Basil Champneys
Basil Champneys was an architect and author whose most notable buildings include Manchesters John Rylands Library, Newnham College, Cambridge, Mansfield College, Oxford and Oriel College, Oxfords Rhodes Building.
Champneys was born in Whitechapel, London, onSeptember 1842 into a family with a modest income, his father, William Weldon Champneys, was an Evangelical Vicar of St Marys Church, Whitechapel . One of eight children, he attended Charterhouse School, showing a talent for mathematics and lacking in drawing skills. In 1860, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1864, he failed to get the first class degree he had hoped for, achieving a second class in the Classical Tripos, and he took articles to study as an architect with John Prichard, the Surveyor of Llandaff Cathedral. Champneys set up his practice as an architect in 1867 in Queens Square, London, close to the office of William Morris amp Co.
Source: Wikipedia