Name James Macgeorge | ||
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James Macgeorge (1832 – 9 December 1918) was a Scottish-born architect in South Australia. He is remembered for erecting South Australia's first telegraph line.
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History
James Macgeorge was born in Scotland, the fifth son of tailor Robert Forsyth Macgeorge (1795–1860) and his wife Elizabeth M. Macgeorge, née Duncan (1801–), who with their family emigrated to South Australia aboard the Ariadne, arriving on 13 August 1839. They developed the property they named "Urr brae", now the suburb known as Urrbrae.
He started practising as an architect in 1855 and in that year responded to a notice in the Gazette of 25 January advertising a contest to design a water reticulation scheme for Adelaide, then petitioned for an enquiry when no prize was awarded. The same year he set about running a telegraph line between the city and Port Adelaide. As early as 1853 the Government had voted money to provide such a line but had made no progress; however when Macgeorge sought planning permission it was refused on the grounds of unnecessary duplication. Macgeorge surmounted these obstacles by avoiding the railway and main roads, and on 1 December 1855 the line went into service, and performed perfectly. Less than two months later, Charles Todd had, with the greatest expedition, completed the Government line, a more direct, technically superior, and vastly more expensive affair. A year later, the Government purchased Macgeorge's line and pulled it down.
Between 1853 and 1857 he and brother-in-law John Turner ran a shipping agency, with an office first in Bank Street, then from April 1856, in Currie Street. Following the death of his father in a shipwreck in 1860, James designed and built a house "St Andrews" for himself and his mother, in North Adelaide.
He was a foundation member of the South Australian Society of Arts and its first secretary (1855–1856). Around 1861 he had begun speculating in mining and pastoral property shares and in 1863, following an economic downturn was forced to declare himself insolvent. His brother Ebenezer, formerly a surveyor in the Public Works Department, joined him in 1864 and as a partnership had a successful architects' practice.
In December 1880 James Macgeorge left Adelaide for England. He died at Ashford, Kent on 9 December 1918.