Willey Reveley was an 18th century English architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

, born at Newton Underwood near Morpeth

Morpeth, Northumberland

Morpeth is the county town of Northumberland, England. It is situated on the River Wansbeck which flows east through the town. The town is from the A1, which bypasses it. Since 1981, it has been the administrative centre of the County of Northumberland. In the 2001 census the town had a population...

, Northumberland

Northumberland

Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...

.
He is probably best known for an ambitious but unfulfilled proposal of 1796 to straighten the River Thames

River Thames

The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...

 in east London. A new channel across the Rotherhithe

Rotherhithe

Rotherhithe is a residential district in inner southeast London, England and part of the London Borough of Southwark. It is located on a peninsula on the south bank of the Thames, facing Wapping and the Isle of Dogs on the north bank, and is a part of the Docklands area...

, Isle of Dogs

Isle of Dogs

The Isle of Dogs is a former island in the East End of London that is bounded on three sides by one of the largest meanders in the River Thames.-Etymology:...

 and Greenwich

Greenwich Peninsula

Greenwich Peninsula is an area of South London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich.The peninsula is bounded on three sides by a loop of the Thames, between the Isle of Dogs and Silvertown. To the south is the rest of Greenwich, to the south-east is Charlton.The peninsula lies...

 peninsula

Peninsula

A peninsula is a piece of land that is bordered by water on three sides but connected to mainland. In many Germanic and Celtic languages and also in Baltic, Slavic and Hungarian, peninsulas are called "half-islands"....

s would reduce the length of the river, improve the flow to remove pollution, and simplify navigation. Three large horseshoe bends of the river would have been left as huge wet dock

Wet dock

A wet dock is a dock where the level of water in the dock is maintained despite the raising and lowering of the tide. This makes transfer of cargo easier. It works like a lock which controls the water level and allows passage of ships.-External links:...

s, connected to the new channel through locks.
In 1790, he was commissioned by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism...

 to prepare architectural drawings for Bentham's scheme for a Panopticon

Panopticon

The Panopticon is a type of building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late eighteenth century. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe all inmates of an institution without them being able to tell whether or not they are being watched...

 prison. He continued to work on the project with Bentham for the rest of the 1790s.

Like the Thames scheme and the Panopticon prison, most of Reveley's designs never came to fruition. Other ambitious but unexecuted projects included a public bath complex at Bath, and an infirmary at Canterbury

Canterbury

Canterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....

. His most significant projects which reached completion were All Saints' Church, Southampton

Southampton

Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...

(constructed 1792–5, but destroyed in 1940); and Windmill Hill, Sussex, a country house built for W. H. Pigou, and completed in 1798.