Benjamin Woodward

Benjamin Woodward (16 November 1816 – 15 May 1861) was an Irish architect who, in partnership with Sir Thomas Newenham Deane, designed a number of buildings in Dublin, Cork and Oxford.

They, along with London sculptors, carved the abundant decorative stonework at Trinity, showing owls, lizards, cats and monkeys, as well as other flora and fauna.

Woodward shared Ruskin’s ideal of wanting the Oxford Museum to mark a return to the Gothic tradition of enriching the structural forms with naturalistic symbolism – drawing inspiration from real plants and animals.

Woodward brought with him from Ireland a team of carvers and stone masons, who lived in a temporary camp erected at the site – which included an institute, complete with reading room and lecture hall.

Tuckwell describes how ‘every morning came the handsome red-bearded Irish brothers Shea, bearing plants from the Botanic Garden, to reappear under their chisels in the rough-hewn capitals of the pillars.’[2] [1] Rev.