sketcher and architect, was born in Huntley, Aberdeenshire. He began his career as an architect in the office of McKenzie & Matthews in Elgin Street, Aberdeen, Scotland, later working for Lewis and John Hornblower of Liverpool and Birmingham where he was chief assistant architect for about three years before migrating to Victoria in 1853. At Melbourne he established a partnership with R.A. Dowden; the firm of Dowden & Ross practised from late 1853-55 at 112 Queen Street, Melbourne. Ross showed nine watercolour drawings at the 1854 Melbourne Exhibition: two views of Melbourne, one of Emerald Hill (South Melbourne) and Hobson’s Bay, and one of Richmond. The firm showed 'Prize Designs’ for St Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, Geelong, and Chalmer’s Church, Eastern Hill, their second-prize design for the new Government House, and Design for Town Hall, Geelong .
Dowden & Ross had a wide-ranging architectural practice specialising in Roman Catholic schools and churches. According to local legend, both were pupils of A.W.N. Pugin, the English pioneer Victorian Gothic Revival architect. Since Pugin never took pupils ('I would kill them in a week’), it is more likely that both had worked on the Westminster Houses of Parliament under Pugin’s direction. The firm’s buildings included chapels at Keilor and North Melbourne and St Mary’s School, North Melbourne. After winning first prize of £70 in May 1854 in the competition for St Mary’s Church, Geelong, they opened a second office in the town with Dowden in charge. When the partnership was dissolved, Ross continued to practise on his own in Melbourne: at MacKenzie Street until 1858, at 57 Elizabeth Street until 1861 and afterwards at 83 Swanston Street. Commissions included additions to St Francis’s Cathedral, Lonsdale Street, the tower and spire of the Scots Church in Collins Street and the Colonial Bank buildings at Kilmore and Kyneton.
Ross left Melbourne for New Zealand in 1862. He lived in Dunedin and worked in both Dunedin and Auckland until 1884. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1879. In 1886 92, back in Australia, he had an office in Victoria Chambers, Elizabeth Street, Sydney, after winning the 1886 competition for Newtown Town Hall. Subsequent works include the towers on the Middle Harbour Suspension Bridge and several houses, including Burwood Lodge and Iona. He moved to Perth in 1893. Ross died in 1908, probably at Johannesburg, South Africa.
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
