Page 148 - Wish Stream Year of 2018

Photo 11
Hemsley, a surveyor in the barrack office, gave the crucial impetus when in 1796 he asked him to supply prefabricated barrack buildings for the West Indies. The government then decided, in view of the war with revolutionary France, to build temporary wooden barracks throughout the country. In all, by 1805 a total of twenty-six barracks at a cost of £1,464,629 (around £64 million in today’s money*), were executed by Copland’s own firm. These barracks were con- tracted for on the basis of ‘measure and valu- ation’. So generous were the valuations of the barrack office surveyors that Copland was able to make very large profits!
Barrack building, however, was by no means his only activity. John Sanders of the barrack office was architect of two of Copland’s major con- tracts, for the Duke of York’s Asylum, Chelsea (1801–03), and for the Royal Military College, Sandhurst (1807–12). Both of these contracts no doubt brought Copland into personal touch with the Duke of York, whose town house in Piccadilly (York House) was mortgaged to the
banker Coutts. Copland paid £37,000 (£1.6 million in today’s money*) in instalments to the Duke in 1802–5 to become absolute owner of York House. In association with his friend and business partner, the architect Henry Holland, Copland converted it into 69 residential cham- bers (‘bachelor sets’) known as Albany (photo 11), erecting also two parallel rows of chambers in the gardens, the first purpose-built residen- tial apartments of their kind. It still exists to this day as luxury and much sought-after residential apartments, although not just for bachelors (no children allowed though!), and owned by Peter- house, a college of Cambridge University.
In addition, like his father, Copland built houses for the upper end of the London market and also became a significant timber merchant from 1799. He was very adept at exploiting opportunities to develop new residential areas in London such as Westminster’s Tothill Fields estate and Vincent Square. He established his London home in St Martin’s Lane and had extensive yards, including sawmills and brickyards, in Horseferry Road and Millbank.
Copland, handsome and self-confident, early used his profits in adopting an aristocratic man- ner of life, with country seat and town house; he entertained extensively, rode to hounds, and sent his three sons to Eton. In 1801 he pur- chased for £10,000 (around £500,000 in today’s money *) the bulk (some 76 acres) of the estate at Gunnersbury, Middlesex, formerly the prop- erty of Princess Amelia, a favourite daughter of King George I and much-loved aunt of George III. He immediately demolished the existing building and erected a new house (photo 12), designed by Henry Holland and enlarged in 1816. The house and grounds, now known as
Photo 12
146 HISTORICAL