Stanley Davenport Adshead [also known as S.D. Adshead] was born in Bowdon, Cheshire, England on 8 March 1868 and studied at Liverpool University. He was a pupil of James Medland Taylor (1834-1909) in Manchester in 1885. He trained in the offices of George Campbell Sherrin (1843-1909), Edward Guy Dawber (1861-1938), Edward Salomons (1828-1906) and Alfred Streinthal (1859-1928), Ernest George (1839-1922) and Harold Ainsworth Peto (1854-1933), and William Flockhart (1854-1913),
Adshead commenced practice as an independent architect in London in 1896. He was briefly in partnership with E. W. Sloper in the firm S D Adshead & E W Sloper in 1903.
From 1910 to c.1937 he was in partnership with Stanley Churchill Ramsey (1882-1968) as Adshead & Ramsey. During the late 1930s Adshead was in partnership with (or collaborated with) Harold Vincent Overfield (1893-1979), a civil engineer. They were joint authors of Borough of Scarborough: The further development of Scarborough (London: J Alexander & Co., 1938) and together exhibited designs for the development of Scarborough at the Royal Academy in London in 1939.
Adshead was appointed the first Associate Professor in Civic Design in 1909 and, in 1912, Lever Professor of Civic Design, at Liverpool University. In 1914 he left Liverpool to take up the new chair in civic design at University College, London, a position he held until retirement in 1935.
He was the author of numerous books and published reports and surveys on town planning, notably Town Planning and Town Development (1923); A New England: Planning for the Future (1941); and New Towns for Old (1943).
Adshead was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA) in 1905. For most of his career Adshead had an office at 46 Great Russell Street, London
He exhibited at the Royal Academy in London from 1906 to 1946, and with Ramsey from 1913 to 1937
He died at Chapel Cottage, Lower Ashley, New Milton, Hampshire, on 11 April 1946
A biographical file on Stanley Davenport Adshead is available on request at the Enquiry Desk, Royal Institute of British Architects Library, London
Works by Adshead included Royal Victoria Pavilion, Sea Front, Ramsgate, Kent (1903-04); Public Library, Guildford Lawn, Ramsgate, Kent (1903-04); Warehouse, Tooley Street, London (1908); Interior, Playhouse Theatre, Williamson Square, Liverpool (1912); and New Pier Pavilion Colwyn Bay, Wales(1933-34). In partnership with Ramsey: St. Anselm's Church, Kennington Road, London (1913). In 1911 Adshead & Ramsey were commissioned to design extensive new buildings to replace existing slums on the duchy of Cornwall estate in Kennington, London, and in 1917 received a commission to build Dormanstown, a workers' settlement for Dorman Long steel works in Redcar, Yorkshire.
_____
See also: Historic England - architectural works by S.D. Adshead and Adshead & Ramsey
Directory of British Architects 1834-1914. Compiled by Antonia Brodie, et al. Volume 1: A-K. London; New York: British Architectural Library, Royal Institute of British Architects/Continuum, 2001
Gray, A. Stuart. Edwardian architecture: a biographical dictionary. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., Ltd., 1985
Harwood, Elain. Space Hope and Brutalism. English Architecture 1945-1975. New Haven, Connecticut and London: Yale University Press in association with Historic England for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2015
Marriott, Charles. Modern English Architecture. London: Chapman & Hall, 1924
Parkes, Kineton. ‘Draughtsmen of today. 8: Stanley D. Adshead’. Architects' Journal 3 August 1927 pp. 175-177
Powers, Alan. Architects I Have Known: the Career of S.D. Adshead. Newcastle upon Tyne: School of Architecture, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1981
Powers, Alan. ‘Architects I Have Known: the Career of S.D. Adshead’. Architectural History, vol. 24 1981 pp. 103–23
Reilly, C. H. Representative British Architects of the Present Day. London: B. T. Batsford, 1931{Chapter I. Professor S. D. Adshead pp. 14]
Who’s Who in Architecture 1914. London: Technical Journals Ltd., 1914
Who’s Who in Architecture 1923. Edited by Frederick Chatterton. London: The Architectural Press, 1923
Who’s Who in Architecture 1926. Edited by Frederick Chatterton. London: The Architectural Press, 1926
Obituary. The Times 13 April 1946 p. 6
‘Obituary’. Manchester Guardian 13 April 1946 p. 6