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Architects

Basic Biographic Details

James Thomson
Architect
Exact Date
Exact Date
11/10/1927
James Thomson was born in Edinburgh on 9 April 1851, the son of Alexander Thomson and Mary Higgins. He was articled to the civil engineer William Moffat Garvie of Edinburgh from 1867 to 1872 and attended classes at the Royal Institution. He remained with Garvie as assistant for a year after completing his apprenticeship. He was then engaged by William Mackison as chief assistant in the Burgh Engineer's office in Dundee, where he worked on the replanning of Dundee under the Improvement Act of 1871, in the later stages with James Hutton.

In 1895 Thomson, described as 'Assistant Burgh Engineer' was admitted a member of the Bonnetmaker Trade of Dundee.

On 11 May 1904 the City Architect William Alexander died and James Thomson resigned in order to apply, presumably with some assurance that he would be appointed; he did in fact complete Alexander's Arthurstone Library so the interval must have been brief. Shortly thereafter sites were given for Carnegie branch libraries at Blackness and Coldside and Thomson was commissioned to design them. At that date, like Alexander before him, Thomson had his own office and no municipal staff with a retainer for attending meetings and the usual commission for any work done. The drawings for these libraries were made by his son Frank, then with Niven & Wigglesworth in London, who also made the necessary arrangements with the sculptor Albert Hodge.

Early in 1906 the City decided to combine the posts of City Architect and City Engineer. On 23 March Mackison made a pre-emptive strike by claiming £40,000 in fees for work beyond his duties as city engineer, i.e. work which should really have been commissioned from Alexander. On 5 April he was suspended and locked out of his office at 91 Commercial Street; and on 19 July he was dismissed and succeeded by Thomson.

Thomson now had the city engineer's staff under his command and proceeded to augment it with architectural staff, the most notable of these being the very fine draughtsman William Carless (sometimes spelled Careless). Together they designed the new branch library at St Roques in 1910 and at Ward Road in 1911, the year in which he was admitted LRIBA in the mass intake of 20 July, for which he was proposed by William Fleming Wilkie and the Dundee Institute of Architects.

Thomson's real interests lay in the field of town planning. He persuaded the City to set up a Housing and Town Planning Committee in 1907 in anticipation of the acts of 1909. In that same year, 1909, Thomson visited France and Gernmany with Councillor the Reverend Walter Walsh, convenor of the housing committee in order to study recent town planning. By 1910 on the initiative of the Lord Provost Sir James Urquhart, Thomson had prepared a magnificent scheme for the unimproved parts of the central area of Dundee which extended to infilling the docks, municipal buildings on the scale of an American capitol in sixty-eight acres of formal gardens and a joint station of Vanderbilt-like grandeur. These proposals were further developed and presented to the Town Council in December 1911 and were illustrated in a series of superb watercolours by Charles William English.

These proposals suffered a severe setback in 1912 when the Harbour Authority decided it could not release Earl Grey Dock and the scheme was superseded by more modest proposals for a new city hall on the site of Shore Terrace with a city square extending across Castle Lane and the Vault to High Street, William Adam's Town House being resited at the west end of the High Street. The layout was at least partly determined by Sir James Caird who gave £100,000 towards the city hall element. As originally designed the hall was to have been absolutely simple but in 1918 Caird's daughter Mrs Marryat provided a further £70,000 for the addition of a colonnade and more elaborate interior work for which Thomson engaged Vernon Constable in 1920. The hall was completed in 1922, the interior work being executed by Scott Morton, but the austere neo-classical buildings planned to flank the square (in which his son Frank may have had a hand) were not proceeded with at that time.

Thomson was admitted FRIBA in 1916, his proposers being Patrick Hill Thoms, Alexander Lorne Campbell and John Wilson. He did not sit idle during the war years and produced a comprehensive report on the city's housing needs in 1917. Immediately after the First World War ended Thomson produced a wider report on town planning issues no less idealistic than that of 1910 which showed remarkable foresight, particularly in respect of traffic, the Kingsway and Craigiebank dual carriageways being put in hand at once and a Tay Road Bridge planned on the site of the original rail bridge. Municipal housing was zoned and put in hand in 1919 at Stirling Park, Hospital Park and Logie, the last with an experimental district heating scheme. With the help of private practices, most of them with some family link to the city's chief officials, 674 houses had been built on garden city lines by the end of 1922, mostly in Taybank and Craigiebank. His standing nationally was reflected in his being President of the Institute of Municipal and County Engineers in 1920. But by then he had made the fatal error of commissioning 'The Specimen House' at the corner of Glamis Road and Blackness Road, intended to demonstrate the virtues of electricity for household appliances. The cost of this house excluded it from subsidy under the 1919 act and after it had served its purpose he moved into it himself, there being no other obvious tenant. The ensuing publicity together with Thomson's age resulted in the offices of City Engineer and City Architect and Director of Housing being divided in September 1921, James Thomson retaining the latter post and George Baxter, previously the Water Engineer, becoming City Engineer. But after 1922 Thomson's staff was rapidly run down, and when his chief assistant Vernon Constable was made redundant, Thomson retired in May 1924 at the age of seventy-two and the post went into abeyance, his duties being taken over by Baxter. He then joined his son Frank's practice, although he was never formally a partner, mainly seeing clients and dealing with site supervision. He died on 10 November 1927 and was buried at Balgay. He left moveable estate of £5034 7s 6d.

