Arthur Rotch (1850-1894)

He was born in Milton, Massachusetts, a grandson of Abbott Lawrence, U.S. Minister to the United Kingdom. He graduated from Harvard University (1871) before studying architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He returned to Boston in 1880 and went into partnership with George Tilden. In 1883, he and his siblings established and endowed the Rotch Travelling Fellowship of the Boston Society of Architects, in memory of their father. The Fellowship provides grants to young architects, enabling them to travel in Europe and further their knowledge of the field. Rotch & Tilden won many of their commissions through family connections and their work included churches, libraries, and private homes including Chatwold, Osceola and Ventfort Hall. In 1892, he married Lisa DeWolf Colt whose uncle succeeded to their family home, Linden Place, Rhode Island. Arthur died without children just two years later, leaving $100,000 to his wife and various charities. His widow remarried the artist Ralph Wormeley Curtis and moved to the South of France.