3-008-519 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Captain Fowke, R.E., designer of the Great Exhibition Building, 1862. Engraving '...from a photograph by John and Charles Watkins, of Parliament-street, of the architect of the building in which the International Exhibition is housed...Francis Fowke, Captain Royal Engineers, is distantly connected with the Leicestershire family of the same name, the head of which is a Baronet, and the possessor of the estate of Lowesby Hall, in that county. Captain Fowke was born in the year 1824; and, having gone through the usual preliminary training at the Royal Academy at Woolwich, obtained a commission as Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers in 1842. In 1854 he attained to the rank of Captain; and, like many of the officers of this scientific corps, he was selected for civil employment by the Government, and it was probably owing to his connection with the Museum at South Kensington that he was selected to design and carry into execution a plan for the edifice intended for the Exhibition of 1862'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.