Samuel Pepys Cockerell

Samuel Pepys Cockerell (15 February 1753 – 12 July 1827) was an English architect. He was a son of John Cockerell, of Bishop's Hull, Somerset, and the elder brother of Sir Charles Cockerell, 1st Baronet, for whom he designed the house he is best known for, Sezincote House, Gloucestershire, the uniquely Orientalising features of which inspired the more extravagant Brighton Pavilion. He was a great-great nephew of the diarist Samuel Pepys. Life Cockerell received his training in the office of Sir Robert Taylor, to whom he allowed that he was indebted for his early advancements, which were largely in the sphere of official architecture. In 1774 he received his first such appointment, as Surveyor to the fashionable West End London parish of St George's Hanover Square. In 1775 he joined the Royal Office of Works as Clerk of Works at the Tower of London, largely a sinecure; in 1780 the clerkship at Newmarket was added. In spite of his reputation for diligence and competence, he lost these posts in the reorganisation of the Office of Works in 1782. At the death of Taylor in 1788, Cockerell succeeded Sir Robert as Surveyor to the Foundling Hospital and Pulteney estates. In 1790 he presented the board of governors of the Foundling Hospital a project for the development of their considerable estate in Bloomsbury, London, which proceeded according to his plans, until he resigned and was succeeded in the post by his pupil Joseph Kay. He continued Taylor's work designing Admiralty House, Whitehall, as residence for the First Lord of the Admiralty, 1786–88.