Herbert C. Burdett

Herbert Burdett was born on April 26, 1855, at 47 West Cedar Street in Boston, Massachusetts, the eldest of four children of Alfred Locke Burditt (1831–1901) and Mary Anna Joslin Burditt (1832–1900). A. L. Burditt, a native of Leominster, Massachusetts, was the longtime cashier of Leominster National Bank, as well as the treasurer of Leominster Savings Bank and, according to the New York Times, “one of the best-known financiers in Worcester County.”[1] Previous generations of Burditts were among the founders of the area's famed comb industry.[2]

When Herbert Burdett was young the family moved briefly to Sterling, Illinois, before returning to Leominster in 1861. In 1872 Burdett (by which time he and his siblings had changed the spelling of their surname) graduated from the town's Field High School. For the next two years he delayed entry to higher education due to ill health, recuperating at the family home at 8 Grove Avenue before entering Harvard College in 1874.[3]

In 1878 Burdett graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard, where he was remembered as “a good student, of quiet tastes, unfailing good nature, courteous bearing, and excellent common sense. He attained a credible standing in College, reaching a disquisition on graduation. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa honor society, the Pi Eta Society and the Harvard Natural History Society."[4]

For a year after graduation, Burdett remained in Cambridge, Massachusetts and continued taking courses at Harvard and studied law under the direction of a Boston lawyer before becoming “devoted to history and to several miscellaneous subjects he was unable to take up during the College Course.” Thereafter he spent the next two years teaching Latin, Greek, Mathematics and Drawing at small private schools in Delaware, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.[3]

In August 1881, Herbert Burdett entered the drawing office of the newly established architectural practice of Hartwell & Richardson at 68 Devonshire Street in Boston, “devoting himself to the study of architecture with the intention of making it his profession.” [3] Burdett may well have worked on Hartwell & Richardson's first major commission, the Richardsonian Romanesque Belmont Public Library, in Belmont, Massachusetts.

Belmont Town Hall by Hartwell & Richardson, 1881-82

After spending two years as a draughtsman for Hartwell & Richardson, in October 1883 Burdett left the firm to join the Brookline, Massachusetts, office of Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886), then considered America's leading architect and well known for fostering young and upcoming talents such as Stanford White and Charles Follen McKim. Richardson was a major influence on a generation of architects such as Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright.[5]

Allegheny County Courthouse, Pittsburgh, PA, designed by H.H. Richardson c.1883-84

It is unclear on which projects Burdett was engaged once he joined Richardson's atelier, as the firm enjoyed a large portfolio of residential, commercial and public works across the country at the time. However, when Burdett took up his new position in Brookline, Richardson's office was in the process of developing the competition entry for the proposed Allegheny County Courthouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a commission it ultimately won in January 1884. It is believed that during his three years in the practice, Burdett worked on the courthouse project,[6] a design Richardson himself considered to be one of his most successful.[7]

Around the time he joined the Richardson office, Burdett appears to have undertaken a small commission in his own right: the provision of plans to improve the Commons of his home town of Leominster.[8]

The "Million Dollar Staircase" at New York State Capitol, Albany, NY

Another major project at the firm at this time was the completion of the New York State Capitol at Albany, a commission shared by Richardson and fellow architect Leopold Eidlitz, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and, latterly, capitol commissioner Isaac G. Perry. The main phases of construction were divided between Richardson and Eidlitz, with Olmsted advising and, from 1883, Perry acting as the driving force to complete the designs and keep the building functioning during the course of construction.[9][10] Richardson's main design tasks included the completion of the building's south side, including the Senate Chamber and the Great Western Staircase.[11] This main stair was originally conceived by Richardson and was well underway at the time of his death in 1886, though Perry was later responsible for designing the wealth of elaborate carving that earned it the sobriquet of "the Million Dollar Staircase."[12] The full role of Herbert Burdett in the design and construction of the New York State Capitol requires further research, but it has been established that he worked not only on the Senate Chamber [6] but also provided designs for the state library and the west staircase.[13]

It is also known that at this time Burdett furnished preliminary drawings of Richardson's proposed new city hall in Albany, work that the American Institute of Architects called "a charming bit of work for both."[14]

When H. H. Richardson died in March, 1886, he bequeathed his practice to three senior associates, George Foster Shepley (1860–1903), Charles Hercules Rutan (1851–1914), and Charles Allerton Coolidge (1858–1936). The newly re-christened firm of Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge completed existing Richardson projects such as the Allegheny County Courthouse and the iconic John J. Glessner House in Chicago, as well as taking on new commissions for "Richardsonian" buildings around New England in the late 1880s and 1890s. Burdett seems to have stayed on with the successor firm and continued living in Brookline, and it is believed that he was occasionally dispatched to Buffalo in 1886 to oversee the construction of Richardson's final residential commission, the William H. Gratwick house at 776 Delaware Avenue.[15][16]

It is likely that during one of these trips to Buffalo from his home in Brookline, Burdett encountered local architect James Herbert Marling, who, early in 1887, had just disbanded his partnership with Joseph Silsbee, best known as the first employer of Frank Lloyd Wright. According to Burdett, "in February, 1887, I came to Buffalo, and since that time I have been in business on my own account, with J. H. Marling, in the firm of Marling and Burdett, architects, and have been reasonably prosperous."[3]

