Edward Michael Coventry Butcher [commony known as Edward Butcher] was born in Plympton, Devon, England on 9 March 1927 and studied at the Architectural Association Schools in London c.1946-50. He was one of first post-war intake. The subject of his final year project was on a tuberculosis sanatorium, submitted just as antibiotics for treating the condition were being developed.
In 1950-51 he was employed by Hertfordshire County Council on a major housing project. It included a communal laundry at the end of every street, a feature that anticipated the advent of laundomats.
In c.1952 he joined the London architectural practice Farmer & Dark and soon after became a principle partner heading their offices in Poole, Dorset and then Winchester, Hampshire. He remained with the firm until 1979 when he set up in private practice on his own account at Abbey Mill, Colebrook Street, Winchester, Hampshire. He subsequently moved to Devon.
In 1958 Butcher was one of the winners in a competition to design timber-framed structures sponsored by the Canadian timber industry.
He died in Devon on 1 August 2002. The archive of Edward Butcher was deposited at the RIBA Library in 2007.
Projects on which he worked were varied and included petrol stations, car showrooms; premises for Max Factor in Ilford, Essex and Bournemouth, Dorset; new dormitory wings for several of the school ‘houses’ at Marlborough College in Marlborough, Wiltshire; Beseda, 13 Balcombe Road, Pool, Dorset (1955); his own house, Hill House at Rowlands, Wimbourne, Dorset (1956); and a number of barn conversions in the South West of England (1974-2002). He was also involved in the construction of Fawley Power Station,an oil-fired power station located on the western side of Southampton Water in Hampshire (1970s), being responsible for the design of the Control Room and the Refectory
Hill, Michael; Newman, John; and Pevsner, Nikolaus. Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England). New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2018
Much of this information has been kindly supplied by Steve Butcher