John Eric Miers Macgregor FRIBA FSA OBE (4 October 1890 – 31 January 1984), was a conservation architect with the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings.
His difficulty with conventional learning had hidden benefits and he became a master of lateral thinking, often coming up with unconventional and innovative ways to solve architectural problems.
Macgregor’s talent was spotted early on and at the age of 22 he was employed by William Weir, with whom he shared lodgings, to help rebuild and repair Tattershall Castle.
The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings regularly employed him to survey properties and oversee their repair and it was through them that he was recommended to the National Trust.
In 1931 he surveyed Shalford Mill in Surrey for the eccentric group of women philanthropists, Ferguson’s Gang who endowed the watermill to the National Trust in 1932.
In 1942 Macgregor wrote several articles for the Builder magazine (now called Building), illustrating his ideas for an innovative post-war transport infrastructure across London.
He identified the need to record and list damaged historic buildings instigating an ad hoc committee with William Ansell, then President of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), art historian, Sir Kenneth Mckenzie Clark and architect Walter Godfrey, who became first director of the National Buildings Record, now the English Heritage Archive.