C. H. Reilly: Regency, Englishness and Modernism

C. H. Reilly (1874-1946) began his tenure of the Professorship of Architecture at Liverpool University by advocating a return to late eighteenth and early nineteenth century classicism, in defiance of the prevailing preference for non-academic Classicism and the Arts and Crafts aspiration to create a styleless architecture. Although Reilly's taste may appear conservative, it resembles in many ways the early stages of Modernism in Germany and France. After supporting American-style classical architecture in the 1920s, Reilly welcomed Modernism and was involved in the design of the Peter Jones store in London, 1936. The article looks at Reilly's developing ideas between the wars and proposes that Peter Jones was a realisation of Reilly's pre-1914 affection for the Regency, setting it in the context of British and foreign writings associating British Modernism with the Regency.