Joseph+Reed

**__Joseph Reed__** Home  | Robert Hoddle | Charles La Trobe| John Batman    | Tom Roberts |     John Fawkner     | Joseph Reed       |       [|Reflective Blog]       | Bibliography | Mind Map  Joseph Reed was one of the greatest architects of Melbourne. He was born on the twenty third of February 1823 in England. He came to Melbourne during the time of the gold rush. There would have been not much accommodation and lots of people. There were almost no monumental buildings at the time he came. In 1854 Joseph Reed won a competition to design the Public Library and in that same year he designed the bank of New South Wales and the Geelong Town Hall. He was also the first elected member of the short lived first Victorian Institute of Architects.

During 1858 Reed became a university architect. Also during that time he designed the Wesley Church in Lonsdale Street and the Royal Society of Victoria building. In 1862 became partners with Frederic Barnes (1824 – 1884) they both drew plans for the National Museum at the University.

Joseph Reed went back to Europe in 1863. When he came back, in October that year, he introduced Melbourne to architecture of Lombardy. This style is evident in three main buildings: Collins Street Independent Church, St. Jude’s, and Carlton. The Town Hall was designed using the style of Second Empire. While the Menzies Hotel (1867) was inspired using a sixteenth century châteaux.

Reed and Barnes completed Government House by 1864 but the job was transferred to the Public Works Department under W. Wardell. It was recalled by Reed at the royal commissions into the department in 1873. Reed, as the president of the revived Institute of Architects, attempted to try to find competition for major public works.

For the next ten of years the styles of Reed and Barnes buildings became wide-ranging from the Gothic look of Wilson Hall (1878 – 82) to the astylar Italianate for The Gums at Caramut (1875 – 82) and the Scottish baronial of Ormond Collage (1879). In 1877 during February both Reed and Barnes resigned from the Institute of Architects, this was possibly due to the ignorance to enter competition conducted by the Melbourne city council for the Eastern Market. Near the beginning of 1883 Barnes retired. Reed was then joined by A. M. Henderson and F. J. Smart. They finished work on St. Paul ’s Cathedral in Melbourne, together after renowned London architect William Butterfield resigned. Six years later Henderson quit the company after disagreements opening a place for N. B. Taplin to join. The troupe later became known as Bates, Peebles and Smart, and is still a corporation today recognized as Bates, Smart and McCutcheon.

Joseph Reed and Hanna Elliot Lane shared a common interest in music; they were married on the 26th of March 1885 and then on the 27th they both went on a tour of Europe for eighteen months. Reed was experiencing financial difficulties by 1890 and also fell very ill. He died on 29th of April because of inanition and exhaustion, and was buried in Boroondara cemetery. His assets included numerous violins by Stradivarius. Widow, Hanna Elliot Lane, remarried in England and became Mrs Boase, and had a son whom she named Joseph Reed Stradivarius. Afterwards, she left her husband in India and took her son to Melbourne where she died in 1947.