William Edward Robertson...Architect Subiaco.
One of the reasons why I love researching and writing this blog is that I never know what I will find with a little digging. This post on William Edward Robertson continues on from the previous post on Margaret Robertson who was his daughter.
In 1916 and 1917 Margaret Robertson, a 12 year old girl wrote to Auntie Nell, the editor of the children's pages at the Daily News newspaper. She entered competitions and won prizes. Her creative work including paintings, short stories and the competitions she created for other children to complete were published. She also sent Auntie Nell a photograph which was published in June 1916. But who was Margaret Robertson ?
The Post Office Directories of Western Australia for 1916, tell researchers William Robertson lived at 64 Subiaco Road, Subiaco and was an architect with an office at 105 St Georges Tec, Perth.
Further research shows an entry in J. S. Battye's Cyclopedia of Western Australia for William Edward Robertson. William Edward Robertson was born in 1863 in Melbourne. His parents were Scottish and migrated to Australia in 1885. He went to school in Melbourne and was articled to an architecture firm there. After Robertson finished his four years with the firm he travelled overseas. He returned to Melbourne and formed a partnership with George Charles Inskip and completed some important works.
During the depression Robertson came to Western Australia and completed works in a number of country towns. In 1901 he married Elsie Jane Paltridge and the couple had two daughters, Theodora in 1902 and Margaret in 1903. By 1903 the family had moved to Perth. Between 1906 and 1928 Robertson completed a number of works around Perth. Robertson retired at the age of 65 years in 1928 and died the following year in 1929. He was buried in the Anglican section at Karrakatta Cemetery.
William Edward Robertson
From Battye, J.S., Cyclopedia of Western Australia, Vol.1, 1912, p.634
William Edward Robertson (1863-1929) was born 25 August 1863 in Melbourne, son of Dr James Robertson, who had trained at Glasgow University before migrating to Australia in 1854. William received his educational training at the Toorak and Scotch Colleges of Melbourne, and subsequently was articled to A.E. Johnston, of the firm of Smith & Johnston Architects, Melbourne.
Having served a term of four years with this business Robertson went abroad for a couple of years and ‘studied the prevailing forms of architecture on the European Continent, in England, and America’. Returning to Melbourne in 1888, Robertson became an Associate of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects (RVIA) in April 1888. In the same month he was admitted to a partnership with George Charles Inskip (1840-1931), and during the five years that this joint venture existed, the firm was responsible for some important works. Conspicuous among these were many country branches of the Union Bank, the National Bank at Kew, and a residence for solicitorspeculator-politician Sir Matthew Davies, erected at a cost of £12,000, which ‘took its place among the finest structures in Victoria’.
The firm also designed the Union Bank completed in 1889 on the corner of High and Cliff Streets, Fremantle, Western Australia.Robertson practiced with Inskip in Victoria up until c.1893, when business conditions were extremely difficult, due to recession, and in November 1894 he ceased to be a member of the RVIA.
As was the case with many Melbourne architects, Robertson eventually fled depressed economic conditions of the 1890s, migrating to gold-boom Western Australia in search of work. He is listed in WA goldfields towns as an architect within Wises Directory of 1897-1898 at Kurawa (Broad Arrow), in 1899-1900 at Broad Arrow, perhaps in 1901 (as J.H. Robertson?) at Mt Malcolm, and 1902-1903 at Laverton, where he was kept busy with the designs and erection of hotels and commercial premises. Robertson is credited in a number of sources with the Commercial Bank of Australia built in 1901 on the corner of High and Mouatt Streets in Fremantle, but this is in fact an Oldham & Eales design.
He married Elsie Jane Paltridge at Mount Morgan (south of Kalgoorlie) in 1901 and the couple had two daughters, in 1902 Theodora whose birthplace was registered as Laverton, and in 1903 Margaret whose birthplace was registered as the Perth suburb of Cottesloe. Thus it is possible that the family moved to metropolitan Perth in 1903, perhaps after Robertson completed work on the State Hotel at Gwalia (adjacent to Leonora), opened on 3 June 1903.
Robertson may have taken leave or worked within other practices for a period following this project, as in 1904-1905 he is not listed in Wises Directory, although in August 1904 he called tenders for a residence in Cottesloe from the Perth office of E.E. Giles (1865-1936).Robertson completed numerous shops, offices, warehouses, and residences in the Perth metropolitan area during the period 1906-1928. William is again listed on his own account for 1906-1907 in practice at Hamburg Chambers, Hay Street Perth; for 1908-1923 located at the New Zealand Chambers, 105 St George’s Terrace, Perth; and for 1924-1928 at 23 Fourth Avenue, Mount Lawley. In 1912 Robertson noted that the Perth Roller Flour Mills (PRFM) were ‘amongst the structures placed to his credit’, but the main PRFM building of 1905 at Love Lane (off Wellington Street), Perth appears to have been designed through architects Hobbs, Smith & Forbes office, with Robertson then completing a number of other projects at the Wellington Street and adjacent West Perth sites for PRFM in following years.
The Architects Act of Western Australia 1921 received formal assent in 1922, and Robertson registered (no.71) with the Architects Board of WA in August of that year. In his final years, Robertson lived at ‘Amiens’, Suburban (Mill Point) Road, South Perth. William may have retired at 65 years of age in August1 1928, as he is not listed in the 1929 Wises Directory. He died at South Perth 25 July 1929, and was buried in the Anglican section at Karrakatta Cemetery.
