The eighteen year old Edward Welby Pugin succeeded to the practice of his father, A.W.N. Pugin in 1852. In the course of a short working life – just twenty-three years – he established himself as one of the best-known architects working for Roman Catholic patrons. He designed houses, schools, convents and monasteries as well as churches and cathedrals of great originality. A manic work ethic, financial problems, frequent public controversy, much litigation and even accusations of mental instability brought him aged forty to an early grave.

A leading authority on Roman Catholic architecture in nineteenth-century Britain and Ireland, Roderick O’Donnell has published extensively on the work of E.W. Pugin and his father.