| Architect Details |
James Matthews and possibly John Bridgeford Pirie as assistant, architects c.1863; Jenkins & Marr, architectural practice 1888.
James Matthews was born in December 1819, son of Peter Matthews, a teller in the Commercial Bank in Aberdeen and a Burgess of Guild, and was christened on 12 or 13 December that year. His mother was Margaret Ross, daughter of William Ross, the architect-builder who had built Union Bridge. Educated at Robert Gordon's Hospital, he was articled to Archibald Simpson in 1834, and worked under the supervision of Simpson's assistant Thomas Mackenzie (born 1814). In 1839 he went to George Gilbert Scott's in London. On his return early in 1844, Simpson offered him the post of chief assistant with the promise of partnership in two years. He declined as he thought Simpson would be 'too greedy' (the Mackenzies, however, found Matthews 'a bit of a Jew'). Matthews then formed his partnership with Thomas Mackenzie, initially with Mackenzie doing most of the designing in Elgin, and Matthews attending to the management of the Aberdeen office. In that year they won the competition for the Free Church College (New College) in Edinburgh, in a competition assessed by Sir Charles Barry. The perspective, formerly at Bourtie, is now in the possession of Professor Alistair Rowan. The competition was set aside, however, and the commission given to William Henry Playfair. Initially the Elgin practice was much more prosperous than the Aberdeen one and in 1848 Matthews applied unsuccessfully for the post of head of the Edinburgh office of the Office of Works. Mackenzie died of brain fever - apparently brought on by an accident - on 15 October 1854, Matthews continuing the practice thereafter under his name alone, though he did form a brief partnership with George Petrie of Elgin in c.1857. Petrie presumably filled the role of Mackenzie manning the Elgin end of the practice. Just before Mackenzie's death an Inverness office had been established with William Lawrie in charge as resident assistant. Although not made a partner until 1864, Lawrie was given what seems to have been a free hand in the design work and for some years the Inverness office was the more prosperous. Matthews continued the Aberdeen office alone, and it was not until 1877 that Mackenzie's son, Alexander Marshall Mackenzie, was taken into partnership, having established a successful practice of his own in his native Elgin. Thereafter Matthews ran the practice as two separate partnerships - Matthews & Mackenzie in Aberdeen and Elgin, and Matthews & Lawrie in Inverness. When Lawrie died in 1887, the Inverness practice was inherited by John Hinton Gall (born 1848), who had been his chief assistant since 1872 and who continued the business under his own name, Matthews withdrawing completely from that branch of the firm. Matthews entered the Town Council in 1863, and retired as a councillor in 1871. In November 1883 he was recalled as Lord Provost and held office until November 1886. He was mainly responsible for implementing the City Improvement Act of 1883 which included building Schoolhill and Rosemount Viaduct and giving improved access to the latter area of the city. He was a director of the North of Scotland Bank, of which he was Chairman from time to time. His public services (in particular the Mitchell Tower and Graduation Hall) brought an Honorary LLD from the University of Aberdeen. In his later years Matthews lived in some grandeur at Springhill, which he had greatly altered for himself. Matthews retired from the practice in 1893 at the age of seventy-three, and died at 15 Albyn Terrace on 28 June 1898. He was buried in St Nicholas churchyard, where his monument records the earlier deaths of his daughter Margaret Rose Matthews on 18 May 1868, his son James Duncan Matthews on 21 November 1890 and his wife Elizabeth Duncan on 21 March 1895.
John Bridgeford Pirie was born in Aberdeen in 1848 (christened 26 December, St Nicholas Parish) the son of John Pirie, a sea captain with George Thomson's line, and his wife Ann Bridgeford. Both his parents died early (his mother in February 1868 his father having predeceased her). He was educated at Ledingham's Academy in Aberdeen. About 1863 he was articled to Alexander Ellis, also the son of a sea captain. There he worked under Robert Gordon Wilson and it was probably through Wilson's subsequent period as an assistant with Alexander Thomson from c.1866 that Pirie was to develop an interest in Thomson's work. At the end of his articles c.1866, Pirie spent a short time as an improver with David Bryce in Edinburgh, returning to Aberdeen as leading draughtsman to James Matthews c.1867. He exhibited a design for a screen at the RSA in 1870 and by March 1871 he was living at 6 Brown Street, Woodside, from which he exhibited at the RSA in 1871-73. After ten years with Matthews whom he left on 11 September 1877, Pirie went into independent practice at 177 Union Street Aberdeen with the encouragement of the builder John Morgan who was seven years older. He was immediately successful, winning in 1878-79 the competitions for two major churches, one in Fraserburgh and one in Aberdeen, both in a very original, predominantly early French, idiom. Both Morgan and Pirie were founding members of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society and enthusiasts for the teaching of John Ruskin with whom Morgan corresponded. Morgan and Pirie travelled together in Britain to see the latest developments, and Morgan's travels in America and the Far East were to have a considerable influence on the decorative arts aspect of the practice through the books and prints he brought home. Pirie may also have had a link of some kind with Frederick Thomas Pilkington as W T Johnston has traced Pirie using his office at 2 Hill Street, Edinburgh as an address in 1882. When Pirie opened his office at 177 Union Street he shared it with Arthur Clyne, a former colleague at Matthews's practice. In 1881 they merged their practices