William Wilkins

William Wilkins RA (31 August 1778 – 31 August 1839) was an English architect, classical scholar and archaeologist. Wilkins was born in Norwich, the son of a successful builder who also managed a chain of theatres. His brother George Wilkins was Archdeacon of Nottingham. He studied in Bury St Edmunds and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. After touring Greece, Asia Minor, and Magna Græcia in Italy between 1801 and 1804, he published resear... more

William Wilkins RA (31 August 1778 – 31 August 1839) was an English architect, classical scholar and archaeologist. Wilkins was born in Norwich, the son of a successful builder who also managed a chain of theatres. His brother George Wilkins was Archdeacon of Nottingham. He studied in Bury St Edmunds and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. After touring Greece, Asia Minor, and Magna Græcia in Italy between 1801 and 1804, he published researches into both Classical and Gothic architecture, becoming one of the leading figures in the English Greek Revival of the early 1800s. On his tour of the classical antiquities around the Mediterranean he was accompanied by the Italian landscape painter Agostino Aglio, who had been commissioned by Wilkins as draughtsman on the expedition. Aglio supplied the drawings for the aquatint plates of monument illustrations in Wilkins' volumes from the expedition, such as The Antiquities of Magna Graecia (1807). Among his works in the Classical neo... less