Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720 - 1940

Clerk of works to JAMES GANDON  JAMES GANDON in the 1780s. Thomas Mulvany gives an account of his death in 1787: 'At this period Mr Gandon was deprived of the services of his active and confidential clerk of works, Mr Edwards, who was found dead, having fallen through one of the circular skylights of the new Custom House, a height of upwards of thirty feet. As this melancholy catastrophe occurred during the absence of the workmen at dinner, no satisfactory explanation could be given: on the return of the workmen Edwards was found lifeless on the ground, and as his affairs and accounts were in no way entangled, it was concluded on the inquest that when superintending the work he had fallen through the skylight from some sudden weakness or attack of the head.'(1) The death is mentioned in the Freeman's Journal of 2 August 1787.(2) It seems likely, therefore, that Edwards is the same person as the Thomas Edwards, aged 44, who was buried at St Thomas's Church, Dublin, on 3 August 1787.(3)



References



(1) Thomas J. Mulvany, The Life of James Gandon (1846), 109-10.
(2) IAA, Edward McParland files, Acc. 2008/44.
(3) R. Refaussé, ed., Register of the Parish of St Thomas, Dublin, 1750-1791 (RCB, 1994), 108.