Francis Goodwin

Who was Francis Goodwin?

Francis Goodwin was an English architect. He was born in Kings Lynn, Norfolk, the eldest son of William Goodwin, who was a carpenter. He was trained as an architect by J. Coxedge in Kensington, London. In 1806 he exhibited a view of a chapel in Kings Lynn at the Royal Academy. He married twice, in 1808 to Mary Stort, and in 1818 to Elizabeth Reynolds. From the marriages he had at least five sons.

Goodwin started his architectural career with work on two churches in Kings Lynn, His big opportunity came with the passing of the Church Building Act of 1818 which granted £1 million for the building of what became known as Commissioners' churches. Nine of the churches he designed for the commissioners were accepted and completed. He designed new churches for other clients, and also rebuilt or remodelled churches. Goodwin received commissions for civic buildings, in particular town halls for Manchester and Macclesfield, markets for Leeds and Salford, and for Derby Gaol. Most of the designs for churches were in Gothic Revival style, while those for the civic buildings were mainly Neoclassical. Later in his career he became involved with domestic architecture, in particular in designing Lissadell House in County Sligo, Ireland, for Sir Robert Gore-Booth. In 1833 Goodwin self-published his work entitled Domestic Architecture, being a series of designs for mansions, villas ... in the Grecian, Italian, and old English style of architecture.