| Admin History | Albert Reginald Powys (1881-1936), born on 16 July 1881, was the sixth of eleven children, born to the Reverend Charles Francis Powys and his wife Mary Cowper Johnson. He attended Sherborne school before training as an architect, becoming an associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (ARIBA) in 1905. From 1903-1908 he helped in supervising the repair of churches all over England before setting up his own independant practice in London. From 1912 until his death, he served as Secretary to the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) and from 1925 was in partnership with John Eric Miers Macgregor FRIBA.
During the First World War, Albert served with the 2/4th Yorkshire Regiment (Green Howards). He was captured at the Somme and interned at Mainz POW camp, with Alec Waugh, whose father would later introduce Alberts brother Littleton Powys to the author Elizabeth Myers, his second wife. In 1924 he designed the Quarry House in Sherborne for his brother Littleton and wrote a number of books on architecture: Repair of Ancient Buildings (1929), The English House (1929), The English Parish Church (1930). From the Ground Up: Collected Papers of A.R. Powys (1937), with an introduction by John Cowper Powys, was published posthumously.
Powys married Dorothy Mary Powys (1882-1956), in 1905, divorcing in 1929, and Faith Oliver (1897-1983) in 1930, having three children from these marriages. He died on 9 March 1936. |