Edward Cresy

Edward Cresy FSA (7 May 1792 - 12 November 1858) was an English architect and civil engineer.

Cresy was born at Dartford, Kent, and was educated at Rawes's academy at Bromley in the same county. He became a pupil of James T. Parkinson, architect, of Ely Place, who, in addition to a moderate private practice, was entrusted at that time with the laying out of the Portman estate. After the termination of his articles, with the object of perfecting himself in the financial branches of his profession, he served two years with George Smith of Mercers' Hall, and in 1816, accompanied by his friend and colleague George Ledwell Taylor, he undertook a walking tour through England for the purpose of studying, measuring, and drawing the cathedrals and most interesting buildings. The next three years found Cresy and Taylor engaged in similar pursuits on the continent; chiefly on foot, they journeyed through France, Switzerland, Italy, and Greece, to Malta and Sicily, and back again by Italy and France home. The chief aim of their studies was to present the dimensions of each building in English measurements, and the foliage and ornaments one quarter of the real size. Having returned to England the two friends published The Architectural Antiquities of Rome, measured and delineated by G. L. Taylor and E. Cresy, (2 vols. fol., London, 1821–22; new edition, including the more recent discoveries [edited by A. Taylor], fol., London, 1874); and a few years later Architecture of the Middle Ages in Italy illustrated by views … of the Cathedral, &c. of Pisa (fol., London, 1829). A third work on the architecture of the Renaissance was to have followed, but after the publication of two parts, was abandoned from want of encouragement.

Cresy hastily accepted an engagement in Paris, which although successful interfered with his professional prospects at home. His practice was almost exclusively private, as he considered the system of open competition to be injurious to art. In his capacity of a superintending inspector under the general board of health Cresy did good work in a branch of engineering then all but unknown, and gave evidence before the Health of Towns and Metropolitan Sanitary Commission.

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