Architects

Name:

James Gowans

Designation :

Architect - Builder

Date of Birth:

Exact Date

Exact DOB:

08/01/1821

Year of Birth :

Circa Year of Birth :

Date of Birth Before (Year):

Date of Birth After (Year):

DOB (1st 'Or' Year):

DOB (2nd 'Or' Year):

Orig Date of Death

1890/6/25

Date of Death:

Date Not Known

Exact DOD:

13/08/1925

Year of Death:

Circa Year of Death:

Date of Death Before (Year):

Date of Death After (Year):

DOD (1st 'Or' Year):

DOD (2nd 'Or' Year):

Town of Birth :

Bio Notes :

James Gowans was born at Blackness on 1 August 1821, the third child of Walter Gowans, quarrymaster and builder, and Isabella de Grote (or Grotte). He was educated at the Hamilton Place Academy in Stockbridge and took classes at David Bryce's architectural academy as part of his training for the family business, which bought Bentyfoulds and St Andrew's Yards at Armadale for quarrying in January 1842, renaming them Gowanbank, and built David Rhind's Commercial Bank head office in 1844-47 and the Edinburgh Gas Works Chimney in 1846-49. From 1847 onward the firm was heavily involved in railway contracts, building the Edinburgh and North Berwick section of the North British line, and sections of the Edinburgh and Bathgate line. In the same year Walter Gowans extended the family's quarrying interests by taking on lease of Redhall Quarry from John Inglis, where James experimented with quarrying by drilling and galvanic batteries; he also held patents and shares in stone-dressing machinery associated with Joseph-Eldicott Holmes of the Strand, London.

In 1848 Gowans married Elizabeth Mitchell, daughter of James Mitchell railway contractor, Broughty Ferry, and moved from Lynedoch Place to 1 Randolph Cliff, part of a large development embracing the north side of Randolph Crescent, which he built to Rhind's design in 1846-49. In October 1849 James took full control of the family business, all debts being paid by 1854, perhaps not without some difficulty as his family moved out of Randolph Cliff to Pittacher House, Crieff (where Gowans was then building the Crieff Branch line) with an Edinburgh base at 34 Rosebank Cottages, a development of thirty-five model workers' dwellings that he built in 1854-55.

On 7 April 1858 Walter Gowans died. James's first wife Elizabeth also died in that year while in her bath and was buried at the Grange. Gowans designed and built Rockville in Napier Road, Merchiston for his second wife Mary Brodie, apparently a relative of William Brodie who provided the sculpture for the project. In this large towered house Gowans introduced his personal methods of design and construction based on two-foot modules and angles of twenty-two-and-a-half, forty-five and sixty-seven-and-a-half degrees; a similar but smaller house Lammerburn was built opposite for Francis Sheppard, apparently a relative of Gowans's clerk-of-works Moxey Sheppard who had had experience in Calcutta.

The building of Rockville was financed by an increasing number of large railway contracts, notably the Lochee diversion of the Dundee and Newtyle Railway (1859-61), the Creetown section of the Portpatrick Railway (1859) and the Birnam to Dalguise and the Dalwhinnie to Kingussie sections of the Inverness and Perth Junction Railway (1861-65). In 1871 he laid the lines of the Edinburgh Street Tramways Company between Edinburgh and Leith for which John Macrae was engineer.

From 1875 to 1877 Gowans incurred heavy losses on the New Edinburgh Theatre, which was built to his design with interior work by Frederick Thomas Pilkington. He and Pilkington were the largest shareholders in the Edinburgh Theatre, Wintergarden and Aquarium Company Incorporated on 14 July 1875 with a capital of £65,000. It opened on 20 December 1875 but ran into difficulties, was mortgaged for £20,000 in April 1877, and sold to the United Presbyterian Church later in the same year for £26,700, approximately one third of what it had cost to build.

