Pocock, William Fuller

POCOCK, William Fuller (1779-1849) of London, England was a talented classicist who trained under his father and demonstrated an early talent for drawing and designing. At the young age of twenty he began to exhibit his schemes at the Royal Academy in London, and published his first book in 1807 entitled Architectural Designs for Rustic Cottages, Picturesque Dwellings and Villas.
In 1816 he received a commission in Lower Canada to design a substantial addition of a Ballroom and Dining Hall for the Mansion House Hotel, for John Moulson (sic), St. Paul Street at Bonsecours Street, MONTREAL, QUE., 1816 (H. Colvin, Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840, 1995, 769-70, list of works). The client was obviously John Molson, the well-known businessman and brewer who had purchased an existing house in the old town of Montreal in 1815 and converted it the following year into the Mansion House hotel. It was unclear why Molson specifically hire Pocock for this Montreal project; there were several professional architects already active in Montreal at this time, as well as many others he could have selected in Boston or New York City. Pocock took considerable pride in his design for this, his only Canadian commission, exhibiting it at the Royal Academy in 1819 (Algernon Graves, Royal Academy of Arts, 1905, vi, 171-2).
Pocock was active in London as an architect and real estate developer for nearly 40 years, and was also the author of a popular book of Designs for Churches & Chapels (1819). He was also an early member of the Royal Inst. Of British Architects, founded in 1834 (biog. R.I.B.A., Directory of British Architects 1834-1900, 1993, 726; Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004, xliv, 660-1).