Robert Stokes (politician)

Robert Stokes (1809 – 20 January 1880) practised briefly as an architect in England in the 1830s before going to New Zealand where he had a varied career as land surveyor, newspaper proprietor and latterly as a member of the New Zealand Legislative Council. The Lower Hutt suburb of Stokes Valley, New Zealand, is named after him.

Stokes was born in Jamaica on 16 January 1809, the son of Robert Stokes (then chief clerk in the Post Office in Jamaica) and of Martha Frances Stokes.

Stokes registered as a probationer student of architecture at the Royal Academy Schools in January 1830, entering on the recommendation of Sir Francis Chantrey, the leading portrait sculptor of the Regency period. He had exhibited student work at the Royal Academy in the late 1820s. Admitted to full studentship in June 1830, he was awarded a silver medal that year. He appears not to have completed the usual number of years as a student, because by 1831, he had moved to Cheltenham, where the Pittville estate was under active development by its eponymous promoter, Joseph Pitt. There is some indication that Chantrey knew Pitt, and this possibly accounts for Stokes taking up work in Cheltenham. In 1832, while resident in Cheltenham, he married Margaret Pughe, daughter of the late Rev Lewis Pughe of Liverpool. Stokes worked for Pitt for a number of years, designing the Tudor Gothic-style Female Orphan Asylum in Winchcombe Street and the ornamental Pittville Gates, both of 1833, which formed part of Pitt's plan to make Winchcombe Street a 'grand entrance' route to his new estate; Stokes also worked on several of the larger private houses in Pittville. He parted company with Pitt in 1835, apparently in financial difficulties, but resided in Cheltenham a little longer. His only other recorded architectural works in England are the Gothic churches at Amberley (1836) and Oakridge (1835-1837), both in Gloucestershire. After his migration to New Zealand, he produced the design for a Wesleyan Chapel (fronted in the classical style) and mission house, built 1844 in Manners Street, Wellington. The chapel did not survive the 1848 earthquake.

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