| Architect Details |
Possibly Archibald Simpson, 1840; James Duncan c.1890; George Bennett Mitchell 1927-9.
James Duncan was born in 1828, the son of George Duncan, a Turriff mason. Nothing is known of his professional training, but he commenced practice in Turriff by at least 1862 when he designed Cuminestown School. He quickly acquired a well-deserved reputation for the planning and construction of farm steadings and had more than forty estates, great and small, as clients. In 1887 his son William Liddle Duncan, born 1870, became an apprentice; he was taken into partnership in 1897. He was admitted LRIBA in the mass intake of 20 July 1911, his proposers including Arthur Clyne and Arthur Hay Livingstone Mackinnon. James Duncan died on 6 March 1907 and was buried in St Congan's Churchyard. His wife, Ellen Liddle, died on 24 November 1917 aged 79. Following his father's death William Liddle Duncan continued the practice under his own name.
George Bennett Mitchell was born on 27 November 1865 and educated in Aberdeen and Newburgh. He was articled to Pirie & Clyne in 1881 (though he perhaps joined the practice somewhat sooner as an office boy, since John Bridgeford Pirie records that on 9 October 1878 'Mitchell began duty') and joined the practice of Jenkins & Marr as assistant on completing his apprenticeship. He remained with them until 1887 when he was appointed architect in the surveyors' department of Davidson & Garden, advocates (i.e. solicitors), Aberdeen. While there he carried out a great deal of work on the Dunecht estate for A C Pirie, both at the house and in the village, and was allowed to undertake a few small private commissions in his own name. During these early years he made several visits to France and Italy. On leaving Davidson & Garden, Mitchell opened his own practice at 148 Union Street; the exact date for this is uncertain as Mitchell himself gives dates varying from 1898 to 1 January 1903 and 1 January 1904 in different documents. His business mainly consisted of country house work and villas and cottages for the estates with which he had become acquainted through his work with Davidson & Garden. In 1913 Mitchell's son George Angus Mitchell (born on his father's thirty-first birthday and educated at Aberdeen Grammar School) entered the practice as an apprentice, and was one of the first two students to enrol at Aberdeen School of Architecture when it opened in 1913. His training was interrupted by war service in 1915, but he returned to his father's office on his demobilisation in 1919, completing his diploma course the following year. He practised in association with his father from 1921. The practice moved from 148 Union Street to 1 West Craibstone Street in 1922 and George Angus became a partner in 1929, the firm name becoming George Bennett Mitchell & Son. George Angus Mitchell was elected FRIBA in late 1930, his proposers being Clement George, James Brown Nicol and George Watt. This may have prompted his father to seek RIBA membership, as he applied for Licentiateship immediately and was admitted at the beginning of 1931, his proposers being George, Nicol and William Liddle Duncan; and in May of the same year he too became a Fellow, with the support of the RIBA Council as a whole. By this time George Bennett had been awarded an MBE; he was also a Justice of the Peace, and had acted as District Civil Commissioner at the time of the General Strike in 1926. George Bennett Mitchell's main interest outside the office was the Boy's Brigade, of which he became Commander and President of the Aberdeen Battalion in 1906. His concerns for social welfare were further manifested in his work as Red Cross Transport Officer in Aberdeen during the First World War. He was also a devoted churchman, being a lifelong member of the West Church of St Andrew, of which he was an elder for over forty years. From at least 1914 Mitchell had a country residence at Cean-na-coil, Aboyne, one of the several houses he designed there, as well as his Aberdeen house at 4 Deemount Terrace and later at 18 Rubislaw Terrace. Mitchell was taken ill in October 1940 whilst working as Divisional Food Officer for the North-East of Scotland, a position he had taken on in 1938 when hostilities were imminent. He underwent an operation involving the amputation of a leg, and resigned from the Food Office shortly afterwards. He died at his home on 22 March 1941. He was survived by his son, who continued the practice, and his daughter Meta, who like him took a leading part in youth welfare work in the area. His wife had predeceased him some years earlier.
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Historic Environment Records (HER)