Object Type
The style of this pew end, designed by Thomas Rickman (1776-1841), is influenced by 14th-century Gothic motifs. It is made of cast iron, painted brown in order to masquerade as wood moulding and to blend in with the rest of the decoration in the church of St Mary's, Birkenhead, Cheshire. St. Mary's was built in 1819-21 at the expense of F.R. Price as part of his scheme to establish Birkenhead as a bathing resort. It was demolished in 1977, at which time this pew end and various other pieces of Rickman's ironwork from the interior, such as window tracery (M.47-1991), were given to the V&A.

People
Thomas Rickman (1776-1841) was a Gothic Revival architect and a commentator on medieval architecture who invented many of the terms we still use today to describe medieval decoration. He designed mainly in the Perpendicular style - invented in the 14th century - as this example shows. He was innovative in his use of cast iron in the construction and decoration of churches, which he designed in a neo-Gothic idiom. His interest in ironwork stemmed from his association, from 1812, with John Cragg of the Mersey Iron Foundry, where this pew end was probably cast. One of Rickman's best-known iron churches is St George's, Everton, Liverpool, which is still in use.