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CORNISH BUILDINGS GROUP CONFERENCE 2024

'Architecture and Philanthropy'

An examination of 19th-century philanthropically funded architecture in Cornwall

A conference to celebrate the Bicentenary of the birth of John Passmore Edwards.

Saturday 3 February 2024 - 10.30am  to 5pm

At the Chapel Lecture Theatre, Penryn Campus, Falmouth

Much of Cornwall’s public architecture is the result of the activities of philanthropists. It is easy a hundred or more years later to take these buildings for granted and to fail to realise the impact that these initiatives had on nineteenth–century society. 2023 was the bicentenary of Passmore Edwards’ birth, and the aim of this Conference in early 2024 is to open our eyes to this aspect of our built heritage and, in so doing, to continue to celebrate the life and work of Cornwall’s great philanthropist.

This conference explores the Cornish buildings commissioned by Passmore Edwards and his contemporary philanthropists, examining matters such as the social needs that the philanthropists were addressing and the types of building that resulted; the architects involved; the nature and styles of the resulting buildings; and the survival of the buildings commissioned.

John Passmore Edwards is well-known as a philanthropist who used the wealth that he generated from his publishing activities to endow libraries, hospitals and institutes dedicated to learning, particularly in Cornwall and the south-east of England. Almost always his endowments involved the commissioning of new purpose-built buildings.