English architect, son of Edward Webb, a distinguished engraver and painter; born in London on the 22nd of May 1849. His architectural education was in the office of Banks & Barry (the latter the son of Sir Charles Barry), but it was to his own self-study—and in particular to his power of sketching during his many travels, rather than to his pupilage instruction, that his expression in design and planning are to be ascribed. One of his earliest commissions, on establishing himself in practice, was the restoration of the important Norman church of St. Bartholomew’s, Smithfield (1880), a work which lasted through several years. But Webb’s peculiar distinction lies in the large number of important buildings for which he has been responsible. Many of these were the result of competitions and include the Victoria Courts at Birmingham, the Assurance offices in Moorgate St., and the Christ’s Hospital school at Horsham, all carried out in partnership with Mr. Ingress Bell. His roll of important buildings is a long one, and may well be headed by the completion of the Victoria and Albert museum, South Kensington, and its close neighbours the Royal College of Science and the Imperial College of Technology. The first of these was the successful design in a very keenly contested competition. The plan has the merit of being simple and easy to grasp; the long vistas it presents, the octagon hall, and the galleries are treated boldly and with dignity of proportion. The Admiralty entrusted to Sir Aston the new Britannia Royal Naval College at Dartmouth, and, in conjunction with Mr. Ingress Bell, he carried out the Royal United Service Institution building, Whitehall, and that for the university of Birmingham. The National Monument to Queen Victoria, opposite Buckingham Palace, was, again, the result of a competition, and included a fine but simple lay-out of the Mall and other approaches to the site occupied by the central feature which embodies the noteworthy sculptural work of Mr. Brock. The unworthy setting and background offered to this fine monument presented by the cement-fronted elevation of Buckingham Palace, for which John Nash and, later, Blore were responsible, led to the long talked of recasting of the front toward the Mall, and this work was placed in the hands of Sir A. Webb. He also designed the entrance from Charing Cross to the Mall, which is ingeniously masked by a building with curved frontages, in order that the change in the line of access at this point may not be noticeable. He was responsible for a large number of private houses—including Yeaton-Pevery, Shrewsbury—and for churches—both new and restored—in Worcester, Burford and Witley, and the French Protestant church, Soho. In 1902 Webb was elected president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and in 1905 was presented with the institute’s gold medal. He was made a Royal Academician in 1903, received his knighthood in 1914, and in 1919, on the death of Sir Edward Poynter, was elected president of the Royal Academy. This was an unusual honour to be awarded to an architectural member, and one for which in the long history of that society there had only been one precedent—that of James Wyatt in 1805, and even in his case the election was never officially confirmed.
