Education and career

Alfred Darbyshire was born in Salford

City of Salford

The City of Salford is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It is named after its largest settlement, Salford, but covers a far larger area which includes the towns of Eccles, Swinton-Pendlebury, Walkden and Irlam which apart from Irlam each have a population of over...

 (then in Lancashire

Lancashire

Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...

, now in Greater Manchester

Greater Manchester

Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 2.6 million. It encompasses one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom and comprises ten metropolitan boroughs: Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan, and the...

) to William Darbyshire, the manager of a dyeworks, and his wife Mary née Bancroft. He was a nephew of George Bradshaw

George Bradshaw

George Bradshaw was an English cartographer, printer and publisher. He is best known for developing the most successful and longest published series of combined railway timetables.-Biography:...

, the compiler of railway guides. He went to a succession of Quaker

Religious Society of Friends

The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...

 schools and was then articled to the architects' firm of Lane

Richard Lane (architect)

Richard Lane was a distinguished English architect of the early and mid 19th century. Born in London and based in Manchester, he was known in great part for his restrained and austere Greek-inspired classicism. He also designed a few buildings – mainly churches – in the Gothic style...

 and Alley in Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

. In 1862 he established his own architectural practice. Frederick Bennett Smith joined him as a partner from about 1885 to 1905. Darbyshire died in Manchester in 1908 and was buried at Flixton church.

Works

Darbyshire admired the Gothic Revival

Gothic Revival architecture

The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...

 style of Alfred Waterhouse

Alfred Waterhouse

Alfred Waterhouse was a British architect, particularly associated with the Victorian Gothic Revival architecture. He is perhaps best known for his design for the Natural History Museum in London, and Manchester Town Hall, although he also built a wide variety of other buildings throughout the...

 but also designed in the neoclassical

Neoclassical architecture

Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...

 style. He is best known for his theatrical architecture. He designed the Gaiety Theatre, Manchester

Gaiety Theatre, Manchester

The Gaiety Theatre, Manchester was a theatre in Manchester, England. It was opened in 1884 and demolished in 1959. It replaced a previous Gaiety Theatre on the site which had been destroyed by fire....

 and a theatre at Rawtenstall

Rawtenstall

Rawtenstall is a town at the centre of the Rossendale Valley, in Lancashire, England. It is the seat for the Borough of Rossendale, in which it is located. The town lies 18 miles north of Manchester, 22 miles east of the county town of Preston and 45 miles south east of Lancaster...

, and carried out alterations at the Manchester theatres of the Theatre Royal and the Prince's. In London he altered and decorated the Lyceum Theatre. Concerned by the danger of fire in theatres, he worked with the actor Henry Irving

Henry Irving

Sir Henry Irving , born John Henry Brodribb, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility for season after season at the Lyceum Theatre, establishing himself and his company as...

 to develop the Irving-Darbyshire safety plan which consisted of isolating separate parts of the theatre and providing fireproof escape routes. He first implemented this plan when he rebuilt the theatre in Exeter

Exeter

Exeter is a historic city in Devon, England. It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district, and is therefore under the administration of the...

 which had been destroyed by a fire in 1887. His last major theatre was the Palace of Varieties in Manchester.

Other buildings designed by Darbyshire include Alston Hall

Alston Hall

Alston Hall is a Victorian gothic style country mansion located in Longridge in Lancashire, England.Alston Hall is owned and operated by Lancashire Adult Learning as an adult residential college and corporate event venue.It was designed by the architect Alfred Darbyshire....

 in Lancashire, the Carnegie Library in Knutsford

Knutsford

Knutsford is a town and civil parish in the unitary authority area of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, in North West England...

 and the churches of St Cyprian and St Ignatius in Salford. He made designs for temporary exhibitions, including a military bazaar in Manchester in 1884, a Shakespearean

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

 show in the Royal Albert Hall

Royal Albert Hall

The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....

 the same year and in the Royal Jubilee Exhibition in Manchester in 1887.

