Soane Museum Study Group: Harry Adams

The Soane Museum Study Group is an open forum for scholars – both established and emerging – to present new research into an aspect of architectural history and/or Soane’s collection.

Harry Adams - ‘A lofty room, badly lighted and worse ventilated’? John Soane’s designs for the Insolvent Debtors’ Court, Portugal Street, 1821-25

Tucked away at the rear of 33 Lincoln’s Inn Fields and east end of Portugal Street, the Insolvent

Debtors’ Court was, during its relatively short existence from 1825 to 1861, one of London’s most feared buildings. Immortalised by Charles Dickens in The Pickwick Papers (1836-37) as the ‘badly lighted and worse ventilated’ domain of seedy barristers like Solomon Pell and ‘the destitute shabby-genteel people’ of London, the Court, which was built to designs by John Soane, became symbolic of the harsh injustice of nineteenth-century England’s insolvency laws.

However, recent cataloguing of the drawings for the Court in Sir John Soane’s Museum has revealed new information about the compromises involved in the building’s design and execution. Drawing on these findings and other available visual and documentary sources, this talk will reappraise Soane’s design and ask whether the building was as bleak as Dickens and his contemporaries would have us believe.

This 30-minute talk will be followed by an opportunity to view a selection of relevant drawings in the Soane Museum Research Library.

About the speaker

Dr Harry Adams is the Rick Mather Curatorial and Cataloguing Trainee at Sir John Soane’s Museum.

Event details

Wednesday 11 November 2026 18:00 - 19:30

Drinks reception 18:00, talk begins at 18:30

On arrival, please come to No. 14 Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The door will be staffed from 18:00

Tickets are free, but please be sure to book your place so as to ensure capacity. Your email confirmation serves as your ticket