Isaac Thomas Shutt (21 February 1818 – 14 March 1879) was an architect, a farmer, and the proprietor of the Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate, then in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, from 1849 to 1879. In 1842, at the age of 24 years, he designed the Royal Pump Room, Harrogate, now a Grade II* listed building. In partnership with Alfred Hill Thompson he co-designed the Church of All Saints, Harlow Hill.
Personal life
His father was Jonathan Shutt (d.1840), who was for thirty years owner of the Swan Hotel, Harrogate (now the Old Swan Hotel), and his mother was Ann Shutt (1781 – 8 March 1848).
Isaac Thomas Shutt was born in Harrogate on 21 February 1818, and baptised on 6 December 1818 at Christ Church, High Harrogate. In 1841 he was in Victoria Place, St Saviour, Southwark, an architect aged 22, lodging with grocer James Slater and his family. At St George, Hanover Square in 1849 he married Ann Staning (1825–20 February 1875), who was born in Winchester and died in Knaresborough.
During his lifetime, the census tracks his comfortable lifestyle and steady acquisition of wealth. By 1851 he had become the proprietor of the Swan Hotel (now the Old Swan Hotel) in Promenade Road, Harrogate, and he was listed as an architect, surveyor and land owner. He was 33 years old, his wife was 26, and they had two children aged one year and three months. There were ten servants, including two nursemaids and a groom. In 1861 they were still at the Swan Hotel, and Shutt was listed as an architect, farmer and hotel keeper. He was 43, his wife was 35, they had six children aged from 2 to 11 years, and ten servants including a nurse, gardener and gardener's boy. In 1871 he was again listed as a hotel-keeper and architect aged 53, and still living at the Swan Hotel, Harrogate with Ann aged 46 and five of their children aged 7 to 20 years. By 1878 he owned hunters and harness horses, and a groom to look after them and to drive a carriage. He moved to Cygnet House in Walker Road after the sale of The Swan.
Death
Shutt died at his home, Cygnet House, Harrogate, on 14 March 1879, aged 61 years, after a "severe and painful illness." He was described at his death as an architect and land surveyor of Harrogate. His will was proved at Wakefield on 3 April 1879. The Pateley Bridge and Nidderdale Herald said he was a "kind and genial man, who never hesitated to fulfil those public duties which his clear mind, large experience and position in the town appeared to demand ... He died in harness as a member of the Harrogate Local Board, a position which he ... held for many years." He was buried on 19 March 1879 at Harrogate Cemetery, now known as Grove Road Cemetery, in section D, plot 324.
Career
Architecture and surveying
By 1841, Shutt was an architect lodging in Southwark.
Swan Hotel (now the Old Swan Hotel)
In 1849 Shutt inherited the ownership of the Swan Hotel, Harrogate, which had previously been run by his sisters, and before that by their father Jonathan Shutt, who was its proprietor and occupier for thirty years. It had gardens and pleasure gardens, hot and cold indoor baths, wines, private sitting rooms with fires and wax lights, personal attendance by a waiter and chambermaid, stabling, lock-up coach-houses and servants' apartments, a boots and an ostler. Accommodation cost up to £2 12s 6d per week, plus extras. In 1878 Shutt sold or rented the Swan Hotel to the Harrogate Hydropathic Company Ltd, of which he was one of the directors. The company was formed for the provision of a hydropathic curative treatment which made use of the local spa waters; the Swan Hotel was to be adapted and redecorated for the purpose.
Agriculture and agricultural shows
In 1847 he was vice-chairman of the Pannal and Harrogate Agrucultural Society, and in that year its fourth annual exhibition was held in a field near the Swan Hotel, then run by Shutt's father and sisters, and in the Pump Room, now the Royal Pump Room Museum. In the same year he was listed as having a game certificate, that is, he was licensed to sell game from Bilton, Harrogate. Shutt had some success with livestock: he won first prize for "his celebrated prize bull, Baronet" at Ripley Agricultural Show on Tuesday 20 September 1859. At the dog-show section of the 1878 Ripon and Harrogate Agricultural Show, Shutt donated a special prize for the best animal in the broken-haired terrier classes.