academically researched in every detail, conceptual empathy for the non-denominational idea, and educational landscape complete with arboretum, presented the environs of London with a challenging standard for future landscape and building design. In 1840, in recognition of Hosking's contribution to the advancement of architectural practice, he was offered the first Professorship of King's College in the "Art of Construction", soon renamed "Principles and Practice of Architecture", to better reflect this relatively new profession and its emergence as an academic discipline. Hosking's educational approach was set out in his new book of the same title, Principles and Practice of Architecture (1842). His appointment by King's College was something of a coup for those with liberal, non-denominational empathies, since the university was founded as a high church riposte against the "ungodly" UCL with its non-denominational entry requirements. King's was only brought slowly out of this backward-looking denominational approach that gradually came to be perceived as belonging to a bygone age. Institute of British Architects Hosking served on the Council of the Institute of British Architects 1842-3 while contributing to the standard work of the period: The Theory, Practice and Architecture of Bridges of Stone, Iron, Timber, and Wire; with examples on the principle of suspension, 1843. In its day, this multi-volume work was the most comprehensive book of bridge construction. Many of the bridges depicted no longer exist, such as the long, covered bridge over the Patapsco River in Maryland. Others do, including some of the London bridges. Today the book is a major and unique source of information. More than fifty of the steel engraving plates are fold-out, a number of them quite large, some unfolding to more than two feet in length. Church and chapel design At about the same time as contributing to the epic bridge book, Hosking and medievalist antiquarian John Britton were commissioned by the Vestry of Bristol to report on the fabric of a much-admired thirteenth-century church, St. Mary Redcliffe. The studies were preparatory to an appeal for restoration of the church. Hosking's contribution is recorded in the Vestry's appeal publication, Restoration of the Church of Saint Mary, Redcliffe, Bristol: an appeal by the vicar, churchwardens, and vestry; with an abstract of reports by Messrs. Britton and Hosking and engraved plan and views of the church, by the Rev. M. R.Whish et al., 1842. In the early 1840s Hosking also designed the Trinity Independent Chapel east