Gavin Mark Stamp Archive

The archive comprises material created and collected by Stamp from his time as an undergraduate to the end of his life and reflects his diverse career and numerous interests.

Where possible, the original order has been maintained. Where no order was apparent, the material was arranged during the cataloguing process. This collection has been organised into six sequences:

-GMS/1, Research files on architects, buildings and subjects

-GMS/2, Amenity Society files

-GMS/3, Correspondence files

-GMS/4, Lecture files

-GMS/5, Journalism files

-GMS/6, Other initiatives, work, and personal material

The collection includes a wide range of materials such as correspondence, images, research notes, newspaper and journal cuttings, lecture texts, draft publications, reports, drawings/sketches, draft catalogue entries, tour itineraries, broadcast scripts, and contracts.

At the core of the archive are Stamp's research files, which focus on individual architects, buildings, and a range of subjects. These files, compiled over the course of his career, serve as a valuable reference source, and reflect his wide-ranging professional activities. In addition to these research files, the archive also includes files concerning Stamp's role within both the Twentieth Century Society and the Victorian Society, correspondence, lectures, and journalism files, and documentation of various initiatives and projects he was involved with throughout his life.

Together the collection serves as an essential resources for understanding Stamp's career trajectory and his professional output, but also offers a rich source for the study of architectural movements, buildings, churches, and architects. Futhermore, the collection offers a window into the networks and relationships within the field of architectural history, including the workings of amenity societies, and the various audiences for which Stamp was engaged with from experts, academics, and colleagues, to members of the public.

Open for research. Readers must fill in an 'Reader Agreement Form' which outlines the reading room rules and conditions concerning privacy and Data Protection

Gavin Mark Stamp (1948-2017) was a British architectural historian, writer, journalist, and campaigner. Stamp disseminated his opinions and scholarship through many varied activities: scholarship, journalism, campaigning, graphic design, teaching, broadcasts, and exhibitions; as well as across diverse platforms including scholarly texts, lectures, periodicals, walking tours, foreign trips, art, and television programmes.

Stamp's interests were wide ranging and encompassed topics such as the Scott family architectural dynasty; inter-war period architecture; telephone boxes; war memorials; power stations; Victorian churches; the work of Ernö Goldfinger and ecclesiastical design.

Stamp was born in Bromley, Kent on 15 March 1948, the eldest of three children born to Barry Hartnell Stamp (1921-2014), businessman and driving instructor, and Norah Agnes Clare, née Rich (1917-1992). He received a London County Council scholarship to attend Dulwich College as a boarder, before attending Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge in 1968 to read history, changing after part one to the history of art. For Stamp's PhD, also at Cambridge and awarded in 1978, he studied the work of George Gilbert Scott Junior. Stamp continued to research Scott Junior throughout his lifetime, culminating in his developed thesis being published in 2002.

In the early 1970s Stamp catalogued the drawings of George Gilbert Scott Junior at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and after completing his PhD, he embarked on a career as a freelance architectural historian, journalist, author, and lecturer, initially working for the Architectural Press publishing house. In 1978, at the suggestion of John Betjeman, Stamp took over the 'Nooks and Corners' column in Private Eye, under the pseudonym 'Piloti' and would later go on to contribute to many other periodicals throughout his career, including Apollo, Country Life, The Spectator, the Independent, and the Daily Telegraph.

Stamp played a crucial role in many societies but especially the Twentieth Century Society (formerly the Thirties Society), for which he was a founding member and Chairman from 1983-2007. Other societies Stamp was involved with throughout his career include the Victorian Society, the Lutyens Trust, the Georgian Group and the Alexander Thomson Society. He participated in the societies' various campaigns, including the Thirties Society's successful effort to save red telephone boxes; organised summer schools, walking tours and visits in the UK and abroad; and authored articles for the various societies' journals and newsletters.

On 12 February 1982 Stamp married Alexandra Frances Artley (b. 1947); after the arrival of two daughters, Agnes and Cecilia, Stamp's freelance income from journalism and part-time teaching was strained, and a position as a lecture at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow in 1990 offered a solution, a post he held for thirteen years until 2003.

