Peter Smith (architectural historian)

{{Short description|British architectural historian (1926–2013)}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Peter Smith

| image = File:Treowen 01.jpg

| alt =

| caption = Treowen, Monmouthshire - Smith described it as "a very magnificent building"{{sfn|Smith|1975|p=233}}

| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1926|6|15}}

| birth_place = Winlaton-on-Tyne, England

| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|2013|3|12|1926|6|15}}

| death_place = Devon, England

| occupation = Architectural historian

| spouse = Joyce Smith

| notable_works = Houses of the Welsh Countryside

| alma_mater = Oxford University

| website =

| signature =

}}

Peter Smith (1926–2013) was an architectural historian. His most important work, Houses of the Welsh Countryside, has been described as having "a defining influence on the understanding, enjoyment and conservation of Welsh traditional architecture".

Life and works

Smith was born on 15 June 1926 at Winlaton-on-Tyne, then part of County Durham.{{cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9965382/Peter-Smith.html|title=Peter Smith|date=1 April 2013|publisher=The Telegraph|accessdate=15 March 2020}} He was educated at King Edward VI School, Southampton,{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/apr/07/peter-smith-obituary|title=Peter Smith obituary|first=Peter|last=Wakelin|date=7 April 2013|work=The Guardian|accessdate=6 December 2024}} before reading Modern History at Oxford.{{cite web|url=http://heritageofwalesnews.blogspot.com/2013/03/peter-smith-architectural-historian.html|title=Peter Smith, architectural historian, 1926–2013|date=14 March 2013|publisher=Heritage of Wales|accessdate=15 March 2020}} In 1949 Smith joined the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales as a researcher.

Working under Cyril Fox, who inspired his life-long interest in the vernacular architecture of Wales, in 1973 he was appointed Secretary of the commission.{{cite web|url=https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/home/peter-smith-19262013/8645049.article|title=Peter Smith (1926–2013)|first=Richard|last=Suggett|website=Architects Journal|date=2 April 2013 |accessdate=26 March 2019}} In 1975, the commission published Smith's seminal work, Houses of the Welsh Countryside, a "remarkable" thematic study which received much critical praise and in 1978 won Smith the Alice Davis Hitchcock Medallion from the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain.{{cite web|url=https://www.sahgb.org.uk/adh|title=Alice Davis Hitchcock Medallion|publisher=The Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain|website=SAHGB|accessdate=26 March 2019}} Smith's obituary in The Guardian linked the book with St Fagans National Museum of History, with which Smith was also involved, as having "a defining influence on the understanding, enjoyment and conservation of Welsh traditional architecture". His Telegraph obituary noted the work's "profound influence on the understanding and appreciation of domestic architecture in the Principality".

The Chairman's foreword to the book recorded the commission's thanks for "a valuable contribution to an aspect of the past of Wales which has received too little attention".{{sfn|Smith|1975|loc=Foreword}} In the concluding chapter to John B. Hilling's, The Architecture of Wales: From the First to the Twenty-first Century, Simon Unwin wrote; "it was, and remains, an exemplary overview of the traditional regional architecture of Wales".{{sfn|Hilling|Unwin|2018|p=259}} Smith died in a nursing home in Devon in 2013.{{cite web|url=http://heritageofwalesnews.blogspot.com/2013/03/peter-smith-architectural-historian.html|title=Peter Smith, architectural historian, 1926–2013|date=14 March 2013|publisher=Heritage of Wales|accessdate=15 March 2020}}