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NameWilliam Stark 
[21, Their marriage in Edinburgh in 1805], [169, His own article]
[21, Their marriage in Edinburgh in 1805], [169, His own article]Birth25 May 1770, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland
Death9 Oct 1813, Drumsheugh, Edinburgh
GeneralA noted architect - see ODNB.
Spouses
1Katharine Thomson [21, Baptism at Edinburgh parish church in April 1783], [84, Death register for 10 Jan 1833, in St Cuthbert’s, Edinburgh]
[21, Baptism at Edinburgh parish church in April 1783], [84, Death register for 10 Jan 1833, in St Cuthbert’s, Edinburgh]FatherGeorge Thomson (1757-1851)
MotherKatharine Millar (1764-1841)
Marriage21 Nov 1805, St Cuthbert’s, Edinburgh, Midlothian [21, Their marriage in Edinburgh in 1805]
ChildrenCatharine (1806-)
DNB Main notes for William Stark
Stark, William (1770–1813), architect, was born 25 May 1770 in Dunfermline, Fife, one of the family of three sons and two daughters of Mark Stark of Kirkhill, Lasswade, Midlothian, a Glasgow merchant, who had established spinning and beetling mills, and his wife Margaret Paton. An elder sister, Sarah, had in 1787 married the Glasgow architect, John Craig, and it may have been his brother-in-law who provided his initial professional training.
In 1778 Stark was in St Petersburg with his elder brother, who died there. He returned sometime before 1804 to Glasgow, where family connections enabled him to compete successfully against David Hamilton [q.v.] for the Hunterian Museum at the university. Square on plan and domed, its Roman Doric portico was by far the grandest then built in Scotland. In the following year, 1805, he designed for Greenock a domed school with a Greek Doric portico, and in 1808 a French neo-classical scheme with Greek Doric porticoes for the enlargement of Broomhall, Dunfermline, for Thomas Bruce, seventh Earl of Elgin [q.v.], both of which remained on paper.
In 1807 Stark designed the lunatic asylum in Glasgow, in which he adapted Benthamite prison planning to contemporary theories on the segregation of patients by sex, rank, and degree of derangement. Built in 1810–11, it was a memorable exercise in neo-classical geometry, comprising four residential blocks radiating from a central drum of day-rooms crowned by a tall glass dome over the stairwell at its core. Stark published the plans in the form of a pamphlet, subsequently developed into Remarks on the Construction of Public Hospitals for the Cure of Mental Derangement (1810) which resulted in the building’s cruciform planning being widely adopted. In his later asylums at Gloucester (1811) and Dundee (1812), Stark himself adopted markedly less institutionalized concepts, the former being planned as a crescent set in gardens and the latter as a domestically scaled rural farm.
Although Stark, uniquely at that date, had experimented with a severe part-Wren, part-Russian neo-baroque at the steeple of his St George’s church, Glasgow (1807), his next major design, the Greek Doric Judiciary Buildings in Glasgow’s Saltmarket established his reputation as the pioneer of the Greek revival in Scotland. Internally its main court, a Doric colonnaded hemicycle, drew inspiration from the rebuilding of Chester Castle by Thomas Harrison [q.v.].
By 1811 Stark was in bad health and on medical advice left Glasgow for Edinburgh, where the writers to the Signet and the Faculty of Advocates commissioned him to redesign their libraries (later both occupied by the Signet) for which the carcase had already been erected by Robert Reid [q.v.]. In these he brilliantly overcame the problems set by Reid’s window levels to create colonnaded interiors worthy of imperial Russia.
When he died Stark’s career was on the brink of still greater success, his posthumously published report on the plans for Edinburgh’s Calton area, in which he advocated attention to contours rather than the imposition of grid plans, having a profound effect on Edinburgh’s town planning. Sir Walter Scott [q.v.], for whom he designed ‘an English Vicarage House’ for Abbotsford, lamented that in him ‘more genius died than is left behind among the collected universality of Scottish architects.’
Stark married Catherine, sister of George Thomson [q.v.], collector of Scottish music, and daughter of Robert Thomson, schoolmaster. They had one daughter. Stark died in Drumsheugh, Edinburgh, 9 October 1813, and was buried in Greyfriars churchyard.
