Architect. He was a pupil of the neoclassical architect, William Inwood. He enrolled at the Royal Academy in 1823, and from 1825 to 1827 travelled in Greece, Corfu and Egypt, on his return writing an account of a recently discovered temple in Corfu. From 1838 to 1848 he was architect to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and designed churches in gothic and parsonages in an economical Italianate style. In 1835, in the competition for the new Houses of Parliament, his design won the fourth premium, and in 1839 he won both competitions for the National Nelson Memorial for Trafalgar Square.
Bibliography (updated 2024): H. Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600–1840, 3rd edn, New Haven and London, 1995; F.M. O’Donoghue (rev. G. Tyack), ‘Railton, William (1800–1877)’, ODNB (online edn), (2004), 2013; P. Ward-Jackson, Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster. Volume 1, Liverpool, 2011, pp. xxv, xxvi, xxxi, xxxv, 269, 270, 272, 274–88, 334, 335, 404.
Philip Ward-Jackson, 2011