Welcome to the Thomas Ellis Owen web site.

“…Architect as Hustler in the person of Tom Owen, Architect of Portsmouth”.
Young (1900)

2004 Celebratory Festival

At the beginning of July 2004, the festival to celebrate the life and work of Thomas Ellis Owen attracted many visitors. On Friday, 2 July, TEO’s great great grandson, Henry Phythian-Adams, was accompanied by his two brothers when he unveiled an English Heritage Blue Plaque at TEO's home, Dover Court, now the Junior Department of Portsmouth High School in Kent Road.

Photo: Thomas Ellis Owen

Latest News ! Latest News ! Latest News !

Last July we began celebrating the bicentennial year of the birth of Thomas Ellis Owen. The actual 200th anniversary of his birth is on Friday, 11 March 2005 and, to mark the occasion, the following events will take place:

• Portsmouth City Council are organising some walks around Owen's Southsea;

• Henry Phythian-Adams, TEO's great-great-grandson, is coming to Portsmouth to repeat his talk about the Owen family in Southsea; and

• A full sized version of the animated guided tour of Owen's Southsea that was commissioned for the festival will be on display in the Palmerston Road shopping centre.

More details of each of these opportunities to remember the contribution Thomas Ellis Owen made to Southsea are set out below.

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Bicentenary Guided Walks:
Thomas Owen's Southsea

A weekend of walks to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Ellis Owen. Take a closer look at central Southsea and the work of this esteemed architect, who instigated much of Southsea's development in the 19th century.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday 11th to 13th March 2005

Starting at: The Friary, Marmion Road, Southsea (by Waitrose car park).

Time: 2.30pm each day
Prices: £3, accompanied children free
Telephone: 023 9282 6722

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Bicentennial Talk:
Thomas Ellis Owen's family in Southsea, a 'Family Album'
On the 200th anniversary of Thomas Ellis Owen's birth his great-great-grandson, Henry Phythian-Adams, is returning to Portsmouth to repeat his popular talk about this C19th architect who laid the foundations of modern Southsea, and his family.

Saturday 12 March 2005 at 11 am

The Royal Naval Club
and Royal Albert Yacht Club,
17 Pembroke Road,
Old Portsmouth.

Cost: £2 Tickets available at the door

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Interactive Animated guided tours of Owen's Southsea

A full sized version of two interactive animated guided tours of Owen's Southsea produced through a collaboration between Blue-Rooms and the Thomas Ellis Owen Festival Committee will be shown in The Sanity Unit, Palmerston Road shopping precinct between 11 am and 4 pm on Friday and Saturday, 11th and 12th March.

This exhibit provides a unique view of Owen's Southsea and is a valuable educational resource for both children and adults. If you would like to learn more, reflect on this beautiful part of our City, or simply recall the occasion that local people joined forces and contributed to the Thomas Ellis Owen Festival Blue-rooms are making the animated guided tours available on a CD Rom at a cost of £10. Please email info@blue-rooms.com to order your copy.

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The Phythian-Adams brothers with the newly unveiled Blue Plaque.

Throughout the weekend there was a variety of ways visitors could learn about TEO’s life and work and each was a success in its own right. All the tickets for the four lectures were sold out before the festival weekend. Huge numbers of people took guided tours around Owen’s Southsea and additional guides sometimes had to be called on because for individual tours numbers were so high. Indeed 25 people turned up for the final tour at 3.45 on Sunday afternoon even though it was pouring with rain by then!

We sold hundreds of cream teas to visitors who came to admire the beautiful Owen properties and stunning artwork displayed there. Some property owners even gave lucky visitors impromptu tours of their houses.

On a lighter note the puppet theatre, put on by pupils from the Portsmouth High School, was well attended and the puppeteers apparently thoroughly enjoyed staging the shows. The magic lantern show was a last minute addition to the programme and visitors were hugely impressed with the 19th-century slides and the sight of the amazing magic lantern. Both children and adults were keen to have a go at calligraphy and mosaic work in the activity room and the volunteers running the activities reported a constant stream of people wanting to take part.

The Flower Show gave rise to much enthusiasm and hilarity. Many beautiful exhibits were brought along to Dover Court but those whose efforts were less successful used Sellotape and poetry to enter into the spirit of the day! One entrant whose plant had had a sad demise entered its remains with a ‘paper tombstone’ bearing the inscription:

Lament Upon A Lot Fuchsia
(or Alas ! Poor Jane)

Jane Lye lies here, ------- not at her best;
She should in leaves and flowers be dressed.
The “Plan”, a cone, of height two feet
Proved far too grandiose a scheme to meet.
And Winter cold her frame did shrink,
And into torpor she did sink.
Nor leaf nor flower can here be shown
To prove how beautiful she is………if she had grown!
Alas! Poor Jane.

John William Reeves

Kaleidoscope (http://www.kaleidoscopemusic.co.uk ) did us proud by opening the festival weekend with a musical evening featuring pieces played at TEO’s soirees at Dover Court in the 1850s.

The clever play written by Stuart Olesker from the University of Portsmouth imparted a huge amount of information about TEO’s life and times in a humorous and appealing format. It attracted much congratulatory comment and some people returned to see it a second time or asked if it could be staged again.

The exhibition was informative and stimulating. Two important aspects of the research were omitted, however. If you would like to know what they were please see the ‘What did the exhibition include? section of this website.

Thanks to all involved.

For three years these people (see photos below) worked hard on various aspects of the Thomas Ellis Owen Festival. Some spent hours deciphering almost illegible documents, writing to people for information or ploughing their way through old newspapers. Others portrayed 19th century Southsea in wood or textile; created a miniature architect's office of the period; contributed to the guided walk leaflet and/or programme; and built an automaton like a steam engine that portrayed Southsea in the years 2000, 1900 and 1800.