I. 1871 Crossing the Channel

  Boinville entered military service during the Franck-Prussian War and participated in Paris Commune in 1870. After defeated, he crossed the Channel to settled down in the Britain. He was a dual citizen of Anglo-French.

II. 1871-1872 Working in Glasgow

(1) Why to Glasgow?

  Architect Boinville was really disappointed by the result of the Paris Commune and made up his mind to leave France for his father's home of the UK. He asked his father to find proper architect's office he could work for there. He was 21 years old, and needed some more training and experience to found his own architect's office.

  His father, Rev. de Boinville has been a protestant missionary in France for nearly 30 years, and was supported by British contributors, one of whom was Thomas Constable, great publisher in Edinburgh. Thomas married to Lucia Ann Cowan, a daughter of Alexander Cowan, paper maker in Penucuik, while Campbell Douglas (14 June 1828-14 April 1910), an architect of Glasgow married to a daughter of Lucia Ann's sister. So, Rev. de Boinville found proper architect for this son through his channel. As described by C. Douglas in architect de Boinville's obituary, Douglas was introduced young de Boinville through his family connection. It should be via Thomas Constable.

  Although young architect de Boinville wanted to rely on William Henry White, his master during the French period, White was not in the Britain. White left Paris after the Franco-Prussian War broke out, and went to India to work for the public works department there. Some source say, father of White was a medical doctor for India colonial government. The colonial government needed competent architect to supervise design of new British India's public buildings. However, White soon returned to the Britain to take seat of examiner for the newly established engineering college: Indian Engineering College, in 1872. Next year, he resigned the India Office and joined RIBA Secretary Office. It was too late for architect de Boinville, since he already left Glasgow for Japan.

(2) Works in Glasgow

  Together Douglas and Stevenson formed one of the greatest teaching partnerships of mid Victorian times. Like Leiper's and J J Burnet's later, the office at 226 St Vincent Street was a studio rather than just a drawing office and as Campbell Douglas and his wife Elizabeth Menzies, whom he had married in 1865, (she was daughter of Allan Menzies, professor of conveyancing at the University of Edinburgh, and niece of Charles Cowan, MP, who through family connections brought the commissions for Westerlea at Murrayfield and the Cowan Institute in Penicuik) lived upstairs it had a family atmosphere, William Flockhart recollecting 'the musical At homes to which his assistants were always asked … the staff was in turn treated but as a larger family'. 'Quiz' described Douglas as 'a charming host either in town or country [who] sings a good song, and tells and appreciates the finer points of a good story'.

  With the departure of Stevenson, Douglas was for some years sole partner. Up to 1870 the business of his firm had been almost exclusively churches and large houses, but with the commission for the Scottish Amicable Building, first mooted in that year but not built until 1873, followed in 1872 by that for St Andrews Halls the practice moved into an altogether different league of major commercial buildings and public projects. Douglas's phenomenal success in this field was made possible by the energy and ability of James Sellars, his partner from March 1872, if not earlier. Sellars was born in the Gorbals on 2 December 1843, the son of a house-factor of the same name. He was articled to Hugh Barclay at the age of 13 in 1857, and remained there until 1864 when he joined the office of James Hamilton who had a significant practice in Belfast as well as in Glasgow, and remained there for three years. Thereafter he assisted in several offices until he joined Campbell Douglas's office in 1870. He had earned his partnership by winning the first competition for the Stewart Memorial out of fifty designs submitted in 1870, and 'awoke to find himself famous': and when the result was quashed and the competition re-advertised at half the original outlay he drew even greater attention to himself by winning that competition also on 31 January 1871. He was admitted to the Glasgow Institute of Architects in March 1872, his certificate being signed by Alexander Thomson and John Baird, and in the autumn he took a brief sketching holiday in Paris and Normandy, which he put to good use later. This visit probably related to the presence in the office from 1871 of Charles Alfred Chastel de Boinville, a pupil of A Guyot and an ex-assistant of Geoffroy of Cherbourg who had sought employment in Glasgow in the wake of the Franco-Prussian war. As Chastel de Boinville returned to Paris in 1872 it is possible that Sellars travelled with him. Sellars went abroad only twice: as Lindsay Miller observed 'when young he had not the means, when able no time'.

  What Chastel de Boinville specifically contributed to the work of the practice in the year or so he spent with it is difficult to establish now, though it is possible that he had some hand in the spectacular French Gothic spire of the Queen's Park Church; but his presence coincided with a radical change in the stylistic direction of the practice in 1871-73. The Scottish Amicable building and the Claremont Street Wesleyan Church had cinquecento detailing, but at St Andrews Halls a monumental neo Greek was adopted. Superficially the design had much in common with Alexander Thomson's work in its uncompromisingly rectangular shapes and banded masonry but it also had an even more direct relationship to the post-Schinkel Berlin School, while much of the smaller detail was markedly French Beaux-Arts, a tendency still more markedly seen at Finneston Church and the Queen Insurance Building of 1877-80. Parallel developments were to be seen in the work of Hugh and David Barclay with whom Sellars retained close links, and it may be that they were the other Glasgow practice Chastel de Boinville assisted in 1871-72, although Leiper's French Beaux-Arts Partick Burgh hall suggests him as an equally likely candidate.

