Basic Biographical Details | Name: | A H Mottram & Son | | Designation: | | | Born: | 1950 | | Died: | Before 1960 | | Bio Notes: | Alfred Hugh Mottram was the younger brother of the author R H Mottram and was born in Norwich on 29 January 1886. He was educated there and in Lausanne, Switzerland. On 31 March 1903 he was articled to George Faulkner Armitage in Altrincham near Manchester, serving a three-year apprenticeship and remaining for a year as assistant. He then joined the practice of Parker & Unwin in Hampstead Garden Suburb, and while there passed the qualifying exam. He was admitted ARIBA on 4 December 1911, his proposers being Unwin, Herbert Vaughan Lanchester and the Presbyterian church architect Thomas Philips Figgis. Prior to that he had been abroad several times, visiting Normandy in 1906 and 1909, Touraine in 1908, and Switzerland and Northern Italy in 1910, and had also toured the Cotswolds, Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Buckinghamshire and Norfolk; beyond these counties he had made sketches of inns in nearly every county of England for a book which remained unpublished.
On the strength of his garden city and town-planning experience with Parker & Unwin he obtained a post with the Housing Reform Company Ltd in Cardiff in September 1912, working on garden villages in South Wales. When the Company was wound up in April 1915, Mottram moved from Cardiff to Edinburgh to take up a position as architect to the Scottish National Housing Company Ltd at 111 George Street, designing 1402 houses for the Rosyth Garden Suburb on the basis of layouts provided by Unwin. As he enlisted first with the Royal Scots and then the Artists Rifles in 1918 and 1919, part of the development was designed by the Edinburgh practice of Alfred Greig and Walter Fairbairn. After the war Mottram returned to the Rosyth project, supervising the tarmacadaming of the roads and building a further 100 houses as well as a Masonic hall and a Roman Catholic church. His office at this time was in the Scottish National Housing Co's premises at 59 Frederick Street, but the Rosyth development stalled in 1925 when the Dockyard closed. He continued to work for the Company and for the Second Scottish National Housing Company until 1939, whilst carrying on his own private practice, and also worked for a time for James Bow Dunn. He was admitted FRIBA on 6 March 1939, his proposers being Unwin, John Wilson and Ebenezer James MacRae.
Mottram was also the architect to the Edinburgh Welfare Housing Trust and the Edinburgh Housing Association. He died on 12 March 1953. The practice was continued by his son James Arthur Hugh Mottram who had served part of his apprenticeship with Dunn & Martin and became a partner in 1950. In 1954 the younger Mottram took Thomas Edward Patrick, a friend from Edinburgh College of Art, into partnership; and in 1960 their long-serving chief assistant Andrew Martin Dalgleish also became a partner. | Private and Business Addresses| The following private or business addresses are associated with this : | | | Address | Type | Date from | Date to | Notes |  | Edinburgh, Scotland | Business | | | |
Employment and TrainingEmployees or Pupils
Buildings and Designs
ReferencesPeriodical References| The following periodicals contain references to this : | | | Periodical Name | Date | Edition | Publisher | Notes | | Builder | 7 April 1950 | | | p472 |
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