A new book has rightly given due appreciation to a British architect whose name was somewhat unknown in Malta until recently.

William Scamp was in Malta for less than three years, from 1841 to 1844, yet in those three years he was responsible for some buildings that have become landmarks in Malta: Dock No. 1, the Naval Bakery and the completion and the steeple of the Anglican Pro-Cathedral in Valletta.

Many of us know the names of the main architects in Maltese history – from the Maltese Gerolamo Cassar, Lorenzo Gafa and Tumas Dingli, to the foreigners Laparelli, Floriani, Tigné and Firenzuola, etc.

But William Scamp would be relatively unknown, were it not for a recent misnomer – Scamp’s Palace, which was never connected with him.

A book by historian and architect Conrad Thake – William Scamp (1801-1872) An Architect of the British Admiralty in Malta (published by Midsea Books) – has now redressed the balance.

The book was recently launched at the Maritime Museum, a very fitting place considering that Scamp had built it as a Naval Bakery – the largest in the Mediterranean.

As President Emeritus Ugo Mifsud Bonnici said at the launch, Scamp has been brought back from relative obscurity to be rightly honoured for his contribution, which consisted in moving the Maltese construction tradition from the old Baroque of the time of the Knights to the new architecture introduced by the British.

William Scamp was born in Georgeham near Barnstable in Britain in 1801. As a young man he assisted Jeffry Wyatt (later Sir Jeffry Wyatville) in the restoration of Windsor Castle. Later, he joined the Admiralty facilities at Woolwich Dockyard and it was due to this connection that he came to Malta in 1841, first to study the state of the naval facilities on the island and later to be involved in three major projects: the first dry dock in Malta at Cospicua, the naval bakery at Vittoriosa and St Paul’s Anglican cathedral in Valletta.

Scamp concluded that the ideal location for the dry dock would be at the head of Dockyard Creek, but the residents of Cospicua protested bitterly that this would deprive them of their only access to the sea and they even petitioned Governor Henry Bouverie. However, Scamp prevailed and the dock was first opened and used on 5 September 1848.

When Scamp came to Malta, the naval bakery was located near Pinto Marina on the Floriana side, but the ever-increasing British naval presence in Malta, and new technological advances, led the naval authorities to move the bakery to the Vittoriosa seafront. Scamp found plans drawn up by Captain Brandreth, the Admiralty engineer, but modified them substantially.

When completed in 1845, the new naval bakery was the largest bakery of its kind overseas and its total production amounted to 30,000 lbs of bread and biscuits a day. It was probably the first building in Malta to be constructed with the use of cast iron and it had a monumental presence on the waterfront, as it does to this day, even though the Maritime Museum today only uses a fraction of its entire area.

The last construction project with which Scamp became involved in his short stay in Malta was the Anglican pro-cathedral. On 20 March 1839, Queen Dowager Adelaide (widow of King George IV) laid the foundation stone of the new cathedral but the person entrusted with the design and supervision of the new church, Richard Titus Lankesheer, the superintendent of civil artificers, was a cabinet-maker by profession without any great experience in such construction projects.

Lankesheer’s plans for the church were derived from the churches of St Mary-le-Strand and St Martin-in-the-Fields but his apparent lack of understanding of local construction methods and the properties of local limestone led to grief. Cracks and splits began to appear in the unfinished building and Lankesheer died suddenly at the age of 38, with many rumours that he had committed suicide.

Scamp and Brandreth, who had just arrived in Malta to survey the naval-related facilities, found themselves roped in to rescue the building of the cathedral.

Scamp made many changes to Lankesheer’s design, in particular he moved the tower from its original central position to just off the church, detached from the building. He made other changes to the plans for the church, such as the location of the high altar and the creation of the semicircular exedra behind the main doors, a development that was not without its critics.

Scamp was recalled from Malta in 1845 and continued working on Admiralty projects in various British naval dockyards. He did return sporadically to Malta to finish off his projects and he assisted in the work to extend the Grand Harbour to the Menqa, as well as being consulted on the new Valletta market hall and the lunatic asylum at Wied Inċita. He died in January 1872.

Another speaker at the book launch was Professor Richard England, who was roped in at the last minute because of the indisposition of Professor Mario Buhagiar.

Prof. England pointed out that Malta has a 5,000 year heritage of construction, and limestone is in our island’s DNA. The first phase of Maltese construction was the Neolithic period, with the building of free-standing structures. These were in direct relation to the air and the sky.

The period under the Knights saw the construction of defensive fortifications and of baroque buildings under the later Grand Masters.

Then came the British, and many even today tend to depreciate British constructions. Prof. England said he was told by a Prime Minister in the 1970s to remove all British accretions at Fort St Elmo, but he refused.

The British period in Maltese architecture bridged the old baroque style of construction and buildings born of the Industrial Revolution and among the buildings dating from the British period are the entire town of Mtarfa, the Barry Royal Opera House and Villa Bighi.

After describing Scamp’s three buildings, Prof. England focused on the slender steeple Scamp completed for the Anglican cathedral “recently regretfully overshadowed by the bulbous orgasm of the dome of the Carmelite church”.

Speaking last, Conrad Thake revealed what had drawn him to write the book. In 1864, that is a few years after Scamp visited Malta, HMS Royal Oak brought William Robert Thake, a 24-year-old sailor, to Malta. In 1867, William married Carmela Fenech, thus becoming the first Thake family in Malta, and Conrad Thake’s direct progenitors. Writing the book was therefore his way of paying homage to his family and to the links between Malta and the UK.

Dr Ugo Mifsud Bonnici reminisced that, although he was Cospicua-born, he had not been inside the bakery until he became a minister in 1987. His friends urged him to convert it into an old people’s home but he had resisted such advice and decided it would become a museum of Malta’s maritime past to highlight and enshrine not just Malta’s link with the Order but also its link with the Royal Navy.