| Architect Details |
George Bennett Mitchell (partly), architect c.1900; William Kelly, architect (by the Cowdray Estate Office from plans by Kelly) 1932.
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.
William Kelly was born in Aberdeen on 22 December 1861, the son of Francis Bonnyman Kelly, a tailor and outfitter, and his wife Jane Tough, daughter of James Tough, tenant farmer at Mains of Drum. He never sought membership of the RIBA and as a result our knowledge of his early career is somewhat sketchy. He was educated at William Rattray's School in North Silver Street and attended King's College 1876-78, principally to study mathematics and natural philosophy. In May 1878 he was articled to William and John Smith and on the completion of his articles in May 1883 he sought wider experience in London, William Smith's open reference describing him as having 'gentlemanly manners' and being 'steady diligent and obliging'; he was also an 'exceptionally good draughtsman'. Of the several offices Kelly worked in while in London, only John James Stevenson's has been identified. In 1885 he made a study tour of the French chateaux and visited Spain and Holland. Kelly returned to commence independent practice in Belmont Street in 1886 and, following John Smith's death on 11 April 1887, declining health induced William Smith to invite William Kelly to become his partner. The partnership was dissolved late in 1890 or early 1891, probably because of Smith's failing health, as the firm name was retained. In 1893 Kelly married Mary, eldest daughter of George Carmichael, bank agent in Aberdeen, thus becoming the brother-in-law of the architects Charles and Duncan Carmichael. In 1896 Kelly had an important competition win when John James Burnet selected him as architect of Aberdeen Savings Bank, the business of which he retained thereafter; and in 1902 he took into partnership his chief assistant James Brown Nicol, born c.1867. Nicoll was articled to Alexander Marshall Mackenzie in 1883-88, where he worked under the supervision of the ablest of Mackenzie's assistants, Alexander Mackintosh. In 1889 after a further year in Mackenzie's office he moved to Edinburgh to gain wider experience first with James Bow Dunn in 1889-90 and then with Sydney Mitchell & Wilson as chief assistant from 1890 until 1891 when he returned to Aberdeen as Kelly's assistant. Nicoll published 'Domestic Architecture in Scotland', a survey of contemporary work, in 1908. Kelly was elected ARSA in 1911 and had the degree of LLD conferred upon him by the University of Aberdeen in 1919, mainly in recognition of his work at King's College Chapel. He held the post of newly created Aberdeen Corporation Director of Housing from 1918-23, the first to do so. He retired from the practice in 1928, but remained consultant architect to Viscount and Lady Cowdray, doing much work on the Dunecht estate and consolidating and partly restoring Dunottar Castle in association with his lifelong friend the historian and antiquary Dr W Douglas Simpson. Simpson described him as 'endowed with commanding height, a fine leonic head and a rich resonant voice… His tall figure and rapid walk made him noticeable among Aberdonians of his time. Men with shorter legs found it trying to come down Albyn Place with him in the morning'. He was active in 'choral singing' and 'a good player of both piano and organ, always reading from the old-fashioned tonic sol-fa system and scarcely ever from the conventional staff notation' but his main interests were antiquarian. On 28 June 1941, at the age of seventy-nine, Kelly had a bad fall at home and broke his thigh. Thereafter he was confined to bed: Simpson recalled that 'those who visited [him] will never forget his bed-ridden figure with full and silken white beard…his eyes sparkling with fun or wistful reminiscence'. He continued his sketches in bed from books and photographs, assisting Simpson with his book on Glenbuchat and the Rhind lectures on the Province of Mar, published in 1942. He died on 10 March 1944 and was buried in Springbank Cemetery. He left the then very substantial moveable estate of £22,458 8s 4d, and was survived by his wife, three sons none of whom pursued architecture as a career, and a daughter. Some of his relatively few papers were published by Simpson as a tribute to him from the University of Aberdeen after his death. His name is atill familiar to Aberdonians through the 'Kelly's cats' on the parapets of Union Bridge. There has been a debate as to whether Kelly actually designed the leopards, or whether it was Sidney Boyes, the sculptor who designed the bronze panels on either side of the bridge but Kelly used a similar leopard on the savings bank in Union Terrace and sketches of the actual finials are in the Kelly Archive in Aberdeen University. Kelly's great-niece, writing in 'The Leopard' relates how during rag week, the students decided to tie ribbons around the leopards' necks. Drwrath knew no bounds and the ribbons were ordered to be removed, but in doing so, the nickname 'Kelly's cats' were born.
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Historic Environment Records (HER)