George Dance the Younger RA (1 April 1741 – 14 January 1825) was an English architect and surveyor and a portraitist. The fifth and youngest son of the architect George Dance the Elder, he came from a family of architects, artists and dramatists. He was described by Sir John Summerson as “among the few really outstanding architects of the century,” but few of his buildings remain.

Background and education

The architect George Dance the elder married Elizabeth Gould in 1719. Their fifth son, George, was born 1 April 1741 at the family home in Chiswell Street City of London. Dance was educated at the St. Paul’s School, London.

Dance spent the six years between 1759 and 1765 studying architecture and draughtsmanship in Rome. Aged 17, he set off on his grand tour, sailing from Gravesend, Kent, in December 1758. After a short stay in Florence, where he was joined by his brother Nathaniel, who was then studying painting in Rome, he and his brother set off for Rome, arriving in early May 1759. By the early 1760s the brothers were living at 77 Strada Felice. In Rome, Dance knew James Adam (architect), who was staying nearby at Casa Guarini, Robert Mylne (architect) (they remained lifelong friends), Peter Grant (abbé) and Giovanni Battista Piranesi. As a student at the Accademia di San Luca, Dance measured and drew several buildings in Rome, including the three remaining columns of the Temple of Castor and Pollux, the Arch of Constantine and the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, showing much promise as a draughtsman. Much of his later work was inspired by Piranesi. In late 1759 Dance received his first commission – to design two chimneypieces for Sir Robert Mainwaring. In early 1762 Dance was measuring and drawing the Temple of Vesta, Tivoli and later that year he entered a competition organised by the Accademia di Parma to design A Public Gallery for Statues, Pictures & c. His drawings were dispatched to Parma in April 1763, and a few weeks later it was announced that he had won the Gold Medal, and his designs were exhibited at the Ducal Palace. The projected building was in the latest style of neoclassical architecture. During June 1764 the Dance brothers were in Naples, but later that year they were back in Rome, entertaining the actor David Garrick and his wife. On the 21 December 1764 George Dance and his brother were elected to the Accademia di S. Luca, where he was described as Giorgo Danze, architetto Inglese. On the 16 February 1765 Dance dined with the painter Angelica Kauffman and James Boswell, who was visiting Rome. A few weeks later the brothers left Rome to return to Britain.

Career

On his return from the Grand Tour, young George joined his father’s office. His earliest London project was the rebuilding of All Hallows-on-the-Wall church. He was one of five architects asked to submit designs, and his design was chosen on 8 May 1765. Work on the building starting in June 1765, at a cost of £2,941, and the building was consecrated on the 8 September 1767.

In 1768, when he was only 27, George succeeded his father as City of London surveyor and architect on his father’s death. His first major public works were the rebuilding of Newgate Prison in 1770 and building the front of the Guildhall, London. Other London works included the church of St Bartholomew-the-Less (1797).

In Bath, Somerset, he largely designed the Theatre Royal, built by John Palmer in 1804-5.
Coleorton Hall was one of his few buildings in the Gothic style.

Many of Dance’s buildings have been demolished, including the Royal College of Surgeons, Newgate Prison, St Luke’s Hospital for Lunatics, the Shakespeare Gallery in Pall Mall, the library at Lansdowne House, the Common Council Chamber and Chamberlain’s Court at the Guildhall, Ashburnham Place, and Stratton Park (demolished save for its Tuscan portico) Dance retired from practice in 1815.

The Royal Academy
With his brother Nathaniel, George Dance was a founder member of the Royal Academy, founded on 10 December 1768. In 1795, with William Tyler, Dance was appointed to examine the accounts of the academy following the resignation of Sir William Chambers, and in 1796 they became the Academy’s first auditors, helping put the institution on a sounder financial footing.

In 1798 Dance succeeded Thomas Sandby as professor of architecture at the Royal Academy, but as he failed to deliver a single lecture he was dismissed in 1805 and replaced by his former pupil, Sir John Soane. For a number of years he was the last survivor of the 40 original Academicians.

A Collection of Portraits
Dance’s years after 1798 were devoted to art rather than architecture. His Academy contributions consisted of highly finished pencil profile portraits of his friends in Regency London’s artistic establishment. 72 etchings were engraved after them by William Daniell and A Collection of Portraits were published over ten years from 1804. Many are now held by the National Portrait Gallery.

Personal Life
Dance married Mary Gurnell (born 7 February 1752 in Pitzhanger Manor) on the 24 March 1772 at St. George’s, Bloomsbury. Their first child, Thomas, was born in Autumn 1773 and died in 1813. Two more sons followed: George (1778–1813) and Charles Webb (1785–1844). Mary Dance died at the age of 38 in 1791.

Dance suffered from ill health for the last three or four years of his life. He died on 14 January 1825. He was buried in St Paul’s Cathedral.

