He was born in October 1849 in Grange in Banffshire in northern Scotland the son of Rev George Jamieson DD, minister of St Machar's Cathedral, and his wife, Jane Wallace.

He was apprenticed to Hall, Russell & Company, shipbuilders in Aberdeen, around 1864, at its foundation.

[2] In 1887 he accepted the role of Professor of Engineering at the West of Scotland Technical College.

His proposers were William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, Fleeming Jenkin, John Gray McKendrick, and George Chrystal.

[4] He was the elder brother of William Jamieson (1853–1926), mine manager, and Mathew Buchan Jamieson (1860–1895), civil engineer, both closely identified with the young town of Broken Hill, New South Wales.