Theatre

Alfred Darbyshire was a man of many talents which centred around the theatre. As well as building them, he acted in them and became famous for his extravagant stage productions.

In 1869 Charles Calvert

Charles Alexander Calvert

Charles Alexander Calvert was a British actor and theatre manager noted for Shakespearean "revivals" featuring elaborate staging and historically accurate sets and costumes.-Early life:...

, actor-manager of the Prince's Theatre Manchester, employed Alfred to redecorate the theatre. They became good friends and Alfred assisted Calvert with the staging of some of his great 'revivals' of Shakespeare's plays.

In 1872 he built a spectacular set for the triumphal entry of the King into London in Henry V. He reproduced the streets of London, the seaport of Southampton, the walled town of Harfleur, the battle field of Agincourt, the palaces of Westminster and Rouen, and the cathedral of Troyes. It contained between two and three hundred persons.
The production was carried through the United States and into Australia. In New York more than 100,000 people visited Booth's Theatre to see the play.

Paintings

As a landscape painter he sketched and painted in Italy, France, Belgium and Germany. He was friendly with Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement,...

, Ford Madox Brown

Ford Madox Brown

Ford Madox Brown was an English painter of moral and historical subjects, notable for his distinctively graphic and often Hogarthian version of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Arguably, his most notable painting was Work...

 and Walter Crane

Walter Crane

Walter Crane was an English artist and book illustrator. He is considered to be the most prolific and influential children’s book creator of his generation and, along with Randolph Caldecott and Kate Greenaway, one of the strongest contributors to the child's nursery motif that the genre of...

. Alfred could produce an intricate architectural watercolour depicting Durham Cathedral, or a busy colourful picture of a harbour in Whitby, now both in Stockport Art Gallery.

Writing

Alfred was an art critic for the Manchester Guardian, and from 1874 to 1905 he was an art critic for the Courier. He wrote a number of books on architecture, heraldry and art - including "A Booke of Olde Manchester and Salford" containing about 70 illustrations of ancient buildings, which he compiled for the Jubilee celebrations of 1887. He published a volume "The Art of the Victorian Stage," and innumerable pamphlets and brochures for such occasions as the Old Manchester and Salford Exhibition. He also wrote an autobiography.

Publications

• A Booke of Olde Manchester and Salford (1887)
• A Chronicle of the Brasenose Club, Manchester (in two volumes, 1892–1900)
• An Architect's Experiences: Professional, Artistic, and Theatrical (1897)
• The Art of the Victorian Stage (1907)

Personal life

In 1870 he married Sarah Marshall with whom he had a son and three daughters. Darbyshire was an amateur actor and a friend of many actors, in particular Charles Calvert

Charles Alexander Calvert

Charles Alexander Calvert was a British actor and theatre manager noted for Shakespearean "revivals" featuring elaborate staging and historically accurate sets and costumes.-Early life:...

 and Henry Irving. He continued to be a member of the Society of Friends. He became a fellow of the Institute of British Architects

Royal Institute of British Architects

The Royal Institute of British Architects is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally.-History:...

 in 1870 and was its vice-president from 1902 to 1905. He was president of the Manchester Society of Architects from 1901 to 1903. He collected books on heraldry

Heraldry

Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound harja-waldaz, "army commander"...

 and these are now in the John Rylands Library

John Rylands University Library

The John Rylands University Library is the University of Manchester's library and information service. It was formed in July 1972 from the merger of the library of the Victoria University of Manchester with the John Rylands Library...

, Manchester.
Alfred lectured to many societies. He was a member of the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts

Manchester Academy of Fine Arts

The Manchester Academy of Fine Arts is a society established in 1859 for the purpose of organising Annual Open Exhibitions in Manchester City Art Gallery, formerly the Manchester Institution...

(1867,) Manchester Arts Club (1870,) the Brasenose Club, and a council member for the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society.