Alexander 'Greek' Thomson

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Alexander 'Greek' Thomson was born in Endrick Cottage, in the village of Balfron, Stirlingshire, on 9th April 1817. He died at his home at 1 Moray Place, Strathbungo, Glasgow, on 22nd March 1875. Both buildings survive, but in altered form.

Alexander’s father, John Thomson (1757-1824), was a book-keeper at Ballindalloch Cotton Mill, Balfron (above, right), having previously carried out similar duties at the Carron Iron Works. His mother, Elizabeth Cooper (1782-1828), was John’s second wife, his first having been Christian Glass (1762-1798). John had eight children by his first marriage, eleven by his second: Alexander was No. 17. By the time of Alexander’s birth, four of the children from the first marriage had died, and the eldest child from the second.

John Thomson was offered a managerial position by his employers, but on condition that he move to Glasgow. He refused, wishing to avoid the temptations of the city, but after his death in 1824, those of the family still in Balfron moved to Glasgow to be near their city-dwelling brothers and sisters.

Alexander originally trained as a lawyer's clerk. His potential as an architect was recognised by the Glasgow architect Robert Foote (1802-1854), who offered him an apprenticeship after seeing some of his drawings. Foote was a plasterer and builder turned architect, but very little is known about the work he carried out.

In 1836, after Foote had retired from business through illness, Alexander joined the architectural practice of John Baird I (c1798-1851). Baird’s work included designs for Somerset Place in Sauchiehall Street (1840) and the unexecuted Glasgow University (1845), and Alexander may have worked on the drawings for both.

In 1849, Alexander Thomson left to form a partnership with John Baird II (1816-1893) from 1849-56: their first finished buildings appeared from 1850, and included Seymour Lodge, Ardsloy and the Italian Villa in Cove, Craig Ailey in Kilcreggan, a series of villas in St Andrew’s Drive, Glasgow, Woodside Cottages in Langbank, The Garnkirk Vase for the 1851 Exhibition, a warehouse in Howard Street (his first sizeable commercial building), work in several stages on The Knowe in Pollokshields, Rockland in Helensburgh, villas in Bothwell, and the Scottish Exhibition Rooms in Bath Street, Glasgow. How much John Baird II was involved in buildings immediately post-dating their business separation is unclear: certainly Baird later claimed a part in the design of the Hutchesontown and Caledonia Road U.P.Church in Glasgow (1856).

Thomson and Baird were not just business partners: they had married sisters, respectively Jane (1825-1899) and Jessie Nicholson in a joint ceremony in 1847. It may have been this which decided them on the need to establish independent careers. The Nicholson sisters were daughters of the late Michael Angelo Nicholson, a London-based teacher of architecture, and grand-daughters of the deceased architect and writer Peter Nicholson, who had lived in Glasgow at the turn of the century, designing, among other buildings, Carlton Terrace.

From 1856-71, Alexander was partnered with his younger brother, George (1819-1878) as A. & G. Thomson. Alexander seems to have concentrated on design and draughtsmanship, while George was more involved in the business side of their work.

By now, the Thomson style was becoming increasingly distinctive, even though its creative range included terraces and villas, churches and warehouses. It isn’t known when he was first styled ‘Greek’ Thomson, but he had long been moving towards a modern interpretation of pre-Roman classical architecture. He drew on styles as diverse as those of Greece, Egypt and India, yet rarely left Scotland and never left Great Britain. Instead he relied on published sources, such as Stuart and Revett’s ‘The Antiquities of Athens’, the visionary paintings of John Martin and more factual ones of David Roberts, and his own imagination.

His principal extant works include Hutchesontown and Caledonia Road U.P. Church (above), Holmwood in Netherlee Road, Walmer Crescent, St Vincent Street U.P. Church, 1-10 Moray Place, the Grosvenor Building in Gordon Street, the Buck’s Head Building in Argyle Street, Grecian Chambers in Sauchiehall Street, Great Western Terrace and the Egyptian Halls, Union Street. Information on these and many other buildings can be found in the list of works on this website.

Thomson’s contribution to the late-Victorian streetscape of Glasgow was enormous, constructing whole streets of tenements, particularly on the south side of Glasgow, many of them demolished in the post-war rebuilding of the city. Some remain. The absence of records makes identification of his buildings a complex task: many tenements constructed in a Thomsonesque style throughout Glasgow may have been designed by assistants in his office, or by Robert Turnbull (1841-1905), his last partner, after Thomson’s death in 1875. Thomson also constructed tenements to order: a now-lost tenement in Gibson Street simply repeated the frontage of the adjacent building.

