MacManus, Frederick Edward Bradshaw 1903 - 1985

Frederick Edward Bradshaw MacManus [also known as Frederick MacManus] was born Gabriel Edward Bradshaw MacManus in Dublin, Ireland on 20 January 1903 and was articled to Vincent Kelly (1895-1975) in Dublin from 1919 to c.1923. He also attended evening classes at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art, where he was taught by Richard Francis Caulfield Orpen (1863-1938). After working briefly as an assistant in the office of Beckett & Harrington in Dublin, in 1924 he moved to London to attended the Architectural Association from where he graduated in 1926. Later that year he was elected an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (ARIBA). In 1925-26 he was employed as an assistant to Clough Williams-Ellis (1883-1978). In 1926-27 he travelled in the USA and Europe. While in New York he worked briefly in the office of the architect William Lee Stoddart (1868-1940),  In 1927, following his return, he joined the office of  Sir John Burnet and Thomas Tait in London. He subsequently worked for the practice and its successor, Sir John Burnet, Tait & Lorne, until 1939. In 1939 MacManus began working in H M Office of Works (later Ministry of Works, Department of the Environment and Property Services Agency).  In 1943 he was appointed Advisory Architect to the English Joinery Manufacturers' Association and in 1944 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA).

A photograph and plan of a house at Hampstead, designed by MacManus are illustrated in 'Decorative Art' 1932 (p.114); and a photograph of an exhibition kitchen [possibly for the 'Britain Can Make It' exhibition] designed by MacManus is illustrated in 'Decorative Art' 1943-48 (p.58).

In 1949, with Edward Armstrong, he founded the architectural firm Armstrong & MacManus, with an office in Gloucester Place, London. Armstrong left the practice in 1953, but MacManus retained the name of the office which designed an eighteen-storey block of flats, and a row of terraced houses in the Regents Park estate, London for St Pancras Borough Council, 1960-62. The practice later became Frederick MacManus & Partners.

In 1967 Kent County and Tenterden Borough Councils commissioned Frederick MacManus & Partners to prepare a special architectural and townscape study of Tenterden in Kent, as a guide to an overall plan and to future development control.  The subsequent report was entitled Tenterden Explored. It was illustrated with line drawings by Frederick MacManus,

MacManus retired in 1969 but continued to be a consultant to the practice for some years. He died in Sussex on 7 May 1985