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Masey, Francis (Edward)
(b London, 18 Nov 1861; d Salisbury, Rhodesia [now Harare, Zimbabwe], 3 Sept 1912). English architect active in South Africa and Rhodesia. He was apprenticed to his father, the architect Philip Masey, in London for two years before entering the office of Alfred Waterhouse (1878). In 1887 he became a student in the Royal Academy Schools, London, and he won several prizes that enabled him to visit France (1889) and Italy (1891). In 1896 he went to Cape Town on a three-year contract with the Public Works Department, but soon after his arrival he met HERBERT BAKER, broke his contract and entered practice with him; the partnership of Baker & Masey was formed in 1899. Their first success was winning the competition for the City Club (1896–7), Cape Town, built to a classical design with Baroque gables and domes. Masey’s studies in Italy were a major influence on the use of the Italianate style frequently adopted by the practice, particularly before Baker’s visit to see Classical sites in Europe in 1900 at the expense of Cecil Rhodes. Masey also worked on the Italian Romanesque designs for St Philip’s (1898), Cape Town, and the Memorial Church of St John the Evangelist (1901–2), Mafeking. In 1902 Baker went to Johannesburg and Masey took sole responsibility for the partnership’s buildings in Cape Town, including the Renaissance-inspired Rhodes Building (1900–8) for De Beer’s, with an internal courtyard and Flemish gables on the façade, and Marks Building (1903–5) with rusticated stonework at ground-floor level, as well as the simple, gabled St George’s Grammar School (1904), part of the scheme for Baker’s St George’s Cathedral (1897–1957). Masey was also involved in the design of Baker’s classical monuments: the Shangani Memorial (1898), the Kimberley Siege Memorial (1904) and the Rhodes Memorial (1905–8), Table Mountain, Cape Town. In 1910 Masey left his partnership with Baker and settled in Salisbury; he is credited with the introduction of the Italianate courtyard building into Rhodesia with designs such as the Salisbury Club (1912). His work, obscured by Baker’s reputation, made a significant contribution to the colonial architecture of southern Africa. He was a founder-member of the Cape Institute of Architects (1901) and its first president; he was also a respected teacher.
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