The father of Matthew Edward Habershon – known as Edward – was Matthew Habershon. Edward's mother was Sarah Gilbee. Matthew practised in London and apprenticed his sons. The elder son was William Gillbee Habershon. and the younger was Edward Edward married the widow Frances Elizabeth Williams née Heathcote in Kensington in 1857. They had two children: Edward Neston Williams Habershon and Alice Maud Habershon. Around 1863 Edward and his family moved to Speldhurst and Lee in Kent; by 1881 they had moved permanently to Charlwood Park, Surrey; being self-supporting he could call himself a gentleman. In the 1901 Census for Reigate Mrs Frances Elizabeth Habershon, in the last year of her life, is living with two companions who are "in charge", and she is described as "eccentric".
Career
On 9 February 1852, Edward was made ARIBA and on 5 November 1860 he was made FRIBA. When their father Matthew Habershon died on 5 July 1852, the sons inherited a large office in London, and a partnership which trained many architects, including Henry Spalding and E.P.L. Brock who were articled to the brothers in 1857. In 1862 Edward Habershon was involved in the relocation of London's burial grounds, notably at Cure's College. In 1863 the London practice dissolved and a partnership was formed between Edward Habershon and Henry Spalding. In 1865 they joined in partnership with E.P.L. Brock. In 1873 Spalding left the practice. Edward retired in 1879 and Brock carried on the practice, being admitted to FRIBA on 20 March 1882, one of his proposers being Edward Habershon.
Works in partnership with W.G. Habershon
This practice operated at 38 Bloomsbury Square, London WC from 1852 to 1863.
A large reconstruction of an ancient house, undertaken in 1849-1851. The result was described by the architectural historian John Newman as a "Neo-classical monster".
This church was built between 1852 and 1854. It has a three-stage tower and is dressed with knapped flint and stone. The interior has carved corbels In the 1850s Robert William Edis was apprenticed to the brothers.
The original Belvedere railway station was built at the same time as All Saints Church. It was demolished and replaced in 1968 and again in 2000.
Duncrub House and chapel
The foundation stone for this house in Dunning, Perthshire, was laid in 1861, and construction took place 1861–1863. It was designed as a gothic mansion and offices for the 10th Lord Rollo. In 1950 it was demolished, leaving part of a corridor link with the chapel, and the laundry building containing some masonry of 1773 and 1800. The 1858 chapel is a B-listed building. and is described thus: "Early pointed, bull-faced coursed rubble with ashlar dressings. East apse, south aisle, north-west tower with slated spike spire. Modern doorway in west gable." It has been a shed and sports hall, and as of 2013 was a holiday home.
These London properties were constructed by Philip Rainey in 1859.
78 to 94 Ladbroke Grove (even numbers on east side)
These London properties were built in 1861 and thought to have been designed by Edward Habershon.
Works in partnership with Henry Spalding and E.P.L. Brock
These works were carried out under the names of two practices: Habershon & Spalding 1863–1865; and Habershon, Spalding & Brock 1865–1879.
Designed
St Leonards-on-Sea Congregational Church
was built between February and October 1864. It is built of coursed ore sandstone with Bath Stone ashlar dressings, and had a copper-clad spire which was demolished after the Great Storm of 1987. As a Grade II listed building it is mistakenly credited to Edward's brother William; but it was Edward who was employed in the Habershon-Brock partnership.
, the Anglican parish church at Ebernoe, West Sussex, was built at a cost of £1200 of polychrome :File:History and making of Ebernoe brickworks - geograph.org.uk - 1162784.jpg|local brick with an open belfry and steep boarded roof between 1865 and 1867. W.R. Peachey, lord of the manor, laid the foundations stone at the east end. There are no aisles. There are lancet windows in the nave and chancel, the lancets at the west end being trefoiled. The east and west windows have tracery, and there are foliage corbels on the chancel arch. It had a plain interior which was later whitened.
Temperance Hotel, now Eskdale Hotel
Constructed for Major Malcolm of Burnfoot between 1865 and 1867, this is a B-listed building in High Street, Langholm.
St Andrews, Hastings
The foundation stone of :File:St Andrews Church Queens Road Hastings 001.JPG|St Andrews Church, Queens Road, Hastings, was laid in November 1869. It was constructed by John Howell, whose fee was £3,235. It held a congregation of 2,000, and was consecrated on 30 November 1870 by Richard Durnford, Bishop of Chichester. It was decorated with a mural by Robert Tressell in 1905. The building survived until 1970 when it was declared unsafe and demolished between August and September of that year. One panel of Tressell's mural was saved, and is now in Hastings Museum. The mural is the Islamic-style decorative work covering the walls around the windows at the east end.
at Horsham was a complete rebuild in stages of a previous church which had been designed in 1840 by W. Moseley. The tower and south aisle were built first in 1870; the nave was completed in 1872, and the spire in 1878. The nave had pink granite piers, narrow roofbeams and a pulpit "with figures on the side standing in trefoiled niches" as designed by Habershon and Brock. The surviving spire is square with an octagonal spire, lucarnes and short pinnacles. The exterior of the 1870 building was rough-hewn stone, and the windows had complex tracery. The chancel was added later in 1888 by another architect. Between 1936 and 1949 the church became defunct and was temporarily closed. Services resumed briefly, then it closed again by 1982, to be partially demolished in 1988 to make way for a road and offices. The tower remains.
at Copthorne, West Sussex was begun in 1877 and consecrated in 1880. It was built in imitation of the late thirteenth-century style. It has a short, north-west tower and a stone broach spire made of smooth ashlar. The main building is faced with roughly dressed stone, and has lancet windows with simple tracery. The entrance is through the base of the tower. The interior is of polychrome brick, with arcades and chancel arch built of stone, and a braced nave roof. The east windows by A. Gibbs are original, being dated 1877; they depict St John, St Peter and the Good Shepherd. There has been some recent adaptation of the interior for liturgical purposes.
Restoration work by Habershon and Brock on :File:Broadwater Church.JPG|St Mary, Broadwater is undated. They may have supervised work on the building after the dispute between builder C. Hyde and the church authorities started in 1866.
St Giles, Dallington
The replacement of the nave of :File:Dallington Church - geograph.org.uk - 64312.jpg|St Giles at Dallington, East Sussex was completed in 1864; it replaces a nave built around the 15th century, and adjoins a 16th-century tower. The 1864 nave has "varnished roof timbers with cusping and rounded ties". There is 15th-century-style tracery, and an arcade with large, crocketed capitals in imitation of an earlier style. The interior is low and without a clerestory, like the previous 15th-century nave that it replaced. The two metal plates bearing the Ten Commandments on the west wall are original to the 1864 rebuild.
St Clement, Halton
The work on :File:St Clements Halton Hastings.jpg|St Clement at Halton, Hastings was completed in 1869 but the building was demolished in 1970. There appears to be no record of the nature of the works by Habershon and Brock.
St Leonard, St Leonards-on-Sea
was completed in 1864, but was bombed in World War II.
