Basic Biographical Details Name: | Percy Benjamin French Freeman | Designation: | | Born: | 1859 | Died: | | Bio Notes: | Percy Benjamin French Freeman was born in 1859 and articled to Robert Henry Burden in London from 1879 until 1883. Thereafter he obtained an appointment as clerk to George Gilbert Scott, Junior, and together with Temple Moore coped with Scott's mental breakdown in 1883-84. When Scott's practice closed he became assistant to Bodley & Garner, setting up his own practice at 3 Staple Inn, London c.1885. The arrangements there were highly unusual as a large part of his business was acting as office manager for Temple Moore. As Giles Gilbert Scott later wrote, 'Moore did not have an office in the ordinary sense as he always worked in his private office at his own home in Well Walk, Hampstead. I did not therefore work under his immediate supervision, but in an office in Staple Inn under the rule of Mr P B Freeman, who was associated with five other architects, all carrying on their own practices.'
In or about 1898 Freeman took Gilbert Francis Molyneux Ogilvy into partnership. Ogilvy was born in 1868, the fourth son of Sir Reginald Ogilvy, 10th Baronet of Inverquharity and Baldovan and his wife the Hon Olivia, daughter of the 9th Baron Kinnaird. He was educated at Glenalmond and at University College, Oxford, before being articled to Hippolyte Blanc in Edinburgh: his nomination paper does not give dates, but the connection presumably came through All Souls Church at Invergowrie, built in 1890-93 for Lady Frances Kinnaird.
Ogilvy's practice consisted principally of estate work and private houses. The estates on which he worked comprised Baldovan, which his elder brother, Sir Herbert Kinnaird Ogilvy 12th Bt WS of the Dundee legal firm of Shiell & Small inherited from their nephew in 1914; the Guthrie estate of Craigie, Angus now Dundee) for which Sir Herbert was factor; Winton, East Lothian which was owned by his aunt Mrs Nisbet Hamilton Ogilvy; Landguard, Isle of Wight; Sudbury, Derbyshire; Langford, Oxfordshire; Greystoke Castle, Cumberland; Hatherop Castle, Gloucestershire; and the Duchy of Lancaster.
In 1902, whilst the Freeman & Ogilvy partnership was still practising, Freeman entered into a separate partnership with Francis Charles Eden and Victor Tylston Hodgson.
Freeman and Ogilvy were both admitted LRIBA in 1911, Freeman on 27 February and Ogilvy on 20 July. Freeman's proposers were Temple Moore, William Dunn and William Bonner Hopkins, also from Bodley's office; Ogilvy's were Henry Martineau Fletcher, Godfrey Pinkerton and William Dunn, all of London. By that date, some time after 1904, the firm had moved to 6 Gray's Inn Square. The Freeman & Ogilvy practice closed in the early years of the First World War, and Ogilvy returned to Dundee in 1919 to develop the Baldovan estate, setting up practice within his brother Herbert's office at 5 Bank Street.
The practice of Freeman & Ogilvy returned to business after the war and was still active in the mid-1920s; it is not clear whether Ogilvy retained an interest in it or whether it was only the practice title itself that was continued. | Private and Business AddressesThe following private or business addresses are associated with this : | | Address | Type | Date from | Date to | Notes | | 3, Staple Inn, London, England | Business | c. 1885 | After 1904 | | | 6, Gray's Inn Square, London, England | Business | Before 1911 | c. 1915 | |
Employment and TrainingEmployers
RIBARIBA Proposers
Buildings and Designs
ReferencesBibliographic ReferencesThe following books contain references to this : | | Author(s) | Date | Title | Part | Publisher | Notes | | Brandwood, Geoffrey K | 1997 | Temple Moore: an architect of the late Gothic revival | | | | | Stamp, Gavin | 2002 | An Architect of Promise: George Gilbert Scott Junior (1839-1897) and the Late Gothic Revival | | | | | Who's Who in Architecture | 1914 | | | | |
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