as Pirie & Clyne and moved to 123 ½ Union Street which was to remain their address. Pirie & Clyne were amongst the most individual architects in Scotland in later Victorian times, designing in Thomsonesque Greek and early Gothic, and sometimes even in combinations of these; except at John Morgan's 50 Queen's Road which challenges comparison with Burges's Tower House in originality, Greek was more usually adopted for domestic work. Their churches are invariably early Gothic: they are more conventionally planned than Pilkington's and may not have the same mastery of scale, composition and construction but they are even more individual and inventive in the smaller details, developing unusual motifs which are at times proto-Art Nouveau from a very wide range of sources. Pirie died of tuberculosis on 24 February 1892 at his house at 24 Hamilton Place. During his last months he occupied himself with the design of the monument to James Saint which relieved 'many a weary hour of illness' and the writing of a paper 'The Beauty of Art', based on a close study of the writings of Ruskin but it was never given. He left a widow Mary Troup MacDougall (who died on 27 May 1936) and five children, one son and four daughters, but no moveable estate, John Morgan observing: 'He died early in years, yet he left abiding monuments of his taste, skill, and genius, and it gives some idea of his genius when one finds some of his details all over town. No company would insure his life, he died poor, and left a young family unprovided for.' Morgan was involved in raising money for them (he gave Bridgeford a quarterly allowance of £4). As late as 1929 money owed to various creditors still appears to have been outstanding. There may have been some difficulty with Clyne as Pirie's widow withdrew her husband's drawings from the practice archive and stored them in the attic of their house in Hamilton Place. After Pirie died Clyne had made up the accounts of the practice and calculated that £11 15s 11d was due to himself, but this does not seem to have been paid. In 1910 this sum was still outstanding and a letter to Clyne's solicitor from Mrs Pirie indicates that one of her daughters, Annie Mary, had been 'threatened' because of this non-payment. The more important drawings from the practice were retained by the family when the Hamilton Place house was closed and are now in the NMRS. Pirie's son Bridgeford MacDougall Pirie, born 1877, became an architect but practised only briefly in Aberdeen in 1897-99. He emigrated in 1905 to Malta where he worked for the Royal Engineers.
George Gordon Jenkins was born in 1844 and commenced practice as architect and surveyor at 115 Union Street, Aberdeen in or before 1874, his earliest work being concerned with the layout of cemeteries. In the summer of 1878 he took into partnership George Marr who had begun practice as an architect and civil engineer at Campbell of Udny from 1855, concentrating almost exclusively on school and farm work. His practice had moved to Ellon in the mid-1860s and became G & G Marr in 1872. Throughout their early careers, the work of Jenkins & Marr was of a simple and strictly practical nature, but with Mannofield Church (1882), for which an experienced assistant was probably brought into the practice, moved to a rather higher plane. From the earlier 1880s there was briefly a loose partnership with William Davidson in Ellon, the connection with him being through Marr. Around 1886 Harbourne Maclennan joined the firm as apprentice. Maclennan was born in 1871, the son of John Maclennan, land surveyor of Ellon, and educated at Elgin Academy and Dunfermline High School. He stayed on as an assistant for one further year and subsequently made a study tour in Europe: as an academic architect, he was essentially self-taught. When his father was appointed Road Surveyor and Master of Works for East Fife in 1895, he moved to Dunfermline to commence practice but was subsequently invited by Jenkins to return to the Jenkins & Marr practice, Marr having died in 1899. The catalyst was probably the commission to design the Masonic Hall in Crown Street, Aberdeen, which he carried out on his own account in 1908-1910. He was belatedly made a partner in 1915, and became sole partner in 1921. Jenkins had retired by then and died two years later. In 1935 Maclennan took William Alexander (or Arthur?) Davidson, and his own son John Maclennan, into partnership. He was a specialist in paper-making factories and was responsible for designing several distilleries in the north-east, many Local Authority housing schemes, and extensive water supply and drainage schemes throughout Scotland. The practice continued to undertake a wide range of commissions including private houses, work for the Union Bank of Scotland and Aberdeen Savings Bank, alterations and redecoration of churches in Aberdeen and the conversion of building for an old people's home. Harbourne Maclennan died on 27 August 1951. In the 1950s the firm opened a branch office in Wick. George Marr began practice as an architect and civil engineer at Campbell of Udny from 1855, concentrating almost exclusively on school and farm work. The practice moved to Ellon in the mid-1860s and became G & G Marr in 1872. In the summer of 1878, Marr was taken into partnership by the Aberdeen architect and civil engineer George Gordon Jenkins. Throughout their early careers, the work of Jenkins & Marr was of a simple and strictly practical nature, but with Mannofield Church (1882), for which an experienced assistant was probably brought into the practice, it moved to a rather higher plane. In the earlier 1880s Jenkins & Marr formed a loose partnership with William Davidson of Ellon, which lasted at least until the late 1890s. Marr died intestate on 3 October 1899. He does not appear to have been married. In Marr's obituary it is reported that he had a 'special acquaintance with designing papermills'.
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Historic Environment Records (HER)