Basic Biographical Details
| Name: | William Mackenzie II |
| Designation: | |
| Born: | 1826 |
| Died: | 1864 |
| Bio Notes: | William Mackenzie was born in Perth in 1826, the eldest son of William Macdonald Mackenzie, Superintendent of the Town’s Works, and his wife Jean Davidson. He was presumably articled to his father c. 1840 and probably specialised in the civil engineering and water filtration side of his practice: whether he gained wider experience as a civil engineer is not known, but Dundee’s harbour engineer Charles Ower Senior was a relative of his grandmother Margaret Davidson, née Ower. Sometime before 1853 William II obtained a place in the recently established Liverpool Water Office, the City having acquired Liverpool’s two water companies under Parliamentary powers in 1847. There Mackenzie worked on Thomas Hawksley’s Rivington Waterworks scheme, begun 1850, and on Chorley Waterworks which was bought to augment it in 1856; and from 1860 on the Upper Roddlesworth dam to the north which appears to have been constructed by the Water Office without external professional help. The extent of Mackenzie’s design responsibilities for Roddlesworth has still to be established, but in the mid 1850s he was able to bring in his much younger brother James Stalker Mackenzie (b. 1840) to assist him. In February 1856 Mackenzie’s father died leaving his widow and daughters in financial difficulty. With the assistance of William’s younger brother David Mackenzie II the Perth practice was continued until 1858 when it was sold to David Smart. The Perth household then moved en bloc to Liverpool where William provided a home for them and found a place in the Water Office for David, probably that hitherto held by James who had died in the same year. David remained in the Water Office until 1860 when he left for Dundee to become assistant to the Town’s Architect William Scott. As his responsibilities at Roddlesworth diminished, William Mackenzie took on the additional responsibility of Superintendent of St George’s Hall which had complex heating and ventilation systems. William Mackenzie died in Liverpool in 1864, one year before the Roddlesworth works were completed. In 1865-66 his mother and sisters left Liverpool for Dundee where David provided a home for them in Garland Place. |
Private and Business Addresses
| The following private or business addresses are associated with this : | |||||
| Address | Type | Date from | Date to | Notes | |
 | Liverpool, England | Business | 1864 | ||
| Perth, Perthshire, Scotland | Private | 1826 | Place of birth | |
Employment and Training
Employers
| The following individuals or organisations employed or trained this (click on an item to view details): | |||||
| Name | Date from | Date to | Position | Notes | |
| Liverpool Water Office | ||||
References
Archive References
| The following archives hold material relating to this : | ||||
| Source | Archive Name | Source Catalogue No. | Notes | |
| Professor David M Walker personal archive | Professor David M Walker, notes and collection of archive material | Information from Smart Stewart & Mitchell, 1963 | |