Charles Kinnear

Charles George Hood Kinnear FRIBA ARSA FRSE (30 May 1830 – 5 November 1894) was one half of Peddie & Kinnear, one of Scotland’s most renowned and prodigious architectural firms, famed for their development of the Scots Baronial style, typified by Cockburn Street in Edinburgh which evokes a highly medieval atmosphere. Kinnear was also a pioneer photographer credited with inventing the bellows attachment on early cameras.

He was born in Kinloch House, near Collessie in Fife the son of Charles Kinnear a banker in the family firm of Thomas Kinnear & Co. His mother was Christian Jane Greenshields, a rich heiress. Kinnear can be presumed to have had a very privileged life. For most of his early life he lived at 125 Princes Street in Edinburgh.

His elder brother, John Boyd Kinnear, rose to fame as a politician.

After private schooling and a degree at Edinburgh University, Charles trained as an architect under first William Burn then David Bryce, both based in Edinburgh.

In 1852 he inherited a large number of properties, reducing any immediate need to be employed. In 1853/4 he appears to have toured Sicily and Italy, and is known to have sketched in both Palermo and Pisa.

He was asked to join the rising John Dick Peddie as a partner in 1855, bringing an always-welcome large cash injection to the firm as a result. At the same time he set up his own home at 12 Alva Street where he lived until death. Despite a second huge inheritance in 1856, he continued to work, clearly having a degree of love for it, rather than a financial need.

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