(b London, 20 July 1876; d Charlwood, Surrey, 9 Dec 1950). English architect. He qualified under articles before sailing for India in 1898 to take up an appointment (1899–1909) as architect to the Railway Board for work on the Bengal–Nagpur Railway. As well as numerous railway and other buildings Esch designed the race stand, dining hall and clock tower for the Royal Calcutta Turf Club and the simple, neo-classical Allahabad Bank (both 1905–6), Calcutta. He had just completed a new headquarters building for the railway company (1907) at Garden Reach on the Hugli River when he won the competition for the Bengal Club (completed 1908), also in Calcutta. Both of these buildings have Edwardian Baroque façades but are nevertheless very different: the former is faced entirely in common bricks, while the elegant Bengal Club is rendered in the chunam (fine, polished stucco) more characteristic of the Neo-classical masterpieces built in Calcutta half a century before, and it boasts a giant Ionic order. In 1910 Esch was appointed consulting architect for the Victoria Memorial (completed 1921) on the Maidan at Calcutta, having earlier been recommended by its architect, Sir William Emerson, to oversee construction. Esch himself designed the garden features and probably the Mughal elements such as the chhatri-like corner domes and filigree marble arch spandrels of this impressive Indian Neo-classical building. In the same decade he produced a spectacular series of works in Hyderabad in the popular Indo-Saracenic style. The Railway Station (1914), the imposing granite High Court (1916) facing the Musi River and the City High School (1918; now part of the university) are all memorable examples of this hybrid style, as is the somewhat later Osmania Hospital (completed 1925). He left India in 1921, leaving behind him a remarkably extensive oeuvre for so short a period, but he designed little after returning to England.

• Esch, Vincent (Jerome)
  • Law court, §2: From c 1860