In 1870, George Thomson set out for West Africa as a missionary (a long-held ambition); in 1873 Thomson entered partnership with Robert Turnbull as A. Thomson & R. Turnbull, who seems to have fulfilled a similar function to George in relation to running the business.

His close relationship with the Mossman family helped in the design of various monuments, including the pedestal for John Mossman's statue of Sir Robert Peel in George Square (1859), and various gravestones, often in the form of obelisks, and acting as a prototype for later designers. The Garnkirk Fireclay Company produced his designs for chimney pots both for his own buildings and for others. For Walter Macfarlane’s Saracen Foundry he designed a variety of ironwork: if it was eclectic in style, it was successful enough to feature in ‘Macfarlane’s Catalogue’ of designs twenty years after Thomson’s death. Indeed, a re-working of his design for lamp standards outside The Egyptian Halls comprises the only examples of Thomson’s work in England. Not that he didn’t try: he entered the competitions for the Albert Memorial in 1862 and for the South Kensington Museum in 1864. He entered competitions in Glasgow, and a proposed design for Annan Town Hall seems to have been the last he worked on before his early death.

In 1876, Turnbull took over the business and acquired a new partner, David Thomson (no relation). In doing so, it is thought he rejected an application from Alexander’s son John (1859-1933) to join his late father’s firm (John ultimately went into successful partnership with Robert Sandilands). The partnership of D. Thomson & R. Turnbull lasted until 1883 when David Thomson left to strike out on his own.

Thomson was a co-founder of the Glasgow Institute of Architects; after his death, the Institute commissioned a marble bust by John Mossman (now in Kelvingrove Art Gallery), and established The Alexander Thomson Travelling Studentship. The first winner of the Studentship, in 1887, was W. J. Anderson, for his drawings of Thomson's Queen's Park U.P. Church, Langside Road (1868-9, destroyed 1943); the second, in 1889, was Charles Rennie Mackintosh, 1889.

The 19th century habit of architectural re-invention and over-writing meant that Thomson buildings started disappearing even before his death: the process continued throughout the 20th century. Attempts to recognise Thomson’s genius foundered as well: a 1975 proposal by the Strathbungo Society and The Scottish Civic Trust for a public memorial to Thomson on a traffic island adjacent to 1 Moray Place, in the form of a free-standing portal with four 20ft columns, was abandoned on the grounds of cost. In the 1990s, another scheme, by the Paisley-based sculptor Alexander Stoddart, at Glasgow Cross, also came to nothing. However, the winners of the 1999 Alexander Thomson Travelling Scholarship, Graeme Andrew and Edward Taylor, with a proposal for a monument for Thomson’s grave, is scheduled for completion in 2003.

Holmwood in Cathcart has been taken over and reopened by the National Trust for Scotland; St Vincent Street U.P. Church has been designated as a World Heritage Site and a restoration programme for the tower has been completed (a scheme for the balance of the church has still to be finalised); but Thomson’s posthumous Watson Street warehouses were finally demolished in 2003 (a rebuilding scheme for the area is currently planned), while the building in which Thomson had his office at Wellington Street / West George Street remains threatened with demolition.

In March 1854, three days after the death of his eldest child, Agnes, from cholera, Thomson purchased two lairs in the western section of the Southern Necropolis. He was to bury four more of his children there. Thomson himself was buried in the same lair on 26th March 1875, joined by his widow, Jane Nicholson, in 1889. Today, the grave is unmarked: whatever stone existed (it is unlikely those seeking to memorialise him would have failed to place a stone had none existed) was probably cleared by Glasgow Council in the 1950s in the wake of neglect and vandalism.

Drawn in part from material on the Glasgow Institute of Architects website and other sources.

Family history

Alexander 'Greek' Thomson's family history is wide-ranging and complicated. Research into the family continues. The current results of that research are included here as PDFs: one document centres on the ancestors and descendants of John Thomson, Alexander's father, and therefore includes Alexander's siblings and half-siblings; a second document focuses on Michael Angelo Nicholson, Thomson's father-in-law, and shows Nicholson ancestors and descendants.

For more information about Thomson's genealogy, email here.

Publications

For helpful publications, go here.

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