Addresses

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

Private Addresses

Private Addresses2 classic

AddressClassDate From CharDate From TypeDate To CharDate To TypeNotes
324 Blackness Road Dundee ScotlandPrivate
The Specimen House/The Mystery House Blackness Road & Glamis Road (NE corner) Dundee ScotlandPrivate

Business Addresses

Business Addresses2 classic

AddressClassDate From Date From TypeDate ToDate To TypeNotes
91 Commercial Street Dundee ScotlandBusiness

Employment and Training

The following individuals or organisations employed or trained this person (click on an item to view details):

Employers2 classic

NameName LinkDate FromDate ToPositionNotes
Dundee Burgh Engineer's Office/Dundee City Engineer's Office2041351906/07/191921/09Chief ArchitectCity Architect/Engineer
Dundee City Architect and Director of Housing Department2044341921/091924/05Chief ArchitectCity Architect and Director of Housing
William Moffat Garvie204429In year 1867In year 1872Apprentice
William Moffat Garvie204429In year 1872In year 1873Assistant
William Mackison200007In year 18731906/07/19AssistantIn Dundee Burgh Engineer's Office
Dundee Burgh Engineer's Office/Dundee City Engineer's Office204135In year 18731906/07/19AssistantWorking under William Mackison, Burgh Engineer
Dundee Burgh Engineer's Office/Dundee City Engineer's Office204135In year 19051906/07/19Chief ArchitectCity Architect
Frank Drummond Thomson200232In year 19241927/11PartnerUnofficial partner

Employees or Pupils

The following individuals were employed or trained by this person (click on an item to view details):

Employees or Pupils2 classic

NameName LinkDate FromDate ToPositionNotes
Vernon Constable1003161914/09In year 1924AssistantIn Dundee Burgh Engineer's Office; except period on war service
Mitchell Crichton Kay207056After 1907In year 1914Assistant
Robert Dron204415In year 1920In year 1923AssistantIn Dundee City Architect's Department
William Edward Careless (or Carless)200519c. 1909In year 1910Assistant

RIBA Proposers

The following individuals proposed this person for RIBA membership (click on an item to view details):

RIBA PROPOSERS2 classic

ProposerProposer LinkDate ProposedNotes
William Fleming Wilkie2035681911/07/20for Licentiateship - as President of the Dundee Institute of Architects
Patrick Hill Thoms200230Mid 1916sfor Fellowship
Alexander Lorne Campbell200379Mid 1916sfor Fellowship
John Wilson202401Mid 1916sfor Fellowship

RIBA Proposals

This person proposed the following individuals for RIBA membership (click on an item to view details):

RIBA PROPOSALS2 classic

PersonDate ProposedNotes
James McLellan BrownMid 1919sfor Associateship
Alexander Garden ForgieEarly 1920sfor Associateship

References

Bibliographic References

The following books contain references to this person:

Bib ref classic

AuthorTitleDatePublisherPartNotes
RCAHMSDundee on Record1992RCAHMSp49Logie Housing Scheme; view from north taken during construction (1920) p51Craigiebank: aerial view from SW (1989) p52View of Caird Hall from north (c.1930)
Young, J K\'From Laissez-Faire\' to \'Homes fit for Heroes\': housing in Dundee 1868-19911991PhD thesis, University of St Andrews
Frew, JohnJames McLellan Brown1992Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, '100 Years of Town Planning in Dundee', pp16-22
Miskell, Louise, Whatley, Christopher A and Harris, BobVictorian Dundee: image and realities2000TuckwellSee Chapter entitled 'City of the Future: James Thomson's vision of the future' pp169-183

Periodical References

The following periodicals contain references to this person:

Period ref classic

Periodical NamePublisherDate CircEditionNotes
RIBA Journal1927/11/26*Obituary p60 Death notice only
Dundee Courier and Advertiser1927/11/11*Obituary
Dundee Courier and Advertiser1991/10/23Report of opening of exhibition of work of James Thomson. Opened by granddaughter of James Thomson.

Archive References

The following archives hold material relating to this person:

Arc ref classic

Archive NameSourceSource Cat NoBuilding IdItem NameNotes
RIBA Nomination PapersRIBA Archive, Victoria & Albert Museum100005L v21 no1626; F no1602 (microfilm reel 14)
Lockit Book of the Bonnetmaker Trade of DundeeArchives of the Nine Incorporated Trades of Dundee201661Courtesy of Innes Duffus, archivist to Nine Incorporated Trades and Iain Flett, Dundee City Archivist, sent November 2015