R.H. Carpenter (1841-1893)

Richard Herbert Carpenter was born in July 1841, the son of the architect Richard Cromwell Carpenter, and was educated at Charterhouse. He was taken into partnership by William Slater (1819-72) in 1863 as Slater & Carpenter and was admitted ARIBA on 15 June of that year, his proposers being Slater, Mair and the St Pancras surveyor Henry Baker. Together they built Ardingly College and in 1868 the younger Carpenter redesigned his father’s scheme for the chapel at Lancing as an immensely tall French cathedral-like edifice. Slater died on 17 December 1872. Carpenter then took into partnership their chief assistant Benjamin Ingelow (1836-1925) as Carpenter & Ingelow. Like his father Richard Herbert was an extremely sensitive architect but what should have been his greatest project, the new cathedral at Manchester remained unbuilt. Richard Herbert Carpenter died at Leicester Square London on 18 April 1893. Ingelow continued the practice until his death in 1925.