Stephen Geary

Stephen Geary (31 August 1797 – 28 August 1854) was a British architect, inventor, entrepreneur, and, from 1850, Temperance activist.

Early life

Geary was born in Dean's Yard, Westminster, London, on 31 August 1797. At the age of 13 he was apprenticed to the architect Thomas Leverton.[1] In 1817 he joined the Royal Academy architecture schools.[2] He exhibited drawings and models at the Royal Academy on six occasions.

Cemetery work

His best known work was Highgate Cemetery, opened in 1839, and later to be his resting place, where he designed the Egyptian Avenue and the Terrace Catacombs: he was also founder of the London Cemetery Company, established by Act of Parliament in 1836,[3] which owned Highgate Cemetery and Nunhead Cemetery.

He is also associated with Gravesend, Nunhead and Brompton Cemeteries and produced a design for a Brighton cemetery that was never built.

Other works
  • St Pancras Collegiate School, London. Designed but not built.
  • A short-lived monument, consisting of a building, with a statue of King George IV on top (it was erected in 1836, the statue was demolished in 1842, the building in 1845), that gave its name to Kings Cross.[4][5]
  • Gin palaces.[6][7] Geary was noted in his day for designing gin palaces. Only one is known to survive, The Bell in Pentonville Road. He is reputed to have designed the first gin palace in London (around 1829), although that accolade is usually given to the gin palace built for wine merchants Thompson & Fearon in Holborn (1829-1832) and was designed by John Buonarotti Papworth (the building no longer exists).

Legacy
The grave of Stephen Geary on the west side of Highgate Cemetery

Geary's grave in Highgate Cemetery (west side), is located to the east of the main path between Comforts Corner and the Egyptian Avenue. The small headstone is a Grade II listed object.[8]

Bibliography
  • Cemetery Designs for Tombs and Cenotaphs ; London: Tilt & Bogue; 1840
  • Exhibition Tracts No. 1: How to reward all the exhibitors. London: W.J. Adams.1851.
  • ‘The British Temperance Banner, an anthem' in BUCKINGHAM, J.S.(Ed.). 1853. The Temperance Offering. London: W. Tweedie. 1853.

References
  1. Registers in Goldsmiths Hall
  2. Royal Academy Registers.
  3. "Highgate Cemetery". History. 9 March 2015. Retrieved 13 June 2023. Why the city should revive a 19th-century plan for an uptown necropolis, population 5 million.
  4. The London Encyclopaedia
  5. A sketch can be seen on page 79 of Contrasts, a book by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin
  6. Entry in Oxford Reference
  7. Williams, Olivia; Gin Glorious Gin: How Mother's Ruin Became the Spirit of London; Headline; 2015; 336pp; ISBN 978-1472215345
  8. Object 1403435 on the website of Historic England
  • H.M. Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600-1840 (1997) ISBN 0-300-07207-4


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