T. U. Walter's Gift of Drawings to the Institute of British Architects

Abstract

ON 17 APRIL 1838 Thomas Ustick Walter (1804-1887) wrote a letter, hitherto unpublished, from Philadelphia to John Claudius Loudon (I783-I 843), editor of the Architectural Magazine, enclosing a series of pamphlets relating to the construction of Girard College, Philadelphia, I833-1847, and his Report on the new Treasury buildings and Patent Office at Washington, Philadelphia, 1838. This letter, recently discovered with copies of the pamphlets in the British Architectural Library at the Royal Institute of British Architects, sheds new light upon his professional ideals and subsequent gift of drawings to the then Institute of British Architects and, more generally, upon Anglo-American architectural relations.1