List of Works

Works in London
All Hallows-on-the-Wall (1765)
Duroure Monument, in Westminster Abbey cloisters (1766)
Minories, development of crescent, circus e.t.c. (1767 onwards) bombed in the London The Blitz and demolished
Newgate Prison & Sessions House (1769–1777) damaged in the Gordon Riots (1780) and restored (1780–1783) demolished (1902–04)
WhiteCross Street, Lord Mayor of London’s Coach House (1768–71) & Almshouses (1770–71) both demolished
Fleet Market, repairs, new office for Collector (1770–74) demolished
Stratford Place, Oxford Street, development and alterations to donduits (1771-2)
Guildhall, London, repairs (1772), Rooms over Matted Gallery (1773), Old Council Chamber (1774), New Council Chamber (1777), Alterations to Chapel (1774 & 1782), Town Clerk’s House (1781), New Facade (1785-8), Chamberlain’s House (1785-6), New Houses, west side of the yard (1795), Exterior Stuccoed (1805), windows of the Great Hall redesigned (1806) & Court of the King’s Bench, altered (1804-6) all has been demolished apart from the facade
Smithfield Market, new bell & frame (1775) & alterations (1804) rebuilt
All Hallows Staining, foot passage under porch, (1775-6) demolished
Billingsgate Fish Market, alterations (1776), Iron column inserted to support upper floor (1777–78) & New Market house and embankment (1798) rebuilt
Banner Street and Finsbury Square (1777), none of Dance’s buildings are still standing
New wall and Gates for the Honourable Artillery Company’s, Artillery Ground, Bunhill Fields (c.1777)
New Houses, Chiswell Street (1777)
Mr Lowry’s House, Lombard Street (1777) demolished
New House for Keeper of Bunhill Fields (1777) demolished
Newgate Market, alterations (1777) & (1784–85) demolished
Obelisk erected on Putney Common to commemorate invention of Fire insurance marks (1777)
Lady Dacre’s Almshouses, repairs (1778)
Wesley’s Chapel, Finsbury (1778)
Jewin Street, widened (1779)
Blackfriars, London, creation of new streets and platform adjoining bridge (1779–92), none of Dance’s buildings survive
Mansion House, London, new entrance, covering of internal courtyard with a roof, new ceiling and lowered the roof of the Egyptian Hall (1782)
St Luke’s Hospital for Lunatics, Old Street, (1780) demolished
Market in Honey Lane rebuilt (1780–88) demolished
Whitefriar’s Wharf, abutment (1781-2) demolished
Monument to the Great Fire of London, repairs to (1783)
Fleet Bridge, repairs (1783) demolished
Roger’s Almshouses, Hart Street, repairs & alterations (1783)
Borough Compter, rebuilding (1785) demolished
Castle Street, widened (1786)
Beech Street, formed (1786-8)
Jewin Crescent, (1786–88) demolished
Lansdowne House Gallery and other Alterations (1786)
Giltspur Street Compter (1787–91) demolished
Boydell Shakespeare Gallery, (1788) demolished
Moorfields, Watch and Engine House (1790) demolished
Leadenhall Market re-roofed (1790–92) & New warehouses (1813) rebuilt
Improvements to Holborn, (1790 onwards)
St Bartholomew’s Hospital, Surgeon’s Theatre and other buildings (1791-6) demolished
Martin’s Bank, Lombard Street, rebuilt (1793) demolished
St Bartholomew-the-Less, rebuilt (1793)
Formation of Pickett Street, The Strand improvements (1793 onwards)
Legal Quays rebuilt (1793-6)
St Margaret-at-Hill Court House, Southwark new facade (1796) demolished
Tottenham Court Road, estate to the east, North & South Crescents and Alfred Place, (1796 onwards) none of Dance’s buildings survive
Limehouse Canal & warehouses West India Docks (1796 onwards) largely demolished
London Custom House, repairs 1799, demolished
St George in the East, alterations to the Rectory (1802)
Commercial Road, laid out (1803)
33 Hill Street, Mayfair (1803) demolished
Royal College of Surgeons of England, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, rebuilt (1804) later alter by Sir Charles Barry, Dance’s portico survives
143 Piccadilly for his brother Nathaniel Dance-Holland (his brother changed his name) (1807)
Whitecross Street Penitentiary (1808–14) demolished
Lombard Street, widened (1811)
New Court, Swithin’s Lane, alterations to Nathan Mayer Rothschild’s house (1811) demolished
Finsbury Circus (1815–16) none of Dance’s buildings survive

Works outside London
Pitzhanger Manor, Ealing, Dance’s own house (1768) later owned by Sir John Soane, who demolished all Dance’s work bar the south wing
Cranbury Park, Hampshire, extensive remodelling, including the new-classical Ballroom(1776–81)
Monument to Jeremiah Meyer, St. Anne’s Church, Kew (1790)
Coleorton Hall, Leicestershire (1802)
Laxton Hall, Northamptonshire (1894)
Stratton Park, Hampshire, (1803) demolished apart from the Greek Doric portico and replaced by a modern house (1963-5)
Theatre Royal, Bath, (1804) burnt down (1863) main facade to Beafort Square survives
St. Mary’s Church, Micheldever, Hampshire (1806)
East Stratton, Hampshire, cottage in the village (1806)
Ashburnham Place, Sussex, alterations (1812)
Kidbrooke House, Sussex, alterations (1814) demolished