THORNTON, WILLIAM

born May 20, 1759, Jost Van Dyke, near Tortola, British Virgin Islands died March 28, 1828, Washington, D.C. British-born American architect, inventor, and public official, best known as the creator of the original design for the Capitol at Washington, D.C. Thornton studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh (178184) and received his M.D. from the University of Aberdeen (1784). After travel on the European continent he returned to Tortola and then went to the United States in 1787. In the following year he became a U.S. citizen and settled in Philadelphia. The Library Company of Philadelphia promoted a competition (1789) for its new building that Thornton won without any formal study of architecture. From 1790 to 1792 he was again at Tortola, where he first heard of the important competition for the Capitol at Washington. He submitted designs that were received months after the competition closed; yet the judges, not satisfied with those previously submitted, selected Thornton's. His revised Georgian design of 1795 was executed as the exterior of the north and south wings adjacent to the central rotunda, though Benjamin H. Latrobe completely redesigned the interiors. From 1794 to 1802 Thornton was a commissioner of the city of Washington. He designed several residences in the city, including the Octagon (17981800), which was used in 1814 by President James Madison after the White House was burned and is now headquarters of the American Institute of Architects. From 1802 to 1828 he served as first superintendent of the Patent Office. He and a fellow inventor, John Fitch, were among the first developers of the paddle-wheel steamboat. Thornton defended in his Short Account of the Origin of Steamboats, published in 1814, their experiments done between about 1778 and 1790 against Robert Fulton's later claims of first inventing a steam-powered boat. He also patented eight inventions between 1802 and 1827 for improving such devices as firearms and stills.