Basic Biographical Details | Name: | Gauldie Hardie & Sharpe | | Designation: | | | Born: | 1927 | | Died: | 1947 | | Bio Notes: | William Gauldie was born in 1875 at Kinnell, Angus, and educated at Harris Academy, Dundee. He was articled to a Dundee architect, William Mitchell, who had very little business. When Mitchell gave up practice Gauldie continued his apprenticeship with Charles and Leslie Ower whose chief assistant William Gillespie Lamond influenced his work strongly until well into the 1920s. At the end of his apprenticeship he spent a year in the architectural department of the iron founders and mill engineers Robertson Orchar who then supplied buildings as well as textile machinery.
In 1898 Gauldie opened his own practice at 23 Panmure Street, Dundee his first job being the Physical Laboratory at Dundee High School, where he had taken over from McCulloch. This was followed by the first of a long series of alterations and extension in High Street and Commercial Street for D M Brown, gradually forming the buildings there into a very large department store. Much of his early work consisted of ship interiors. The practice moved to 26 Commercial Street in 1905 and in 1908 (W.S. Gauldie) or 1909 (Bailey), Gauldie's cousin Robert Leuchars Hardie was taken into partnership. Hardie had trained with an untraced uncle in North Berwick and subsequently in Edinburgh. William Careless (or Carless), an assistant to the City Architect's Department, assisted in the evenings when the practice was too busy until his departure for Canada in 1911 or 1912.
Hardie died in 1924 and David Sharpe was taken on first as assistant and then from 1927 as partner. Born in 1877, Sharpe had been articled to James Graham Fairley from 1892 to 1896 and had attended Heriot-Watt College, thereafter working as assistant to Peter Whitecross of Prestonpans from 1896 to 1898, and to Alexander Wood Macnaughtan in Edinburgh until Macnaughtan's death in 1911. In that year he moved to Dundee, working as an assistant in the office of Thomas Martin Cappon, perhaps with a view to partnership or commencing independent practice, as he was admitted LRIBA in 1912. He secured the appointment of Master of Works to Dundee Parish Council in 1920, remaining in that post until joining Gauldie.
Sharpe died in December 1933, having been responsible for the new block at Mayfield Hostel and for the Masonic Hall in Tay Street (he was a prominent freemason). Gauldie continued as sole partner under the existing name of Gauldie Hardie & Shape.
William Gauldie was described by his son as being at his best when the commission called for 'ingenuity and economy in planning and construction… his services were much in demand for alteration work'. Part of his success was based on his engaging personality, a client of fifty years' standing observing of him that 'to know him even in some slight degree was to love him'. In his earlier years the Stirling architect and furniture historian John W Small was a close friend and for a time a partnership was considered. The firm's domestic work was in a pleasant Voysey-inspired style, the more ambitious houses having Lorimer derived details. Most of these were in and around Invergowrie from 1913 onward. | Private and Business Addresses| The following private or business addresses are associated with this : | | | Address | Type | Date from | Date to | Notes |  | 26, Commercial Street, Dundee, Scotland | Business | 1927 | After 1930 | |
Employment and TrainingEmployees or Pupils| The following individuals were employed or trained by this (click on an item to view details): | | | Name | Date from | Date to | Position | Notes | | David Sharpe | 1927 | 1933 | Partner | | | William Gauldie | 1927 | 1945 | Partner | As sole partner but retaining the name Gauldie Hardie & Sharpe | | William S Young | Before 1939 | | Assistant | | | William Sinclair Gauldie | 1945 | 1947 | Partner | As sole partner? |
Buildings and Designs
ReferencesBibliographic References| The following books contain references to this : | | | Author(s) | Date | Title | Part | Publisher | Notes | | Bailey, Rebecca M | 1996 | Scottish architects' papers: a source book | | Edinburgh: The Rutland Press | Personal information from Sincliar Gauldie |
Periodical References| The following periodicals contain references to this : | | | Periodical Name | Date | Edition | Publisher | Notes | | Dundee Advertiser | 21 December 1933 | | | Sharpe's obituary | | RIBA Journal | 27 January 1934 | v41 | London: Royal Institute of British Architects | p316 - obituary of Sharpe |
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