Architect. Around 1806 he established an architectural and building partnership with his father, also named Amon Wilds (1762–1833) in Lewes. By 1820 they were firmly established in Brighton, then experiencing a period of rapid growth, and in 1822 formed a loose partnership with Charles Augustin Busby (1788–1834), an architect trained at the Royal Academy Schools. Together, they were responsible for the core of Brighton’s best Regency and early Victorian architecture, including the grand schemes of Kemp Town, Brunswick Town, Regency Square, Hanover Crescent, and Montpelier Crescent. They also designed Park Crescent in Worthing. After the deaths of his father in 1833 and Busby in 1834, Amon Henry Wilds continued to build in the Regency style until well into the Victorian era. One of his best known works in Brighton is the Victoria Fountain, which was inaugurated in Steine Gardens on 24 May 1846.
Bibliography: D. Bianco, ‘Amon Henry Wilds and the last enigma of Dr Gideon Mantell’, Friends of Norwood Cemetery Newsletter, no. 52, January 2005; J. Cooper, ‘A.H. Wilds rediscovered!’, Regency Review: the Newsletter of the Regency Society, November, 2007; A. Dale, Fashionable Brighton 1820–1860, London, 1947; J. Seddon et al, Public Sculpture of Sussex, Liverpool, 2014, pp. 15, 25, 39–40.
Jill Seddon, Peter Seddon and Anthony McIntosh, 2014