Master builder, responsible for the construction of many sculpturally important public buildings in Edinburgh, such as the Scott Monument, the former Royal Institution and the former British Linen Bank, and whose masons almost certainly carved large parts of their decorative enrichment. These, along with many other major Edinburgh landmarks he erected, such as William Playfair’s New College on Mound Place, were characterised by his obituarist as having been ‘constructed in a way rarely equalled and never surpassed’.
Bibliography: Caledonian Mercury: (i) 21 March 1850, p. 3a; (ii) 7 February 1856, p. 3e; R. McKenzie, Public Sculpture of Edinburgh (2 vols), Liverpool, 2018, vol. 1, p. 91, vol. 2, pp. 148, 153, 238–39, 251, 284, 430.
Ray McKenzie 2018