( - 1811)
John Thomas Groves was born in London; the son of a bricklayer. He was apprenticed to his father, before training as an architect. Groves exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1778 and 1780. For the next ten years he lived in Italy, exhibiting Italian views on his return. In 1794 he was elected a member of the Florentine Academy. He became the Clerk of Works for St. James’s, Whitehall and Westminster; designed country houses and monuments; and repaired or altered churches. His designs include a Bath House in Tunbridge Wells and the Nelson Monument, Portsdown Hill. He was made Master of the Tylers’ and Bricklayers’ Company in 1810. In 1811 he designed an obelisk for Garbally Park, County Galway, but died at home in Scotland Yard the same year.
