HERBERT LANGFORD WARREN

(1857-1917)

(cousin of Harriet Messenger, wife of James Edmund Scripps): See ARCHITECTURE AND THE ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT IN BOSTON: HARVARD’S H. LANGFORD WARREN by Maureen Meister, 2003, University Press of New England, Hanover and London, ISBN 1-58465-351-5

Note: The Messenger family of Boston, MA, were cousins of another old Boston family, the Warrens. Harriet ‘s mother was a Warren. The Warrens were one of the founding families of Boston and remained prominent through the nineteenth century. In the eighteenth century, Dr. Joseph Warren became the leader of the Boston Committee of Public Safety during the British occupation of Boston beginning in 1768. He was appointed the commander of the Boston patriot forces and as such was in command of Bunker Hill and died during the British attack. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Warrens were in a position to send two sons, Harriet Messinger’s cousins, to England for their formal education. Thus, in 1877, The two cousins. whose mother was English, received formal education in England as architects. Thereafter they returned to Boston to join their parents. Upon arrival in Boston the young men, whose family would probably have know the Boston Eliot family socially, audited at Harvard the first ever American art history lectures offered at any American college and taught by Charles Eliot Norton, cousin of Harvard President Charles William Eliot. Subsequently, in 1879, H. Langford Warren was hired by H. H. RICHARDSON, the leading Boston architectural firm, and became the leading draftsman for the firm. His best friend and fellow architect in the Richardson firm was RALPH CRAM with whom he shared a love in the evolving new neo-gothic revival style of more vertical architecture than that promoted by H. H. Richardson.

NOTE: Charles Eliot Norton is credited with introducing the field of art history to the undergraduate liberal arts curricula in the United States. Charles Norton was a knowledgeable art collector and gave lectures on the history of art at Harvard. He was appointed by his cousin, president Charles Eliot of Harvard, to be the first lecturer of Fine Arts at Harvard in 1873. Though not technically a member of the Harvard faculty, he was considered an honorary faculty member with full privileges. Similarly Professor Wilhelm von Bode is considered the first Art Historian in Europe, who helped to establish the academic discipline and study of Art History. Bode was initially the Keeper of the Royal Prussian art collection, but when he established the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin and transferred the royal collection, he made the state collection available to the public for appreciation and study and was made both Director and Professor. Both men mark the very beginning of the academic study of fine arts.

Following the death of H. H. Richardson in 1886, H. Langford Warren establishes his own prolific architectural practice. His first commission in 1886/1887, and only commission outside of New England, was to design and build the SCRIPPS MORTUARY CHAPEL at Woodmere Cemetery in Detroit, which was originally built as the final resting place for James and Harriet Scripps’s two deceased young children.

In 1893 President Eliot of Harvard tapped H. Langford Warren and asked him to establish the HARVARD SCHOOL of ARCHITECTURE and to teach its first course. Warren became the founder and first dean of the Harvard School of Architecture.

In 1897 H. Langford Warren, a correspondent with William Ruskin, became one of the three founders of the BOSTON SOCIETY of ARTS and CRAFTS and its first President. Warren invited George G. Booth to be amongst the first class of members admitted to the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts. George Booth joins as a tradesman/craftsman and ornamental metal work designer.

H. Langford Warren recommended his friend Ralph Cram to James Scripps as an architect designer to help George realize his vision for Trinity Reformed Episcopal Church (TRINITY CHURCH) in Detroit, 1890.

Note: George G. Booth following his work on Trinity Church for his father-in-law in
1890 and admission in 1897 to the Boston Society, in 1900, establishes the CRANBROOK (studio) PRESS in the wooden attic of the first Evening News building located on Shelby Street. Here George Booth with the help of several siblings publishes limited edition woodblock printed editions on special hand made paper inspired by Wm. Morris ‘s editions printed at the Kelmscott Press in England. Next, in 1906, George Booth establishes The Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts, after closing the Cranbrook Press.

The subsequent development of the Cranbrook institutions which are based on the twin foundations of the British Arts and Crafts movement as transmitted by men such as H. Langford Warren and a belief in the Anglican faith and form of worship, all stem from these early family/clan influences on both George G. and Ellen Warren Scripps Booth.