two of his brothers immigrated to Canada, initially settling in Toronto. In 1869 he moved to Ohio, purchasing land in Weathersfield Township in Trumbull County near Youngstown, and opened an office as an architect in 1872. His first major work was the second Mahoning County Courthouse in Youngstown, completed in 1876, and over the next decade developed a successful regional practice.[1]

In 1887 he formed a partnership with Swiss-born architect Louis Boucherle, who had worked for Owsley for about three years. During the same period Owsley directed his son, Charles Frederick Owsley, towards an architectural career. After an education at the University of Pennsylvania and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the younger Owsley joined his father's office in 1905. In 1908 they began construction of the third Mahoning County Courthouse, replacing Owsley's courthouse of 1876. The new building reflected the younger Owsley's Beaux-Arts training, and he became a partner in the expanded firm of Owsley, Boucherle & Owsley in 1909. The new courthouse, completed in 1910, was Owsley's last major project as a principal architect.[1] Boucherle retired from the partnership in 1911,[2] followed by the elder Owsley in 1912. His son continued the office, but Owsley stayed active. He worked in his son's office, and when the firm was incorporated in 1920 as the Owsley Company, he became vice president. He retired fully c. 1926.[1]

Owsley joined the Western Association of Architects in 1884, and became a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1889 when the two organizations merged.[3]

The majority of Owsley's work was in the Mahoning Valley area of Northeast Ohio and Western Pennsylvania, and several of his significant buildings remain in Youngstown, Ohio, Sharon, Pennsylvania, and Salem, Ohio.[4]

Owsley was married in 1868 in Abergavenny to Mary Jane Williams.[1] They had five children, including Charles Frederick Owsley (1880–1953). He was a parishioner of the First Presbyterian Church and a member of the Elks and the Masons. He died August 25, 1935, at home in Youngstown.[5]