Background
Frederick C. Withers was born on February 4, 1828, in Shepton Mallet, Somersetshire, England, the son of John Alexander Withers and Maria Jewell.
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Frederick C. Withers was born on February 4, 1828, in Shepton Mallet, Somersetshire, England, the son of John Alexander Withers and Maria Jewell.
After completing his school education at King Edward's School, Sherborne, he entered the London office of Thomas Henry Wyatt, where he received his architectural training, in company with his brother, Robert J. Withers.
In 1853, Frederick emigrated to America, one of a number of young English architects attracted about the same time by the opportunities offered in an expanding young country. In America he seems to have been in close touch at an early period with his compatriots, Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould. After practising for some time in Newburgh, New York, where Vaux was living and working as a partner of Andrew Jackson Downing, he followed Vaux to New York and eventually became (1864) a partner of Vaux and Olmsted, working with them especially on the architectural treatment of Central Park. Mould was also working with them, Withers and Vaux on the larger elements, and Mould on details and decoration. Soon after the Civil War began, Withers enlisted and served with a volunteer engineer regiment. In 1862 he was invalided home and resumed practice, with Vaux until 1871, later alone.
Withers enjoyed a high reputation during his lifetime and had a wide practice, chiefly in the designing of institutions and churches. For some time he was architect of the Department of Charities and the Department of Correction in New York City, for which he designed the Jefferson Market Police Court and Prison and the Chapel of the Good Shepherd on Welfare Island. He was also the architect of the Hudson River Asylum, Poughkeepsie, and the Columbia Institute for the Deaf and Dumb, Washington, D. C. (1867). He is, however, best known as a church architect. Among his churches important examples are the First Presbyterian Church, Newburgh, New York (1857), St. Michael's, Germantown, Pennsylvania (1858), the Dutch Reformed Church, Fishkill-on-Hudson (1859), St. Paul's, Newburgh, New York (1864), the First Presbyterian, Highland Falls, New York (1868), the Episcopal Church, Matteawan, New York (1869), Calvary Episcopal Church, Summit, New Jersey (1872), and St. Thomas', Hanover, New York (1874). He was also the architect of the Astor memorial reredos and chancel fittings of Trinity Church, New York. Withers was the author of Church Architecture: Plans, Elevations, and Views of Twenty-One Churches and Two School Houses (1873).
Frederick Clarke Withers died on January 7, 1901, at Yonkers, New York.
Frederick Clarke Withers was an outstanding architect in America, whose work was especially valuable in keeping up the standard of church architecture during a period, when American taste was in a woefully chaotic state. In 1866 Withers, Vaux and Olmsted won the competition for a proposed memorial chapel at Yale, but the building was never erected. A number of Withers' works are listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) and further honored as National Historic Landmarks.
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In 1856, Frederick C. Withers married Emily A. deWint, who died in 1863. They had three children. On August 4, 1864, he married Beulah Alice Higbee, be whom he had eight children.
Calvert Vaux was an American architect and landscape designer.
Jacob Wrey Mould was an American architect, illustrator, linguist and musician.
Frederick Law Olmsted was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic and public administrator.
