User:Lang rabbie/James William Wild

James William Wild Lincoln 1814 - London 1892 was an English architect, architectural historian and art educator.

He trained with George Basevi. Owen Jones - who had collaborated on the interior decoration of Christ Church - became Wild's brother in law, when he married his sister.

Wild travelled in Egypt and Syria in the 1840s.

He was employed as a "decorative architect" to the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Wild worked at the South Kensington Museum in a curatorial role, and is also credited with the design of some of the interiors of buildings at South Kensington. The sculptural staircase inside the Huxley building (1867–71) was widely admired at the time of construction. It is no longer accessible to the public as the balustrades are regarded as too low for modern safety standards.

He was appointed as the curator of Sir John Soane's Museum in 1878 and held this position until his death. Many of the changes that he made to galleries at the Soane have been reversed, as more recent restorations have tried to bring the museum closer to its appearance in Soane's day.

His extensive manuscripts, including drawings from his travels are now housed in the Griffith Institute of the University of Oxford

Major buildings

 * Christ Church Streatham


 * Grimsby Dock Tower


 * Bethnal Green Museum now the V&A Museum of Childhood(1873)


 * St Mark's Church, Alexandria, now St Mark's Pro-Cathedral, Alexandria