Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 55.djvu/48

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Streatfield
40
Street

acres, where he built a house from his own designs. In 1823 he published ‘The Bridal of Armagnac,’ a tragedy in five acts and in verse; and he composed other tragedies which still remain in manuscript. He had been elected a fellow of the Society of Antitiquaries on 4 June 1812, and for many years he was employed in forming collections, chiefly genealogical and biographical, in illustration of the history of Kent. On drawings and engravings for this projected work he is supposed to have expended nearly 3,000l., having several artists in his constant employment, while the armorial drawings were made on the wood blocks by himself. Many copper-plates of portraits and monumental sculpture were also prepared, but during Streatfeild's lifetime the public derived no further benefit from the undertaking than the gratuitous circulation of ‘Excerpta Cantiana, being the Prospectus of a History of Kent, preparing for publication’ [London, 1836], fol. pp. 24. Subsequently he brought out ‘Lympsfield and its Environs, and the Old Oak Chair,’ Westerham, 1839, 8vo, being a series of views of interesting objects in the vicinity of a Kentish village, accompanied with brief descriptions. He died at Chart's Edge, Westerham, on 17 May 1848, and was buried at Chiddingstone.

His first wife, with whom he acquired a considerable fortune (8 Oct. 1800), was Harriet, daughter and coheiress of Alexander Champion, of Wandsworth; his second, to whom he was married in 1823, was Clare, widow of Henry Woodgate, of Spring Grove, and daughter of the Rev. Thomas Harvey, rector of Cowden. He left several children.

His extensive manuscript materials for a history of Kent were left at the disposal of Lambert Blackwell Larking [q. v.] They included a large number of exquisitely beautiful drawings, which show that he was not merely a faithful copyist, but a masterly artist. Some specimens of his wood-engraving are given in the ‘Archæologia Cantiana,’ vol. iii. The first instalment of the projected county history has been published under the title of ‘Hasted's History of Kent, corrected, enlarged, and continued to the present time, from the manuscripts of the late Rev. T. Streatfeild, and the late Rev. L. B. Larking … Edited by Henry H. Drake … Part I. The Hundred of Blackheath,’ London, 1886, fol. An excellent portrait of Streatfeild was painted by Herbert Smith, and an engraving is prefixed to the volume just mentioned. Streatfeild's collections for the history of Kent, forming fifty-two volumes, are now in the British Museum (Addit. MSS. 33878–33929).

[Memoir by J. B. Larking in Archæologia Cantiana, iii. 137, also printed separately, London, 1860; Register, i. 122, 123; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. iii. 380; Gent. Mag. 1836 ii. 57, 1838 ii. 70, 1848 ii. 99; Introd. to new edit. of Hasted's Kent.]

T. C.

STREET, GEORGE EDMUND (1824–1881), architect, born at Woodford, Essex, on 20 June 1824, was the third son of Thomas Street, solicitor, by his second wife, Mary Anne Millington. The father, Thomas Street, whose business was in Philpot Lane, was the descendant of a Worcestershire family to which belonged also the judge, Sir Thomas Street [q. v.] About 1830, when his father moved to Camberwell, George was sent to a school at Mitcham, and subsequently to the Camberwell collegiate school, which he left in 1839. In 1840 Street was placed in the office in Philpot Lane, but the employment was uncongenial, and his father's death, after a few months, released him from it. For a short period he lived with his mother and sister at Exeter, where probably he first turned his thoughts to architecture, led by the example of his elder brother Thomas, an ardent sketcher. Street improved his drawing by taking lessons in perspective from Thomas Haseler, a painter, who was a connection by marriage. In 1841 his mother, through the influence of Haseler, secured for her son the position of pupil with Owen Browne Carter [q. v.], an architect of Winchester. He made use of his local opportunities to such purpose that in 1844 he was an enthusiastic and even accomplished ecclesiologist, and was readily accepted as an assistant in the office of Scott & Moffat [see Scott, Sir George Gilbert]. Here he worked for five years, and spent his leisure in ecclesiological excursions in various parts of England, often accompanied by his elder brother. He was a valuable coadjutor to Scott, who apparently gave him the opportunity of starting an independent practice even while he nominally remained an assistant. A chance acquaintance obtained for Street his first commission—the designing of Biscovey church, Cornwall. Before 1849, when he first took an office on his own account, he had been engaged on about a score of buildings, the most important being a new church at Bracknell; another, with parsonage and schools, at Treverbyn, and the restoration of St. Peter's, Plymouth, and of the churches of Sheviocke, Lostwithiel, Sticker, St. Mewan, Cubert, St. Austell, East and West Looe, Little Petherick, Probus, Lanreath, Enfield, Heston, Hawes,