This site attempts to protect users against Cross-Site Request Forgeries attacks. In order to do so, you must have JavaScript enabled in your web browser otherwise this site will fail to work correctly for you. See details of your web browser for how to enable JavaScript. Skip to Main Content Library - University of Liverpool
Toggle mobile navigation

Special Collections & Archives: Thomas Rickman Exhibitionaccredited archive service logo

SC&A includes manuscripts and archives, medieval to modern; early and finely printed books, and science fiction collections.

Thomas Rickman (1776-1841) Architect and Antiquary

The first staging post of the travelling Thomas Rickman exhibition to commemorate the bicentenary of the 1817 printing in Liverpool of Thomas Rickman’s epoch-making book An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of Architecture.

Collage of images showing Rickman bookplate, exhibition cases, and material from exhibit

In 1817 Rickman, a Quaker accountant in a Liverpool insurance firm, wrote An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of Architecture, the first accurate history of English gothic architecture, which became a nineteenth-century bestseller. Rickman’s Attempt was a scholarly milestone which resulted in greater understanding and appreciation for medieval architecture; its clear schematic illustrations of the varied styles of Norman and gothic architecture enabled architects to employ the styles more knowledgeably in their executed buildings. In 1818 the second Church Building Act was passed by Parliament, creating demand for his services as a recognised expert in gothic architecture with a strong financial background. Thanks to the Church Commissioners, Rickman went on to have a large and varied architectural practice.

Highlights of the exhibition include:

  • An original first edition of Rickman’s An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of Architecture (1817) and copies of every subsequent edition
  • The handwritten text of Rickman’s lecture on modern church architecture delivered to the Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Institute
  • A manuscript letter from Thomas Rickman to Matthew Gregson
  • The copy of Rickman’s book owned an annotated by his friend William Whewell, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge
  • William Roscoe’s proprietor’s ticket for the Liverpool Royal Institution
  • Etchings of churches by John Sell Cotman (1782-1842).

Discover more about Thomas Rickman.

Physical exhibitions  

Current physical exhibition in SC&A

On exhibition elsewhere

  • Cunard posters are on display in the VG&M exhibition: Travel in Style – Iconic Cunard Advertising in the 1920s and 1930s
  • Alex Wedding, Eddie and the Gipsy, 1935 is on display in the Holocaust Galleries, Imperial War Museum, London
  • Rose Heilbron student notebooks are on display 22 July - December 2023 in the Lancashire Archives exhibition Shaping the Future: Women's Lives in Lancashire 1950-1980 in their brand new exhibition space at Preston

Past physical exhibitions in SC&A