John Burnet (architect)

John Burnet (senior)
Born	27 September 1814 Kirk o' Shotts
Died	15 January 1901 Glasgow
Nationality	British
Occupation	Architect
Awards	FRIBA
Practice	John Burnet and Son, later Sir John Burnet & Partners
Buildings	Glasgow Stock Exchange; Clydesdale Bank, Glasgow; Govan Burgh Chambers
Design	Neolassical , Gothic , Renaissance , Italianate, Scottish Baronial, Greek Revival

John Burnet (27 September 1814 – 15 January 1901) was a Scottish architect who lived and practised in Glasgow. He was born the son of soldier and trained initially as a carpenter, before becoming a Clerk of Works. He rose to prominence in the mid-1850s.

Burnet designed many of Victorian Glasgow’s public buildings, employing a range of styles, including Neoclassical, Gothic, Renaissance, Italianate and Scottish Baronial . He commissioned many sculptors to adorn his buildings, among them John Mossman and John Crawford .

John Burnet was born at Craighead House, Kirk o' Shotts on 27 September 1814. He was the son of Lieutenant George Burnet, a soldier in the Kirkcudbright and Galloway Militia, and Margaret Wardlaw, who was the daughter of a Dalkeith merchant, John Wardlaw. John Burnet was educated at Dunipace Parish School. He later took an apprenticeship as a carpenter, graduating to architecture and becoming a clerk of works in the Alloa-Clackmannan area.

Burnet was largely self-taught as an architect. He worked for the Architectural Publication Society's Dictionary and through this work he had access to a library of architectural work by Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand, Paul Letarouilly and Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. It is also known that Burnet travelled and sketched in Germany, France and Italy.

In 1845 he married Elizabeth Hay Bennet, the daughter of Lindsay Bennet, a Leith merchant. They had five children. The eldest, George Wardlaw, grew up to become Sheriff Substitute of Aberdeen but predeceased his father in an accident on a bamboo bicycle. His second son Lindsay Burnet, a mechanical engineer, and his youngest daughter Elizabeth also died before him. He had another daughter, Margaret. The most well-known of his children was his youngest son, John James Burnet (1857–1938), who himself became an influential Modernist architect.

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