Waterhouse, P[ercy] Leslie

Date born: 1864

Place born:  Hobart, Tasmania

Date died:  1932

Place died:  ?

Architect and author of several books on architecture;  father of art historian Sir Ellis Waterhouse.  Waterhouse attended Christ's College, Cambridge between 1883 and 1887.  He apprenticed under the architectural firm of George and Peto in 1887.  In 1889 he joined the firm of J. Osborne Smith as an assistant.  He began private practice in Staple Inn, England, in 1894, entering a partnership with Alfred H. Hart in 1902.  That same year he issue his Story of the Art of Building, which would see a number of updated additions.  In 1905, his son, Ellis Waterhouse (q.v.) was born.  Spurred on by the success of his earlier book, Waterhouse wrote his survey, The Story of Architecture Throughout the Ages (1924).  His son later became an important art historian for English art.

Home Country:  United Kingdom

Sources:  Gray, A. Stuart.  Edwardian Architecture:  A Biographical Dictionary.  Iowa City, IA:  University of Iowa Press, 1986,  p. 372.

Bibliography:  The Story of the Art of Building. New York: D. Appleton, 1902; The Story of Architecture Throughout the Ages: an Introduction to the Study of the Oldest of the Arts for Students and General Readers.  London: B. T. Batsford, 1924.