Martin, Edward William.

Edward William Martin, the son of Edward Martin and Sarah Anne Hewitt (1863–1946), was born on November 2, 1891, in Inverarnan, Scotland. His family moved to Delaware when he was a child, and he attended Wilmington High School and the University of Delaware, from which he received his B.S. in 1916. He developed an interest in architecture, taking several architecture classes at the University of Pennsylvania and eventually attending the University of Liverpool in England, receiving a Bachelor of Architecture with First Class Honours in Design in 1922. He was also a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon, Phi Kappa Phi, and Tau Sigma Delta (which was an honors architecture fraternity).

In 1921, Martin was awarded a Honan Traveling Scholarship by the Liverpool Architectural Society which enabled a summer study trip to the Continent. His trip to Paris in 1921 was followed by a second tour in the summer of 1922 to various cities around Italy, including Genoa, Rome, Florence, Venice, and Verona. During these trips he made a careful study of the architecture in these regions, and produced a large number of sketches and watercolors. Martin was one of nine finalists for the coveted Rome Scholarship in Architecture in 1922, which would have afforded three years of study at the British School at Rome for three years. Martin’s design for the preliminary competition, shown on p. 296 of The Architect’s Journal (Folder 1-C), was critiqued as “an imaginative work set forth with … much grace.”

Mr. Martin returned to the United States in 1922, settling in Philadelphia, and joined the firm of Wilson Eyre & McIlvaine, and later established himself in the firm of Evans & Warner. In 1926 he moved to Wilmington, Delaware, where he established his own firm, E. William Martin, Arch’ts, Inc., and he continued to thrive in Delaware for the next fifty years. Donald S. Wason joined the firm in 1952 and became a partner in 1961; the name of the firm changed to Martin & Wason in 1961, just before Mr. Martin’s retirement. Mr. Martin joined the AIA in 1923 and received fellowship status in 1945; by 1975 he was honored with emeritus status. Martin also belonged to the Delaware Chapter of the AIA.

Martin was a well-respected architect in Delaware, and worked on a large number of projects for schools, hospitals, government buildings, and private residences. He also did occasional work for local notables, including Pierre S. DuPont (several buildings at Longwood Gardens), William F. Raskob, and Crawford H. Greenewalt. A partial list of his projects includes the following: the main post office in Wilmington; DuPont High School; Colwyck Senior High School; H. Fletcher Brown Vocational High School; Brookside Junior High School; Castle Hills Elementary School; New Castle Junior High School; Sunny Hills School; Smyrna High School; Newark Senior High School; the Friends School in Wilmington; the widening of Ritter Lane in Newark; alterations to the residence of Dr. & Mrs. R.O. Bausman; a country house for Albert B. Kelley of Radnor, Pennsylvania; the distinctive DeVries Memorial Building (Zwaanendael House) in Lewes; additions to the Chester County Hospital, in Pennsylvania; as well as the State Board of Education Building, the Delaware State Legislature Building, and the Hall of Records in Dover. For his alma mater, Mr. Martin designed the Carpenter Field House, and Cannon and Alison Halls.

Martin also participated in the Depression-era Historic American Buildings Survey project (HABS), initiated by the historic architects of the National Park Service. Begun in 1933, partly as a means of providing employment for out-of-work architects, the project sought to record historic architecture around the nation, most especially those structures which were threatened with destruction either through neglect or outside development. The founders of the project sought “preservation through documentation,” and over the course of subsequent decades numerous historic structures were surveyed from virtually every state. Since the project was begun, many of those structures that were surveyed have disappeared, and thus the work of these architects is the only record remaining for historians. Martin was involved in surveying and preparing the layouts for several historic Delaware buildings in both Wilmington (Brandywine Academy, “Old Swedes” Holy Trinity Church) and New Castle (the Amstel House, Chancellor Kensey Johns House, Old Town Hall, and the Van Dyke House).

On October 19, 1927, William Martin married La Reine Kennard of Atlantic, Virginia, with whom he had three daughters: Edith Frances, Alice Kennard, and Dorothy Hewitt. After a career spanning over fifty years as an architect in Philadelphia and Delaware, Edward W. Martin died on December 10, 1977, at the age of 86 years.

Beaty, Laura. “The Historic American Building Survey.” National Parks and Conservation Magazine. (Mar/Apr 1983): 16-21. Biographical Dictionary of Philadelphia Architects: 1700–1930. Sandra L. Tatman and Roger W. Moss, eds. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1985. Historic American Building Survey / Historic American Engineering Record: An Annotated Bibliography. (Washington DC?): Historic American Building Survey / Historic American Engineering Board, National Park Service, US Department of the Interior, 1992. Martin, E. William, arch. “Cottage on Estate of Pierre S. DuPont, Longwood, P.A.” American Architect. 135 (Jun 20, 1929): 816-19. Martin, E. William, arch. “Portfolio of Country Houses.” The Architectural Record. 70 (November, 1931): 315-61. Who’s Who in Delaware: A Biographical Dictionary of Delaware’s Leading Men and Women. ed. Seth Harmon. Philadelphia: The National Biographical Society, 1932. Additional information was provided by Edith Grady Martin, September 2006.

From the guide to the E. William Martin architectual works, 1921–1961, (University of Delaware Library - Special Collections)