Fred Rowntree

Fred Rowntree (19 April 1860 Scarborough - 7 January 1927 Hammersmith), a Scottish Arts and Crafts architect, was the son of John Rowntree, a master grocer and Ann Webster. His brother, John Rowntree, traded in tea and coffee. The Rowntree family were Quakers and related to Rowntree's, the well-known confectioners.

Fred was a scholar at Bootham School in York, and was articled to Charles Augustus Bury of Scarborough from 1876 to 1880. He became an assistant to Edward Burgess in London and was appointed a clerk of works in Leicestershire, ending in 1885 when joined Charles Edeson of Scarborough, the company name changing to Edeson & Rowntree. On 6 October 1886 Rowntree married Mary Anna Gray (10 June 1862 - 19 July 1933), a daughter of William Gray of the biscuit manufacturers Gray, Dunn & Company, who were also Quakers. They raised a family of 5 children.

He located to London in 1890, and also entered into partnership with Malcolm Stark in Glasgow. The partnership of Stark & Rowntree dissolved in 1900, partly as a result of failing to win contracts in national competitions - the Govan District Asylum being their only significant award. Stark had consequently succumbed to alcoholism and Rowntree relocated his practice to Hammersmith.

Fred Rowntree drew his sons into his business, and was invited to tender and submit plans for the building of West China Union University in Chengtu in Sichuan Province in China. The bid of Fred Rowntree & Sons of London was successful and the firm was appointed architect to the University.

West China Union University had started in 1910 as a collaboration between the American Mutual Foreign Mission Society, the Friends' Foreign Mission Association of Great Britain and Ireland, the General Board of Missions of the Methodist Church of Canada, (later the United Church of Canada) and the Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, USA. After a 2-year hiatus due to political unrest, the University started lectures in 1913 and initiated a program of constructing more than twenty buildings. These plans were particularly ambitious in view of the lengthy travel time from London to Chengtu.

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