Background
John Nash was born in London on January 18, 1752. He was the son of a Welsh millwright also called John (1714–1772).
John Nash was born in London on January 18, 1752. He was the son of a Welsh millwright also called John (1714–1772).
From 1766 or 67, John Nash trained with the architect Sir Robert Taylor; the apprenticeship was completed in 1775 or 1776.
In 1796 Nash returned to London and entered into a partnership with the landscape gardener Humphrey Repton (dissolved in 1802). In 1798 Nash designed a conservatory at Brighton for the Prince of Wales (later King George IV), and he became an intimate member of the prince's circle. During the next 15 years Nash designed a number of remarkable country houses in the form of picturesque pseudomedieval castles, such as East Cowes Castle, Isle of Wright, for himself (1798); Luscombe, South Devon (1800-1804); West Grinstead and Knepp Castles, Sussex (ca. 1806); Ravensworth, County Durham, and Caerhayes, Cornwall (ca. 1808); and Cronkhill, Shropshire (ca. 1802), the first neo-Italian villa in England, from which sprang the Italianate revival of the late Regency and early Victorian eras. He also built the picturesque cottages and dairy at Blaise Hamlet near Bristol (1805-1811) and the most important of all cottages ornées, the Royal Lodge at Windsor (1812).
Nash became architect to the Department of Woods and Forests in 1806 and prepared plans for developing Marylebone Park. His scheme provided for the laying out of Regent's Park with villas and surrounding terraces of grand houses and for the creation of a processional thoroughfare (Regent Street) from Marylebone to the seat of government in Whitehall. This gigantic program, known as the Metropolitan Improvements, was a masterpiece of early town planning and transformed London's West End. In these works Nash expressed his genius for grand spectacular effects, but he was much criticized for the carelessness and incorrectness of his classical details.
In 1813 Nash was appointed one of the three "attached architects" to the Board of Works. Tow years later he began the transformation of the Royal Pavilion at Brighton, then a simple classical villa, into an Oriental dream palace with an Indian exterior and a richly fantastic chinoiserie interior, which became the most magnificent expression of Chinese taste in Europe. For the building of Buckingham Palace (1825-1830), when his creative powers were failing, Nash incurred severe official criticism. After the death of George VI in 1830, he was dismissed from the Board of Works and retired to East Cowes Castle, where he died on May 13, 1835.
On 28 April 1775, at the now demolished church of St Mary Newington, Nash married his first wife Jane Elizabeth Kerr, daughter of a surgeon. The couple had two children, both were baptised at St Mary-at-Lambeth, John on 9 June 1776 and Hugh on 28 April 1778.
In June 1778 "By the ill conduct of his wife found it necessary to send her into Wales in order to work a reformation on her", the cause of this appears to have been the claim that Jane Nash "Had imposed two spurious children on him as his and her own, notwithstanding she had then never had any child" and she had contracted several debts unknown to her husband, including one for milliners' bills of £300. The claim that Jane had faked her pregnancies and then passed babies she had acquired off as her own was brought before the Consistory court of the Bishop of London.
His wife was sent to Aberavon to lodge with Nash's cousin Ann Morgan, but she developed a relationship with a local man Charles Charles. In an attempt at reconciliation Jane returned to London in June 1779, but she continued to act extravagantly so he sent her to another cousin, Thomas Edwards of Neath. She gave birth just after Christmas, and acknowledged Charles Charles as the father. In 1781 Nash instigated action against Jane for separation on grounds of adultery. The case was tried at Hereford in 1782, Charles who was found guilty was unable to pay the damages of £76 and subsequently died in prison. The divorce was finally read 26 January 1787.
Nash married 25-year-old Mary Ann Bradley on 17 December 1798 at St George's, Hanover Square.
