Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720 - 1940

Carpenter, of Dublin, active in the 1760s, when he was paid for work at Trinity College.(1) He appears to have been - or become - the college carpenter and to have held the post for over thirty years, although there are no further references to him in the muniments until after his death, which probably occurred about 1790. In 1791- 1793 there are payments to his widow, Mary, who carried on the business after his death with her two sons. At some point after 1793 Trinity ceased to employ her; according to a memorial which she sent to the college, it was because her sons - one of whom was in prison for debt - had 'disobliged' the board.(2) The sons in question may have been Thomas and Edmund Childs, who attended the Dublin Society's school of drawing in architecture in 1779 and 1783 respectively.(3)



References



(1) TCD muniments, MUN P/2/130, 138, 144.
(2) TCD muniments, MUN P/2/163, 168-171.
(3) Gitta Willemson, The Dublin Society Drawing Schools 1746-1876 (2000), 16.