E.J. May (1853-1941)

Edward John May was born a Roman Catholic in 1853 and articled to Decimus Burton in May 1869. He was Burton’s last pupil. Thereafter he was in the offices of Burton’s nephew Henry Marley Burton, Robert Edgar, Charles Henry Money Mileham and Kennedy; Robert Jewell Withers; William Eden Nesfield and Richard Norman Shaw, c.1876; and finally Robert William Edis. During these years he studied at the Architectural Association and the Royal Academy Schools and won the Pugin studentship in 1876. He commenced independent practice in Bedford Park, London, in 1879 and was architect to that estate. He was admitted ARIBA on 23 May 1881, his proposers being Ernest Claude Lee, Edward Gorge Hayes, Walter Hilton Nash and Richard Charles Page, and became FRIBA on 31 January 1887, his proposers being Aston Webb, Edward Blakeway I’Anson. He resigned on a matter of principle in 1892 but was reinstated on 8 January 1906, his proposers being John Belcher, Webb and Sir John Taylor. Despite his Catholicism, May was architect to the Church of England Waifs and Strays Society and to the Governesses’ Benevolent Institution. He died on 16 March 1941.