Thomas Smith Tait

Thomas Smith Tait
Born	18 June 1882 Paisley, Renfrewshire
Died	18 July 1954 the Cottage Hospital, Aberfeldy
Nationality	Scottish
Alma mater	Glasgow School of Art; Royal Academy Schools
Occupation	Architect
Awards	RIBA Gold Medal, Best Building of 1933
Practice	John Burnet & Partners; Burnet, Tait & Lorne
Buildings	Selfridges, Oxford Street; the Daily Telegraph Building, Fleet Street; Unilever House, Blackfriars; Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Thomas Smith Tait (1882–1954) was a prominent Scottish modernist architect. He designed a number of buildings around the world in Art Deco and Streamline Moderne styles, notably St. Andrew's House (the headquarters of the Scottish Government) on Calton Hill, Edinburgh, and the pylons for Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Born in 1882 in Paisley, the son of a master stonemason, he was educated at the John Neilson Institution, following which he entered apprenticeship as an architect with James Donald in Paisley. Tait went on to Glasgow School of Art where he studied under the Beaux Arts teacher Eugene Bourdon. He travelled extensively in Europe between 1904 and 1905, before settling in London where he joined the prestigious architectural practice of Sir John James Burnet.

In 1910 he married Constance Hardy, the daughter of a London stationmaster, and they set up home at 26 Holyoake Walk in Ealing. Together they had three sons; the eldest, Gordon, born in 1912, later became an architect himself, and worked with his father on the designs for the Glasgow Empire Exhibition of 1938.

In June 1913 Tait sat and passed the RIBA's qualifying exam and was admitted ARIBA in September 1913, with the influential backing of Burnet, Theodore Fyfe and Herbert Vaughan Lanchester as proposers.

His former dwelling at Gates House, Wyldes Close, Hampstead Garden Suburb London NW11 has been marked with a Blue Plaque by English Heritage.

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