Architect. He was articled to Edward Blore, aged 15, and spent the next 10 years with him. Having set up independently he began winning commissions for country houses, Anglican churches and schools, etc. However, with his conversion to Catholicism in 1857 all Anglican commissions ceased and he thereafter worked exclusively for Catholic patrons. Although he was appointed architect to the proposed Roman Catholic Cathedral in Westminster in 1867, work only began after the acquisition of the present site in 1894, and then to the designs of his former pupil, J.F. Bentley. A prime example of the high quality of his work is the Church of Our Lady of Consolation in Lynford, Norfolk (1877–78), which includes, over the north door, a statue of the Virgin Mary holding up the Christchild and trampling a serpent beneath her feet. He was a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects.
Bibliography: R. Cocke, Public Sculpture of Norfolk and Suffolk, Liverpool, 2013, p. 134; P. Hunting, ‘Clutton, Henry (1819–1893)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online edn), 2004; N. Pevsner and B. Wilson, Norfolk 2: North-West and South, New Haven and London, 1999, p. 531.
Richard Cocke, 2013; revised, Terry Cavanagh, April 2025