(3) Engagement

  As described above, Douglas was from Ayrshire, and had several projects there. So, it was possible for architect de Boinville to meet Douglas' client family in 1872. William Cowan (1797-1886) was a banker of Ayr, as well as 3 times Provosts of Ayr. Among his 12 children (!!), the youngest daughter was Agnes Cowan born in 1846. She met de Boinville some where, she was 4 years older than de Boinvile....

*William Cowan (ii) Feb.27, 1797-Jan. 8, 1886

 Ann Jane Cowan (born McHafie) May 11, 1808 -Sep 26, 1888

   Cuthbert Cowan, Aug 22, 1835 - April 4, 1927

     George Wallace Cowan (1877 - march 13, 1948

  Agnes de Boinville (born Cowan), November 20, 1846 - May 1897

  Mary Agnes de Boinville, 1876, married C. Oakley.

*William Cowan was a managing partner of Hunter and Company, which was acquired by the Glasgow-based Union Bank of Scotland in 1846.

  Mr and Mrs de Boinville visited to Oban to meet C.A. McVean in 1886 [M.D.1886] after they attended at her father's funeral at Ayr.

III. 1879-1886 Working in London

(1) RIBA Associate

Prior to debut at British architectural scene, de Boinville applied for Associate Membership to Royal Institute of Architects with sponsors of Campbell Douglas and. His younger brother William was also architect, and applied for it same time. They founded an architectural firm Robins and de Boinville Brothers at St. James Park, Westminster, together with Robins. Who was this Robins? I do not know he was E.C.Robins or not? Anyhow, this partnership has failed, and Douglas and McVean grieved to hear of this failure in their documents. I really want to know what happened to de Boinville.

No.379 Application for Associate of Royal Institute of British Architects

Names and Titles in full: Charles Alfred Chastel de Boinville

Address: of Westminster Chambers, London & Garden Cottage Kingston on Thames

Witness our hands this 4th day of October 1881

Campbell Douglas

William H. White

Augin

Approved by the Council 1oth of October 1881,   Signature of Chairman Edmund Street

(2) Robins and de Boinville Brothers, Architect and Surveyor.ロビンス･アンド･ボアンヴィル兄弟事務所

-Location: 2 Victoria Mansions, Victoria Street.

--ヴィクトリア駅からウエストミンスター教会に向かって約1キロ歩くとスコットランドヤードの建物があり、ここにかつてヴィクトリア･マンションがあった。20世紀初頭、この地区が再開発され、ホワイトホールからここにスコットランドヤードが移ってきた。私はイギリス留学中と調査中にここを何十回通ったことか。ボアンヴィルの事務所があったヴィクトリア･マンションを見たかった。ロビンスとはエドワード C. ロビンスの可能性があるが、なぜロビンスとの共同事務所という疑問は残る。

London Map 1882.

--Who is this Robins? If he was Edwards C. Robins, they have known each other through design of the Imperial College of Engineering. Edward C. Robins was an architect specializing indoor sanitation, and gave an advice to W. Ayrton, professor of the Imperial College of Engineering, Tokyo, for planning of natural philosophy department in 1873 or 74 [The Builder 1880]. Ayrton was a graduate from London University and got acquainted with Robins before he came to Japan. Ayrton sent him a set of building plan of his department which were prepared by de Boinville. Ronbins just started designing of Finsbury Technical College and discussed the best way of design of technical school and room referring to the Imperial College of Engineering in the meeting of the Society of Arts, and presented his argument in the Builder magazine.

-WORKS(1) Kingston-on-Thames For Presbyterian Church and Hall in Grove Crecent Road, Kinston-on-Thames

-The Presbyterian church in Grove Crescent road, erected in 1883—4, at a cost of about £3,100, is a structure of red brick, in the Early English style, from designs by Messrs. Robins and De Boinville, architects, of Westminster, and will seat 450 persons; at the rear is a lecture hall, holding 200 persons, with a class room and vestry.

Source: Kingston upon Thames Genealogical Records

-Messrs, Robins and De Boinville Bros, 2., Victoria Mansions, S.W., architects, Quantities supplied Oldridge and Sons----------3,085.0.0

Source: The British Architect September 21, 1883.

(3) de Boinville and Morris

  Battersea Polytecnic Design Competition

*Spectator 4 July 1891, page.21-22. ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE AT THE ACADEMY.

