E. J. May


Edward John May was an English architect.

Career

E.J. May was the last pupil of Decimus Burton. He then went to the assist Eden Nesfield who was at the time working in partnership with Richard Norman Shaw. He entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1873, and won the RIBA Pugin Prize in 1876.
Shaw commended May as Estate Architect at Bedford Park, London in 1880 and May held that post until 1885. He lived at 6 Queen Anne's Grove, Bedford Park from 1881 to 1890.
He was architect to the Church of England Waifs and Strays Society and to the Governesses' Benevolent Institution. His office was at Hart Street, Bloomsbury, London. He retired in 1932.
From the 1890s he was a resident of Chislehurst, Kent, where he was responsible for a wide range of houses. He lived firstly on Willow Grove, before moving to a house of his own design in 1913. At Chislehurst, he was a Church Warden at the Church of the Annunciation, Chislehurst High Street as well as Secretary of the Parish Nurse Fund.
He died at Chislehurst on 16 March 1941.
"To know E. J. May was an exhilarating tonic, the serious and yet lighthearted activity of thought and action, the quick movement to keep an appointment or to see you on your homeward way was characteristic."

Works up to 1900