The Wyatt family is the pre-eminent example in England of an artistic dynasty. From the middle of the 18th century to the end of the 19th it produced over twenty architects and half a dozen painters, sculptors and carvers. The family originated in Staffordshire, where earlier generations had been farmers at Weeford, near Lichfield, for several centuries. Benjamin Wyatt (1709-1772), the father of Samuel Wyatt (1737-1807) and James Wyatt (1746-1813, the best-known member of the family), branched out from farming to timber selling and building in the mid-18th century and brought up his sons to help with the business, the eldest, William Wyatt (1734-1780), being trained as a surveyor and Joseph Wyatt (1739-1785) as a mason.
The rapid economic development of the Midlands in the 18th century and the improvement of communications with the building of canals enabled the family to extend its influence beyond Staffordshire and to become established in London and even further afield. It is possible to write a comprehensive history of English architecture from 1772, the date of James Wyatt’s success at the Pantheon in Oxford Street, London, to the death of Thomas Henry Wyatt (1807-1880) in 1880 drawing only on Wyatt examples, for the family was equally prominent in the parallel fields of Neo-classicism and the Gothic Revival.