Sir Herbert Baker: Architect to the British Empire

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This is the first full biography of the eminent British Architect Sir Herbert Baker. Written with the full cooperation of his family and with access to his archive and private papers, it gives an account of his remarkable life and career, which established him as the leading architect to the British Empire. From London, through the commemoration of the empire’s war dead in France, via South Africa and Australia to India, he celebrated the might and power of an empire which once ruled a quarter of the world. He was an intimate friend of many of most fascinating men of his age, including Cecil Rhodes, Lawrence of Arabia, John Buchan, Jan Smuts and, of course, his fellow architect Sir Edwin Lutyens. From his childhood in Kent, through a Victorian architectural apprenticeship in London and on to becoming the most prolific architect of his age in South Africa, he built the new imperial capital of New Delhi in India with Lutyens, before returning to England where he established a practice in London that built or rebuilt such landmark buildings as the Bank of England, South Africa House, India House, Rhodes House, and the stands for Lords Cricket Ground, as well as numerous churches and private houses.