In 1885 Gowans became Dean of Guild and he was the prime mover of the Edinburgh International Exhibition of 1886. The effort affected his business and in turn his now seriously impaired financial position. Although knighted at the Queen's visit on 18 August Gowans was obliged to sell Rockville and move to a smaller house in Blantyre Terrace nearby: on 5 May 1887 a trust fund to help him was set up at a meeting in Dowell's on George Street; but in 1888 the Caledonian Railway opposed the extension of his quarry at Redhall, which seems to have precipitated his bankruptcy on 5 November of the same year. He died at midnight on 25 June 1890 and was buried with his first wife at the Grange.

Bio Notes continued...

Additional Notes

The following private or business addresses are associated with this person:

Private Addresses2 classic

Address	Class	Date From Char	Date From Type	Date To Char	Date To Type	Notes
1 Randolph Cliff Edinburgh Scotland	Private
Pittacher House Crieff Perthshire Scotland	Private
34 Rosebank Cottages Edinburgh Scotland	Private
Rockville Napier Road Merchiston Edinburgh Scotland	Private
31 Castle Terrace Edinburgh Scotland	Private/business
1 Blantyre Terrace Edinburgh Scotland	Private
Lynedoch Place Edinburgh Scotland	Private

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Business Addresses2 classic

Address	Class	Date From	Date From Type	Date To	Date To Type	Notes
31 Castle Terrace Edinburgh Scotland	Private/business

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This person was involved with the following buildings or structures from the date specified (click on an item to view details):

Buildings and Designs2 classic

Building Name	Date Started	Town, District or Village	City or County	Country	Notes
Randolph Crescent (north side) and Randolph Cliff	In year 1846		Edinburgh	Scotland	Builder
Duke of Wellington Monument	In year 1852		Edinburgh	Scotland	Cast set on pesestal
Rosebank Cottages	In year 1854		Edinburgh	Scotland	With MacGregor
Wellington Statue	In year 1854	Falkirk	West Lothian	Scotland	Re-erected statue
Redhall Bank Cottages	In year 1857		Edinburgh	Scotland
Rockville	In year 1858	Merchiston	Edinburgh	Scotland	For himself
Lammerburn	In year 1859		Edinburgh	Scotland
Double Villa, 23-25 Blacket Place	In year 1859		Edinburgh	Scotland
Workmen's Houses	In year 1859	Crieff	Perthshire	Scotland
Monument to Walter Gowans, Torphichen Parish Church Yard	In year 1859	Torphichen	West Lothian	Scotland
Monument to Walter Gowans, Torpichen Churchyard	In year 1859		Edinburgh	Scotland
Station	c. 1860	Creetown	Kirkcudbrightshire	Scotland
Lochee Railway Station	In year 1861	Lochee	Dundee	Scotland
Gowanbank farmhouse, steading and cottage	In year 1862	Armadale	West Lothian	Scotland	Enlargement
Gowanbank Farm Cottage, Stable and Byre	In year 1862		West Lothian	Scotland

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The following books contain references to this person:

Bib ref classic

Author	Title	Date	Publisher	Part	Notes
Post Office Directories
RCAHMS	Homebuilders: Mactaggart & Mickel and the Scottish housebuilding industry	1999	RCAHMS		Image of Rockville House p196Relief sculpture at Rockville, showing James Gowans studying harmonic diagrams of triangles and circles p196
McAra, Duncan	Sir James Gowans: Romantic Rationalist	1975	Edinburgh: Paul Harris Publishing
Shaw, Donald	Two Notable Contractors	1990	The True Line: Caledonian Railway Association Journal	no 31 November
Scotlands People Website	Wills & Testaments				Edinburgh Sheriff Court Wills SC70/4/253 and Inventories SC70/1/297

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The following periodicals contain references to this person:

Period ref classic

Periodical Name	Publisher	Date Circ	Edition	Notes
Scotsman		1890/06	*	Obituary

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Basic Biographic Details

Addresses

Private Addresses

Private Addresses2 classic

Business Addresses

Business Addresses2 classic

Buildings and Designs

Buildings and Designs2 classic

References

Bibliographic References

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Periodical References

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