CLAYTON, ALFRED GEORGE SMITH #

Architect and civil engineer, of London, active from the 1850s until his death in 1885.  Alfred George Smith Clayton, a son of the architect and painter Alfred Bower Clayton (1795-1855), for whom see Colvin,  was born in London on 1 December 1825.(1)  He appears to have lived and practised in London, where he died in 1885.

According to the Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal a Mr Clayton designed the railway stations at Tynan, Co. Armagh, and Glaslough, Co. Monaghan, for the Ulster Railway.  Commenting on the designs, which were exhibited at the Architectural Exhibition, London, in April 1859, the journal's reviewer dismissed the Tynan design as 'nothing short of being absolutely ugly' but conceded that the Glaslough design was 'a happier conception', singling out the bell turret and some of the timber construction as 'well devised'.(2) Clayton is more precisely identified as Alfred G.S. Clayton in an illustrated article about Glaslough station in the Building News.(3) An engraving of the Glaslough design was also published in the Illustrated London News in December1859.(4)  In 1862 Clayton was awarded the £20 premium in a competition for the design of Stranorlar railway station for the Finn Valley Railway Company, but it is not clear whether the station which was built was designed by him or by JOHN BOWER . JOHN BOWER . (5)  Clayton exhibited three pictorial views of buildings in Cambridge, Coventry and Warwick at the Royal Hibernian Academy in the years 1876 to 1878.(6)
 

See WORKS, for Irish work only.

References

Information about Bower's birth, parentage and death is from www.familysearch.org (last visited, Oct 2016).  For English census records for 1861, 1871 and 1881, see http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cmtilbury/chalfont_clara_clayton.html (last visited, Oct 2016).


(1) His second and third names may be accounted for by the fact that at the time of his baptism on 1 Nov 1827 his father was working as an assistant to the architect George Smith (1782-1869) on the London Corn Market in Mark Lane.
(2) Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal 22 (Apr 1859), 107.
(3) Building News 5 , 9 Dec 1859,1107(illus.),1100 (information from Paul Clerkin, www.archiseek.com, Oct 2016).
(4) Information from George Drum, citing engraving from Illustrated London News (1859) in collection of Sir John Leslie;  this source gives architect's name as 'Claxton'.
(5) DB 4, 15 Jan,15 May 1862, 20,127.
(6) RHA Index.

3 work entries listed in chronological order for CLAYTON, ALFRED GEORGE SMITH #

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Building:	CO. ARMAGH, TYNAN, RAILWAY STATION
Date:	1858
Nature:	New station with tower, for Ulster Railway. Design exh. Architectural Exhibition, London, Apr 1859.
Refs:	Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal 22 (Apr 1859), 107;  Kevin V. Mulligan, The Buildings of Ireland: South Ulster (2013),  570.

Building:	CO. MONAGHAN, GLASLOUGH, RAILWAY STATION
Date:	1859a
Nature:	New Picturesque Gothic station, for Ulster Railway. Design exh. Architectural Exhibition, London, Apr 1859.
Refs:	Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal 22 (Apr 1859), 107;  Building News 5 , 9 Dec 1859,1107(illus.),1100 (information from Paul Clerkin, www.archiseek.com, Oct 2016);  George Drum, citing engraving from Illustrated London News (1859) in collection of Sir John Leslie.gives name as 'Claxton';  Kevin V. Mulligan, The Buildings of Ireland: South Ulster (2013), 337.

Building:	CO. DONEGAL, STRANORLAR, RAILWAY STATION
Date:	1862
Nature:	Competition (premium £20) won by 'Mr Clayton, of Brixton (London)'. To cost about £1,500 (but built to designs by John Bower?)
Refs:	DB 4, 15 Jan,15 May 1862, 20,127