INTRODUCTION BY
CATRIONA BLAKER

In this account my aim has been to describe and discuss, mainly chronologically, but occasionally thematically, aspects of the life and work of the architect and designer Edward Welby Pugin (1834-1875) in Kent, and particularly in Ramsgate, where he lived as a child, to where he returned in 1861, and where he spent a considerable amount of his time thereafter. I wanted to try to bring him to the forefront, away from the shadow of his celebrated father, and to consider how his architecture and approach to his profession changed and developed from that of Augustus Pugin. I have ventured some judgements about his work stylistically, and have attempted to provide some background material that highlights the particular demands made upon him locally, demands that helped to shape both his buildings and himself.

Edward Pugin was first and foremost a Catholic, working within a close network of friends and connections. However, whereas Augustus Pugin had gloried in his conversion to Catholicism, it is possible, in the next generation, to see Edward's life in Thanet in terms of someone who felt himself to be somewhat of an outsider. He came certainly from a famous family, but also from a minority group, and he felt, perhaps, a desire to 'belong'. By lavish hospitality, by joining the local Volunteer Artillery Corps, and by close involvement with the Ramsgate Local Board, he satisfied this need.

Both as an architect and a man, Edward Pugin was an original. He was highly industrious, able, and at times capable of daring and imaginative work. His over-excitable and irascible nature fought, to his detriment, with his natural generosity and enthusiasm. His bankruptcy and legal cases make sad reading. At first sight, it is difficult perhaps, where his local activities are concerned, to relate him to the mainstream of the nineteenth century, despite his national standing. On the other hand, his involvement with business men and speculators, his wholehearted identification with the Volunteers, and even his bankruptcy, are very much of their times, even if they do have a strong regional flavour of their own. His career in Kent follows an unusual and revealing trajectory; I hope that readers will find Edward Pugin, his work, his faith, his life and his character as interesting as I have done, and that they will perhaps begin to think about him in a new way.