Basic Biographical Details

Name: Gauldie Hardie & Wright
Designation:  
Born: 1947
Died: 1950
Bio Notes: William Gauldie was born in 1875 at Kinnell, Angus, and educated at Harris Academy, Dundee. He was articled to a Dundee architect, William Mitchell, who had very little business. When Mitchell gave up practice Gauldie continued his apprenticeship with Charles and Leslie Ower whose chief assistant William Gillespie Lamond influenced his work strongly until well into the 1920s. At the end of his apprenticeship he spent a year in the architectural department of the iron founders and mill engineers Robertson Orchar who then supplied buildings as well as textile machinery.

In 1898 Gauldie opened his own practice at 23 Panmure Street, Dundee his first job being the Physical Laboratory at Dundee High School, where he had taken over from McCulloch. This was followed by the first of a long series of alterations and extension in High Street and Commercial Street for D M Brown, gradually forming the buildings there into a very large department store. Much of his early work consisted of ship interiors. The practice moved to 26 Commercial Street in 1905 and in 1906 Gauldie's cousin Robert Leuchars Hardie was taken on as an assistant, becoming a partner in 1908 (W S Gauldie) or 1909 (Bailey). Hardie was born c.1877 at Smithston, Greenock where his father was governor of the poorhouse. About 1889 his father moved to Birmingham where Hardie completed his school education and served a full apprenticeship as a civil engineer. Subsequently he moved to North Berwick to work for his uncle J W Hardie, a move which enabled him to study at the Edinburgh School of Applied Art.

William Careless (or Carless), an assistant to the City Architect's Department, also assisted in the evenings when the practice was too busy until his departure for Canada in 1911 or 1912. Hardie's health began to fail in 1923 and the partnership ended with his death in October 1924, although his name was retained in the practice title. Gauldie subsequently took David Sharpe into partnership in 1927.

Hardie died in 1924 and David Sharpe was taken on first as assistant and then from 1927 as partner. Born in 1877, Sharpe had been articled to James Graham Fairley from 1892 to 1896 and had attended Heriot-Watt College, thereafter working as assistant to Peter Whitecross of Prestonpans from 1896 to 1898, and to Alexander Wood Macnaughtan in Edinburgh until Macnaughtan's death in 1911. In that year he moved to Dundee, working as an assistant in the office of Thomas Martin Cappon, perhaps with a view to partnership or commencing independent practice, as he was admitted LRIBA in 1912. He secured the appointment of Master of Works to Dundee Parish Council in 1920, remaining in that post until joining Gauldie.

Sharpe died in December 1933, having been responsible for the new block at Mayfield Hostel and for the Masonic Hall in Tay Street (he was a prominent freemason). Gauldie continued as sole partner under the existing name of Gauldie & Sharpe until c.1938 when he took Arthur Wright into partnership.

Gauldie died on 4 October 1945. His son William Sinclair Gauldie, born on 29 December 1918 and trained with Frank Thomson, then took over the practice. The elder Gauldie left estate of £2,307 4s 6d.

William Gauldie was described by his son as being at his best when the commission called for 'ingenuity and economy in planning and construction… his services were much in demand for alteration work'. Part of his success was based on his engaging personality, a client of fifty years' standing observing of him that 'to know him even in some slight degree was to love him'. In his earlier years the Stirling architect and furniture historian John W Small was a close friend and for a time a partnership was considered. The firm's domestic work was in a pleasant Voysey-inspired style, the more ambitious houses having Lorimer derived details. Most of these were in and around Invergowrie from 1913 onward.

William Sinclair Gauldie was born on 29 December 1918, the son of Dundee architect William Gauldie. He trained with Frank Thomson, and inherited his father's practice upon his death on 4 October 1945. In 1947 he took into partnership an old friend, Arthur Francis Stevenson Wright (also born 1918) who had trained with Thoms & Wilkie; and in 1950 they took into partnership John Needham (born 1909), Head of the School of Architecture at Dundee College of Art, the firm then becoming Gauldie Hardie Wright & Needham, until Needham left for Sheffield in 1975.

Private and Business Addresses

The following private or business addresses are associated with this :
 AddressTypeDate fromDate toNotes
Item 1 of 1Dundee, ScotlandBusiness   

Employment and Training

Employees or Pupils

The following individuals were employed or trained by this (click on an item to view details):
 NameDate fromDate toPositionNotes
Item 1 of 2William Sinclair Gauldie19471950Partner 
Item 2 of 2Arthur Francis Stevenson Wright19471950Partner 

References

Archive References

The following archives hold material relating to this :
 SourceArchive NameSource Catalogue No.Notes
Item 1 of 1Professor David M Walker personal archiveProfessor David M Walker, notes and collection of archive material