William Mason

Who was William Mason?

William Mason was a New Zealand architect born in Ipswich, England, the son of an architect/builder George Mason and Susan, née Forty. Trained by his father he went to London where he seems to have worked for Thomas Telford. He studied under Peter Nicholson before eventually working for Edward Blore. In 1831 he married Sarah Nichols, a Berkshire woman apparently fifteen years older than he was. A son was born in the first year of their marriage. In 1836 he returned to Ipswich to practise. Having worked at Lambeth Palace he had attracted the interest of the Bishop of London who now employed him independently designing churches and parsonages. These included three commissions for churches in Essex: St Lawrence, East Donyland; St Botolph, Colchester; and St James, Brightlingsea. The most remarkable of these is St Botolph's in white brick and Norman style. Apparently Georgian in plan and in its interior it strikes a Medieval note outside. St James, also white brick and in the lancet style and resembling some of Blore's work, is very like St Paul's Church Auckland which Mason built a few years later. Perhaps because of economic hardship, perhaps because of ambition in 1838 the Masons emigrated to New South Wales.