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Oldrieve, William Thomas, HRSA

1853 – 1922

The son of a London clerk of works, post-1880 he studied at the University of Edinburgh under Professor G Baldwin Brown HRA. Having worked in the War Office, in 1881 he gained first place in the competitive examinations as assistant architect and surveyor in the Office of Works. In 1886-87 he visited Hamburg, Berlin, Vienna and Paris, making a particular study of post office buildings, notably Guadet's new Hotel des Postes in Paris and the General Post Office in Hamburg. As a result of his study he was appointed architect for provincial post offices in England and Wales; and in 1904 he was appointed Principal Architect for Scotland. Oldrieve was responsible for overseeing the refurbishment of the Royal Institution building on The Mound as the new Royal Scottish Academy building in c.1908-11. Shortly after his retirement from the Office of Works in 1914, Oldrieve was appointed a Royal Commissioner of Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. He also visited New Zealand and the Sandwich Islands and on his return became in 1917 Secretary for the Ministry of Munitions for North and East Scotland; and during that period he was, with Rowand Anderson and Thomas Ross, one of the principal organisers of the National Art Survey for Scotland.



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