THE architectural drawings exhibited this time are not nearly so interesting a collection as those of last year. Many of the best men are unrepresented. There is nothing from Messrs. Norman Shaw, Bentley, Bodley and Garner, or Philip Webb ; the examples of Messrs. Champneys' and T. G. Jackson's work do not cry for notice ; and some of the younger men, like Messrs. Letbaby and Leonard Stokes, who were so well to the front last season, are absent. Those drawings which are so hung as to invite notice, are often of the most commonplace and disappointing character, and it is quite possible that some good work is hung so as to be invisible, for it must be . remembered that architectural drawings being made, by the nature of the case, for close examination, and not to carry at a distance, bear sluing very much worse than pictures. Indeed, it is absurd to hang such drawings above the level of the eye for any purpose but that of a certificate of their having been accepted, and somehow stored, in a gallery of the Royal Academy. The old anomaly is once more repeated of mixing up drawings of ancient buildings among recent designs; copies made in the National Gallery might as well be hung among the pictures of the year. But it must be said that it is a great pleasure to turn from a good deal of inept originality to reproductive work so beautiful as Mr. Schultz's drawing of some ancient Ionic capitals at Athens. Mr. Wilson's and Mr. Mallows's drawings also deserve attention.

Among the designs, excluding for the moment the work of two artists to be dealt with presently, several sketches for bungalows by Mr. Briggs stand out in virtue of a certain character and distinction. So, too, with Mr. R. Blomfield's Brooklands, Weybrid' ye (1,936), and Mr. Bartlett's Free Library (1,921); and there is sobriety and fitness in Messrs. Morris and De Boinville's design for a Polytechnic at Battersea. But it is difficult without injustice to single out names when the passable designs are so level in merit.

It is with no little regret that one sees here for the last time the work of two architects whose death within the year is a serious loss to the art. One of them, Mr. J. D. Sedding, had made himself a considerable name, and will perhaps be best remembered in London by the recently built church in Sloane Street. More than most of our churches, it tempts the passer. by with a certain pictorial charm about its entrance, and rewards him, if he enters, with a combination of work by various hands, that is commoner in old or foreign churches. It was one great merit of Mr. Sedding that he recognised the principle that architecture ought to be a co-ordinating art, giving opportunities to all the others. He was one of the most active members of the Art-Workers' Guild, a body whose object it has been to put an end to the absurd divorce between architecture, sculpture, and the decorative arts generally. If the reader will bethink him of what architect's sculpture, architect's stained glass, architect's ironwork, and so forth, were in the cruel past of the Gothic revival, how shoppy, how perfunctory, how altogether abominable, he will recognise how desirable was this change of attitude that requires for the architect a richer and completer education. The past is still too much present ; the country parson is still basting to fill his church with the choppy heads of angels, with tiles and woodwork that it is a shame even to look at, and the pions pewholder is beguiled into remembering his dead by sitting under mechanic forms of saints glazed in primary hues. Little enough has been achieved yet by the new good inten- tions, but work like Mr. Sedding's does mark an advance. The crucifix, for instance, in the court of the schools at Bristol (1,758),—how different design like that is from the detail of an older generation, features borrowed and impoverished from ancient buildings, with the cramp of the compasses and the T-square showing in every line ; or from the work, on the other hand, of those who confuse invention with stupid assertiveness, and think decoration and sculpture possible for a man who has never learned to draw or to model, and who is incapable of design. If, on the other side, a critical moral is to be drawn from Mr. Sedding's work, it would be this, that while feeling strongly the co-ordinating function of architecture for the other arts, he did not feel so strongly its function of restraint, how it ought to subdue to itself the sculptures and the paintings, and never lose sight of its own business, which is to provide harmonies of proportion in space and light. The drawings exhibited here are enough to show the artist's qualities and defects, his daring, masterful hand in the treatment of an elevation, his constant felicities in this or that detail, but also his lapses in a sense of scale and compatibility.

(4) de Boinville and Wiblin

Work 1: Kingston-upon Thames Church

Work 2: Kingston upon Thames Theater

Work 3: South London Polytechnic, 1890.

Work 4: Almshouses, Plymouth, 1896. together with Wiblin

IV. 1886-1893 in H.M. Office of Works

(1) Works under the name of "draughtsman"

IV. 1893-1897 in India Office

(1) The India List and India Office List for 1896, London, Harrison and Sons

De Boinville, Chastel Alfred Chastel, A.R.I.B.A., Surveyor and Clerk of Works, India Office.

Architect and surveyor-in-chief to the govt. Japan, 1872-1882; draughtsman, H.M.'s Office of Works, 1886-93; surveyor and clerk of the works, India Office, 22nd Aug., 1893-

(2) Burials in the Burial Ground of Kingston Upon Thames

18955 Charles Alfred Chastel de Boinville, April 27, 1897. At age of 48. Ivedon Cottage, Springfield Road.