The earliest commissions undertaken by the new Buffalo partnership of J. H. Marling and H. C. Burdett are difficult to identify with certainty, as there appears to be a number of Silsbee & Marling projects in that firm's final year or two that were either completed or reworked by the successor firm. In fact, some sites once thought to be early works of Marling & Burdett are now known to be late efforts by Silsbee & Marling.[17][18]

In addition to their private client work, Marling & Burdett also engaged in speculative architectural competitions for public buildings in Buffalo and in Canada. Though their competition entries were often commended, they were never outright winners. Burdett himself had some small success with competitions prior to his partnership with Marling – in 1886 he was one of recipients of a $50 premium for his designs for a house that could be built for under $5000 featured in The American Architect and Building News.[35]

Marling & Burdett entered at least three major competitions around 1890. One, for the Continental life Assurance Company's new premises in Montreal[36] is shrouded in obscurity, yet the others were well recorded in architectural press of the day. Another Canadian competition was for the Confederation Life building at Yonge, Victoria and Richmond Streets in Toronto (with no fewer than four of the firm's drawings featured in Architecture and Building in August 1890).[37] The other high-profile competition entered by Marling & Burdett in early 1890 was for the Erie County Savings Bank in downtown Buffalo. The design ultimately selected by judge Richard Morris Hunt was provided by architect George B. Post of New York City, but Marling & Burdett were commended for having submitted the best design among the thirteen Buffalo-based firms engaged in the competition.[38] The Buffalo Evening News credited Marling & Burdett's Romanesque design as being "graceful and appropriate."[39]

Probably the last competition entered by the firm was for the Church of the Messiah at North and Mariner Streets in Buffalo, the result for which were announced in March 1891, only weeks before Burdett died. Ironically, the architectural expert judging this competition was none other than George B. Post.[39]

In addition to running their practice, J. H. Marling and Herbert Burdett also managed to find time to engage in other aspects of the profession, not only exhibiting their drawings at the Architectural League of New York and the American Institute of Architects,[34] but also corresponding with the local and trade press on such matters as the fireproofing of buildings,[40] removing oil stains from Corsehill sandstone[41] and the need for architects to raise the standard of school design. [42]

Marling and Burdett also engaged in a press campaign by nearly one hundred American architects "to protest against the terms of improper conditions of competition" in the proposed extension to the Massachusetts State House in 1889 [43]

On April 10, 1891, Herbert Channing Burdett died "from those joint terrors of heart disease and pneumonia" after a short illness.[44] He was widely eulogized in the local and the trade press at the time, with The Buffalo Courier noting that "in him Buffalo loses a brilliant member of his profession, whose keen artistic taste had already done much for the enrichment of the city and promised to do far more."[45]

In a similar vein, The Buffalo Times stated that with Burdett's death, "the city loses a bright and promising young architect, a man much esteemed by every one who formed his acquaintance."[46] His hometown paper in Worcester County, Massachusetts noted what the young architect accomplished in a short career: "As a designer he ranked high and his work had become well known in the section of the country where he lived. He had designed several large buildings which stand as creditable monuments to his life. His services were sought by men of affluence and he was gaining high rank as an architect."[47]

Burdett's death was also noted in the national architectural press, with the Chicago-based journal The Inland Architect describing him as "a young architect of exceptional ability and great promise.".[48] The American Architect and Building News learned of Burdett's untimely passing "with great regret" and noted that soon after partnering with J. H. Marling, the firm "soon obtained a high reputation for clever and original work." The journal went on to state that the death of Burdett "will be greatly regretted, not only in Buffalo, but among architects throughout the country."[49]

Burdett's professional colleagues in the Buffalo chapter of the American Institute of Architects also recorded that they had "suffered a severe loss in the death of Mr H. C. Burdett ... one of the brightest and most capable young men in his profession, and his death cast a gloom over the entire Chapter."[50]

After his death, Burdett's remains were transported to Leominster where a funeral service was held on October 14 at his parents' house at 8 Grove Avenue – located directly behind the house he designed for his brother a few years before.[47] Predeceasing his parents by a decade, he was the first to be interred at the Burditt family plot at Evergreen Cemetery in Leominster.[51]

Herbert Burdett was remembered as "a refined, kindly-natured man, fond of music and engrossed in his art."[52] The American Architect and Building News commented that although Burdett was "of a quiet and thoughtful disposition, he was very popular in and out of the profession."[49] With the death of Burdett, stated The Buffalo Courier, the city "loses an amiable and scholarly man who held a warm place in the regard of those privileged to know him."[45]

Burdett's friends and colleagues noted that "as in all the habits of his life he was methodical, painstaking, proceeding with care to a knowledge of the principles and groundwork of his subject. His characteristics were perseverance, enthusiasm, generosity, and modesty."[44] His partner Marling recalled Burdett being "a most diligent student, a fine pianist, and refined and artistic in all his tastes."[3]

Herbert Burdett never married, and died at the home he shared for four years with J. H. Marling at 432 Pearl Street in Buffalo.