Edwin Henry Lingen Barker

• Birth date            3 November 1839 at Hereford
• Baptism               9 December 1839
• Married                7 September 1871 to Eliza Anne Bamford at Wimborne Minster, Dorset
• Death date           27 January 1917 at London
• Burial                   Hereford

Only in his later years did E H Lingen Barker practice in the Greater Manchester area when he became involved in a movement for the erection of low-cost churches necessary to meet the needs of the growing populations in large industrial centres. An important step in the progress of the movement was taken in February, 1907, when Sir W. H. Houldsworth, Bart. at a meeting of the Bishop of Manchester's Commission at Manchester, pleaded for the careful consideration of the cost of the churches, which were to be built with the help of money granted by the Commission, and strongly urged the building of a church at a cost of £8 a sitting. Lingen Barker was forthwith commissioned to prepare plans for various churches in the Manchester Diocese, opening a Manchester office in 1908.

Edwin Henry Lingen Barker was born at Hereford on the 3rd November, 1839. He is the eldest son of the Rev. J. H. Barker, M.A., of St. John's College, Cambridge, his mother being descended from the Lingens, owners of the Sutton and Stoke Edith estates, in the county of Hereford. He was educated at Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire, and in Cheshire. In 1855, at the age of fifteen, he became articled to a firm of London architects. He spent nearly seven years in the offices of the Messrs Habershon and Sir Digby Wyatt, eventually becoming manager and sole designer of a large building estate belonging to Sir Culling Eardley, near Erith, in Kent, which has since become known as the town of Belvidere. About this period he studied and passed the necessary examinations for membership of the Royal Academy of Arts, and spent some time each year sketching in France, Belgium, and Germany, for the purpose of laying-in a stock of professional knowledge to turn to useful account in later years. Eventually Sir Gilbert Scott proposed, and Professor Hayward seconded him, as” a fit and proper person to be a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects," although it is not known if he accepted the invitation.

In 1861 he commenced practice as an architect on his own account, opening an office in Portsea Place, near the Marble Arch. In 1862, however, he left London to take up his residence in Hereford.  Though Mr Barker has resided in Hereford since 1862, he has kept up his London offices and connection. Having achieved a reputation for economy through carrying out sundry first-class elementary schools in London at less than half the cost at which the London School Board were building, he was in 1875 consulted by a special committee of that Board, presided over by Lord Napier and Ettrick, who subsequently certified that Mr Lingen Barker's intelligent and practical assistance had been useful to the committee and instrumental towards introducing a cheaper method of construction, of which London still felt the benefit.

A prolific architect, Lingen Barker's name was probably best known in the county of Somerset and in South Wales, owing to the economy with which his designs there, especially those for churches and schools, have been carried out. By 1889, he has been the architect of nearly 300 buildings of various kinds in 26 different counties, some 80 or more of these being churches. Appointed architect to nine School Boards in England and Wales, his low average of only £4 16s. 2d. per child for 29 schools erected from Pembroke in the west to Kent in the east, was exceptional.

During his professional career Lingen Barker regularly opened branch offices nearer to his various commissions. On two occasions he also took another architect into a short-term partnership – Cross at Weston s Mare in 1889 and Ellis at Bristol 1906-1911. In 1905 he took his son, Edwin Noel Barker into partnership under the style Lingen Barker and Son, presumably with the intention of passing on the business. However, in 1910, Edwin Noel abandoned architecture, subsequently moving to London.  The Building News obituary refers to him being a member of the firm of Lingen Barker and Anthony Barker, but little has been found regarding Anthony Barker.

in 1871 Lingen Barker married Eliza Ann, the youngest daughter of a distinguished Anglo-Indian officer, Colonel Bamford of the 73rd Regiment, who on his return to England received an important appointment on the Staff.

Edwin Henry Lingen Barker, died of heart failure on 27 January 1916 at his residence, Moscow Court, London W. The funeral took place at Hereford.

Publications:
"Parish Churches of the Diocese of St. David's"  and "Warwickshire Parish Churches"

Obituaries: 
Building News 31 January 1917 page 110
Building News v112, 7 Feb 1917, p131;
Builder v112, 9 Feb 1917, p101

Address
1861    Portsea Place, near Marble Arch
1862    E. H. Lingen Barker, 30, Upper Berkeley-street, London
1866    8, St Owen Street Hereford
1882    E. H. Lingen Barker, Architect. 1, Palace Yard, Hereford [Pembrokeshire Herald 2 June 1882]
1890    146 St Owen Street Hereford
1899    EH Lingen Barker 89 Chancery Lane WC (Post Office Directory)
1915    4 Moscow Court, Moscow Road W  (London Post Office Directory)

Branch/Temporary Offices
1866        Worcester
1873-1876    Haverfordwest
1877-1878    Tenby
1884             Oswestry
1885-1893    Goat Street, Swansea
1889             Lingen Barker and Cross, architects, 9 West Street, Weston s Mare. [Kelly 1889]
1890             30 Broad Street, Leominster
1904-1911    Bristol (Edwin Henry Lingen Barker, Son and Ellis)
1908-1914    E H Lingen Barker, King Street, Manchester (Slater)

Residence
1881-1885    1 Shrubb Hill Villas Folly Lane, Tupsley Hereford (Census/ directory)
1885-1890    “Ferncroft”  (1 Lichfield Ave) Ledbury Road Hereford  (Directory)
1901             Tupsley, Herefordshire
1906            11 Bloomsbury Mansions London
1911            Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester (boarder)
1915-1917    4 Moscow Court, Moscow Road W  (London Post Office Directory)