Richard Knill Freeman

Richard Knill Freeman (1840, Stepney, London – 24 June 1904[1]) was a British architect who began his career at Derby and moved to Bolton, Lancashire in the late 1860s.

[1] His work, in Victorian Gothic style and typically recalling the Decorated Period of later medieval architecture, can be seen in several cities and towns across the north of England.

In 1882 he won the first competition for the Museum of Science and Art, Dublin with a design for "a building quadrangular in form, with mansard roofs" which made provision for the collection of the Royal Irish Academy;[6] but because no Irish architect had been shortlisted there was controversy leading to a second competition in 1883, which was won by Thomas Newenham Deane & Son.

[4] In 1887 Freeman worked as the architect on a home in Bryerswood, Far Sawrey, delegating the job of supervising construction to his assistant, Dan Gibson.

On the strength of that commission, the trio went on to work in the same capacities at Graythwaite Hall, Newby Bridge, and Gibson and Mawson engaged in a brief partnership after that.