After Glasgow, Stamp spent a year in Cambridge (2003-2004) as a bye-fellow of Gonville and Caius College where he worked on a book on inter-war British architecture. This was published posthumously in 2024 by his widow Rosemary Hill (b. 1957), whom he married in 2014, after his divorce from Alexandra Artley in 2007.

After leaving Cambridge for the second time, Stamp once again worked as a freelance architectural historian, journalist, author, and lecturer, and continued to work in a freelance capacity for the rest of his career.

Stamp died from prostate cancer, on 30 December 2017 at his home in Camberwell Grove, London.

This biography was written using the following as reference:

C. Aslet, 'Gavin Stamp, 1948-2017', New Criterion, March 2018, newcriterion.com/issues/2018/3/gavin-stamp-19482017-9626

C. Hind, 'A tribute to Gavin Stamp (1948-2017)', Lutyens Trust, www.lutyenstrust.org.uk/portfolio-item/a-tribute-to-gavin-stamp-1948-2017/

Powers, A. (2021, January 14). Stamp, Gavin Mark (1948-2017), architectural historian and conservationist. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Selected bibliography:

Stamp, G. (ed.) (1978) London 1900. [London]: Andreas Papadakis. (Architectural Design Profile, 13).

Harte, et al. Temples of Power : Lithographs. 1979. Print.

Stamp, G. and Amery, C. (1980) Victorian buildings of London 1837-1887 : an illustrated guide. London: Architectural Press.

Fisher, G. (compiler.) et al. (1981) Catalogue of the drawings collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects : the Scott family. Farnborough: Gregg.

Stamp, G. (1981) Robert Weir Schultz : architect : and his work for the Marquesses of Bute : an essay. Mount Stuart, [Rothesay]: [S.n.].

Stamp, G. (1982) The great perspectivists. London: Trefoil books published in association with the Royal Institute of British Architects. (RIBA drawings).

Stamp, G. (1984) The changing metropolis : earliest photographs of London 1839-1879. Harmondsworth: Viking.

Stamp, G. (1989). Telephone Boxes. London: Chatto & Windus

Stamp, G. and McKinstry, S. (eds.) (1994) 'Greek' Thomson. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Scott, G.G. and Stamp, G. (ed.) (1995) Personal and professional recollections : a facsimile of the original edition with new material and a critical introduction. Stamford: Paul Watkins.

Stamp, G. (ed.) (1999) The light of truth and beauty : the lectures of Alexander 'Greek' Thomson architect 1817-1875. Glasgow: Alexander Thomson Society.

Stamp, G. (2001) Edward Lutyens country houses : from the archives of Country Life. London: Aurum.

Stamp, G. (2002) An architect of promise : George Gilbert Scott Junior 1839-1897 and the late Gothic Revival. Donington, Spalding: Shaun Tyas.

Hopkins, A. and Stamp, G. (eds.) (2002) Lutyens abroad : the work of Sir Edwin Lutyens outside the British Isles. London: British School at Rome at the British Academy.

Stamp, G. (2006) The memorial to the missing of the Somme. London: Profile Books. (Wonders of the world).

Stamp, G. (2007) Britain's lost cities. London: Aurum.

Stamp, G. (2010) Lost Victorian Britain : how the twentieth century destroyed the nineteenth century's architectural masterpieces. London: Aurum.

Stamp, G. (2013) Anti-ugly : excursions in English architecture and design. London: Aurum Press.

Stamp, G. (2015) Gothic for the steam age : an illustrated biography of George Gilbert Scott. London: Aurum Press.

Stamp, G. and Hill, R. (foreword by.) (2024) Interwar : British architecture 1919-39. London: Profile Books.

Selected list of exhibitions:

Silent Cities: an exhibition of the memorial and cemetery architecture of the Great War, 1914-1919, Heinz Gallery of the Royal Institute of British Architects, London, 9 November - 22 December 1977

Sir Gilbert Scott, 1811-1878: architect of the Gothic Revival, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 31 May - 10 September 1978

The English house 1860-1914 : catalogue to an exhibition of photographs and drawings Exhibition compiled and catalogue written by Gavin Stamp

Ernö Goldfinger, Architectural Association, London, 2 June - 25 June 1983

Alexander Thomson: the unknown genius, The Lighthouse, Glasgow, 1999

Saving a century: the Victorian Society 1958-2008, Royal Institute of British Architects, London, 6 - 29 May 2008