Patrick Abercrombie

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Sir Leslie Patrick Abercrombie (6 June 1879 – 23 March 1957) was an English architect, urban designer and town planner. Born in Ashton-upon-Mersey, he trained in Liverpool and became a leading expert on city planning and the garden city movement. He taught at the University of Liverpool and later at University College London, and he helped run the firm Lockwood Abercrombie and Saxon.

Abercrombie became famous for planning cities after World War II. His best-known work is the London Plan, produced in the 1940s, including the County of London Plan (1943) and the Greater London Plan (1944). He also drafted plans for Plymouth, Hull, Bath, Edinburgh, Bournemouth and Hong Kong, among others. He supported the New Towns movement, helping to design towns like Harlow and Crawley, and he led the Clyde Valley Regional Plan (1946).

He received many honours: he was knighted in 1945, won the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 1946 and the AIA Gold Medal in 1950, and in 1948 he became the first president of the International Union of Architects.

Abercrombie died in 1957 in Oxfordshire. He was married to Emily Maud Gordon in 1908; they had two children. A number of buildings and plaques remember his work, including the Abercrombie Building at Oxford Brookes University.