Thomas Penson was an architect and surveyor active, particularly in North Wales and in Chester, England in the 19th century.
Penson was born in 1791, the son of Thomas Penson (born around 1760, died 1824), surveyor for Flintshire and Denbighshire, Wales. Early in his career he was a pupil of bridge designer Thomas Harrison of Chester, England. He later established his own practice in Oswestry, Shropshire, England.
For thirty years Penson was the County Surveyor for Denbighshire and Mongomeryshire, Wales where he is noted to have revolutionized the road systems and to have built and rebuilt several bridges, civic structures, churches, and country houses, the latter in the 'Elizabethan' style.
Penson was a fellow of the Royal Society of British Architects and a member of the Insitution of Civil Engineers. He was the father of Thomas Mainwaring Penson (born 1817, died 1864) and died in 1859.
Bibliography
Colvin, Howard, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840, 3rd edition (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), pp. 748-749.
Anthony, C. Robert, 'Penson's Progress : The Work of a Nineteenth-Century County Surveyor', Montgomeryshire Collections, 83 (1995), pp. 115-75