James Shearer
His time in the army ended in February 1919, and he restarted his architectural practice straight away, moving his offices to Queen Anne Street around 1920.
[1] Like many architects, his early work centred on extending and altering existing buildings, such as the City Arms Hotel in Dunfermline, which he completed around 1910.
He designed an extension for Carnock Primary School in 1912, a house for himself at Crossford in 1914, and worked on the Savings Bank at Dunfermline in 1915.
This was designed in 17th century Scottish baronial style with crowstepped gables, and the main hall includes clerestory dormers.
[5] He was responsible for the David Marshall Lodge youth hostel at Aberfoyle, built with drystone slate rubble and incorporating a central tower from which the surrounding landscape can be viewed.
It is now the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park visitor centre,[6] run by the Forestry Commission, and is a category B listed building.
Profits made by selling bulk electricity to the Scottish lowlands would be used to fund "the economic development and social improvement of the North of Scotland."
[10] Originally, the Board were going to have just one architectural advisor, and the Royal Institute of British Architects put forward two names.
They chose Reginald Fairlie, Harold Tarbolton and Shearer, who had all accepted their positions in principle by January 1944, and were subsequently appointed.
Since the skills needed to work with stone had all but died out, he approached Edward MacColl the chief executive of the Board with some trepidation, but found that he was in complete agreement with the idea.
MacColl asked him to find sources of stone and contractors who could muster a sufficient number of masons and quarrymen to handle the work.
MacColl studied the drawings and asked Shearer whether he had ever seen a concrete building that had been exposed to Scottish weather for 20 years.
MacColl looked at the costs and time required to construct buildings using both methods, and asked Shearer to investigate whether future power stations should be built entirely of stone.
Accordingly, the walls of Luichart power station, part of the River Conon scheme, were built of stone, with exposed masonry internally and externally.
He suggested two residential estates, each sufficiently large to support their own schools, shops and other community facilities, a civic centre with municipal buildings and separate industrial areas.
The population would be limited to around 60,000 people, and new roads would reduce the number of vehicles entering the crowded town centre.
His vision for Dunfermline was that planning would "provide comfortable, convenient and pleasant surroundings for his fellow citizens, young and old, at work and at play".
It was partly biographical, with an actor playing Shearer working as a town planner, and was widely shown at events in Scotland, including the Edinburgh Festival.
