Charles Augustin Busby

Architect and engineer Charles Busby (1786-1834) began exhibiting at the Royal Academy from 1801. In 1808 he published the well-received A Series of Designs for Villas and Country Houses and A Collection of Designs for Modern Embellishments. Several serious commissions followed, including a commission for a Gothic castle at Gwrych, Denbighshire. The project did not go well for him, however, and after losing the commission he left for the United States, where in 1819 he drew elevations of the Capitol building in Washington. Finding little success here, however, he returned to England in 1823.