IRVINE, George Gilbert Alexander Andrew (1868- 1954) practised briefly in Calgary, Alberta in 1912 and 1913. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland on 23 March 1868, he was the son of the architect James T. Irvine who was employed as clerk of works by George Gilbert Scott, the leading ecclesiastical architect of London in the latter half of the 19th C.. The young Irvine articled under his father in Peterborough, England in 1885 to 1890, then worked as an assistant in the London office of Somers Clarke & J.T. Micklethwaite, Architects in 1890-94. He gained further experience in the Architect's Dept. of the London County Council, and later moved to Aberdeen, Scotland where he opened an office on Union Street in 1901 (A.C. Freeman, The Architects & Surveyors Directory [London], 1907, 179, list of architects in Aberdeen). He remained there until 1909, then moved to Edinburgh and continued to practise in 1910-11. He decided to emigrate to Canada in early 1912 and established himself in Calgary, Alta., but the only completed project in Canada that has been found is his modest Edwardian design for Hillhurst Presbyterian Church, Kensington Road at 10A Street, CALGARY, ALTA., 1912-13.
Irvine left Calgary in late 1913 and returned to England. He was still active as an architect in the town of Stafford, England as late as 1932, but no references to his works there have been located. He later died in Hampshire, England on 11 February 1954 (biog. in Royal Inst. of British Architects, Directory of British Architects 1834-1914, 2001, Vol. i, 998; biog. in Dictionary of Scottish Architects [online].)
ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND, house at Deeside, 1909 (Builder [London], xcvi, 24 April 1909, 494 and illus.)
ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND, Clergy House, at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church of Scotland, Gallowgate, 1909 (J. Sharples, David Watkin, and M. Woodworth, Aberdeenshire: South and Aberdeen, 2015, 117, illus.)
CALGARY, ALTA., Hillhurst Presbyterian Church, Kensington Road at 10A Street, 1912-13 (Hillhurst's First Sixty Years 1907-1967, 12-14, illus.)