Thomas Rickman (8 June 1776 – 4 January 1841) was an English architect and architectural antiquary who was a major figure in the Gothic Revival.
[1] The failure of his business dealings in London and the death of his first wife left Rickman despondent: the long walks into the countryside that he took for his state of mind were the beginning of his first, antiquarian interest in church architecture.
[2] In September that year he gave the first of a series of lectures on medieval architecture at the small Philosophical Society of Liverpool, which he had joined.
[3][4] The first publication to appear during his lifetime was an article on Gothic architecture for Smith's Panorama of Arts and Sciences (Liverpool).
He also designed New Court of St John's College, Cambridge, a palace for the bishop of Carlisle, and several large country houses.
If the detailing of his buildings was unusually scholarly, the planning remained Georgian, and the total effect of most of his churches is thin and brittle, if by no means unattractive.
[1] Late in his life, he became a member of the Catholic Apostolic (Irvingian) Church[3] Rickman died at Birmingham on 4 January 1841.