Edward John Dodgshun was born in Leeds, Yorkshire, England on 22 September 1851. From 1870 he was articled to Thomas Ambler (1838-1920) in Leeds. He then moved to London and worked in the office of George Edmund Street (1824-1881) for a year, and with William Burges (1827-1881). He subsequently returned to Leeds where he commenced practice as an architect in 1875. He was in partnership with William Frederick Unsworth (1851-1912) as Dodgshun & Unsworth from c.1875 to c.1879, and with George Dale Oliver (1851-1928) as Oliver & Dodgshun in Carlisle from 1898.
Dodgshun was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA) in 1891. He was also a member of the Leeds and Yorkshire Architectural Society and its President for two years.
His address was given as 1 East Parade, Leeds, Yorkshire, and 10 Clarendon Road, Leeds in 1891; Littlecroft, Boston Spa, Yorkshire in 1911 and 1926; and 22 Basinghall Street, Leeds in 1914 and 1923. He died in Wetherby, Yorkshire on 2 March 1927. His son, Leslie Sydney Dodgshun (1875-1930), was also an architect.
Architectural projects by Dodgshun included, with Unsworth: the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, with Unsworth (1875-79); and with Unsworth: the Lancashire and Yorkshire Bank, Commercial Union, and Holt & Co. in Leeds; a tower for the Church of St Mary and St Michael in Egremont, Cumberland (1901); Abtech House, offices of the West Riding Union Bank at 18 Park Row, Leeds; the rebuilding of the fire-damaged Silcoates School in Wakefield, Yorkshire; a church and vicarage at Greyswood in Haslemere, Surrey, with the Swedish etcher Axel Haig (1900-02) - one of a number of churches in Surrey they designed in collaboration with Haig; a church in Orebro, Sweden, with Haig; a house in Surrey for Haig; and a convent school in Clifford, near Boston Spa, Yorkshire. Dodgshun also designed his own house in Boston Spa (1901).
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‘Obituary’. Royal Institute of British Architects Journal vol. 34, 1927 p. 377