Sources
Memoir by R. Gordon Stark (1935) in National Library of Scotland, MS 1758; H. M. Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600–1840, 1978; T. A. Markus (ed.), Order in Space and Society, 1982.
DAVID M. WALKER
In 1778 Stark was in St Petersburg with his elder brother, who died there. He returned sometime before 1804 to Glasgow, where family connections enabled him to compete successfully against David Hamilton [q.v.] for the Hunterian Museum at the university. Square on plan and domed, its Roman Doric portico was by far the grandest then built in Scotland. In the following year, 1805, he designed for Greenock a domed school with a Greek Doric portico, and in 1808 a French neo-classical scheme with Greek Doric porticoes for the enlargement of Broomhall, Dunfermline, for Thomas Bruce, seventh Earl of Elgin [q.v.], both of which remained on paper.
In 1807 Stark designed the lunatic asylum in Glasgow, in which he adapted Benthamite prison planning to contemporary theories on the segregation of patients by sex, rank, and degree of derangement. Built in 1810–11, it was a memorable exercise in neo-classical geometry, comprising four residential blocks radiating from a central drum of day-rooms crowned by a tall glass dome over the stairwell at its core. Stark published the plans in the form of a pamphlet, subsequently developed into Remarks on the Construction of Public Hospitals for the Cure of Mental Derangement (1810) which resulted in the building’s cruciform planning being widely adopted. In his later asylums at Gloucester (1811) and Dundee (1812), Stark himself adopted markedly less institutionalized concepts, the former being planned as a crescent set in gardens and the latter as a domestically scaled rural farm.
Although Stark, uniquely at that date, had experimented with a severe part-Wren, part-Russian neo-baroque at the steeple of his St George’s church, Glasgow (1807), his next major design, the Greek Doric Judiciary Buildings in Glasgow’s Saltmarket established his reputation as the pioneer of the Greek revival in Scotland. Internally its main court, a Doric colonnaded hemicycle, drew inspiration from the rebuilding of Chester Castle by Thomas Harrison [q.v.].
By 1811 Stark was in bad health and on medical advice left Glasgow for Edinburgh, where the writers to the Signet and the Faculty of Advocates commissioned him to redesign their libraries (later both occupied by the Signet) for which the carcase had already been erected by Robert Reid [q.v.]. In these he brilliantly overcame the problems set by Reid’s window levels to create colonnaded interiors worthy of imperial Russia.
When he died Stark’s career was on the brink of still greater success, his posthumously published report on the plans for Edinburgh’s Calton area, in which he advocated attention to contours rather than the imposition of grid plans, having a profound effect on Edinburgh’s town planning. Sir Walter Scott [q.v.], for whom he designed ‘an English Vicarage House’ for Abbotsford, lamented that in him ‘more genius died than is left behind among the collected universality of Scottish architects.’
Stark married Catherine, sister of George Thomson [q.v.], collector of Scottish music, and daughter of Robert Thomson, schoolmaster. They had one daughter. Stark died in Drumsheugh, Edinburgh, 9 October 1813, and was buried in Greyfriars churchyard.
Sources
Memoir by R. Gordon Stark (1935) in National Library of Scotland, MS 1758; H. M. Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600–1840, 1978; T. A. Markus (ed.), Order in Space and Society, 1982.
DAVID M. WALKER
Notes for William & Katharine (Family)
Their marriage on Family Search:
Name William Stark
Spouse's Name Katharine Thomson
Event Date 21 Nov 1805
Event Place Saint Cuthberts,Edinburgh,Midlothian,Scotland
Spouse's Father's Name George Thomson
Curiously there was another ceremony with the same names in Glasgow three days later:
Name William Stark
Spouse's Name Cathrine Thomson
Event Date 24 Nov 1805
Event Place Glasgow,Lanark,Scotland
Spouse's Father's Name George Thomson
__________________
Name William Stark
Spouse's Name Katharine Thomson
Event Date 21 Nov 1805
Event Place Saint Cuthberts,Edinburgh,Midlothian,Scotland
Spouse's Father's Name George Thomson
Curiously there was another ceremony with the same names in Glasgow three days later:
Name William Stark
Spouse's Name Cathrine Thomson
Event Date 24 Nov 1805
Event Place Glasgow,Lanark,Scotland
Spouse's Father's Name George Thomson
__________________