John Smith Murdoch

John Smith Murdoch CMG (29 September 1862 – 21 May 1945) was a Scottish architect who practised in Australia from the 1880s until 1930. Employed by the newly formed Commonwealth Public Works Department in 1904, he rose to become chief architect, from 1919 to 1929, and was responsible for designing many government buildings, most notably the Provisional Parliament House in Canberra, the home of the Parliament of Australia from 1927 to 1988.
John Smith Murdoch was born in Cassieford Farm, Forres, Scotland.
He had a "dry and quiet" personality and was frugal in both his professional and private life. Murdoch never married, and there are only two official known photographs of him.
Murdoch was a member of the Masonic order and it is claimed that he incorporated many masonic motifs into his designs.
He died in Brighton, Melbourne.
Murdoch was educated at the Parish school at Rafford and at Forres Academy and received his architectural training in Scotland. He was articled to the architectural firm Matthews and Mackenzie in 1878. After completing his articles in 1883 he became assistant in the office of Alexander Ross in Inverness before moving to Glasgow to work for Campbell Douglas & Sellars and then for the Glasgow South Western Railway Engineers' Department. In 1884 Murdoch emigrated with his parents to Melbourne in response to the severe depression of the 1880s.
In Melbourne, Murdoch was briefly employed by the architectural firm Reed, Henderson and Smart before being appointed as a draftsman in the Queensland Department of Public Works in 1885. While working for the Public Works Department, Murdoch is said to have designed the Sandgate Post Office (1887) before being retrenched on 30 June 1887 due to a downturn in public works.
Murdoch then joined the firm John Hall and Son where he was employed until 1893. While working for John Hall and Son, it is claimed that Murdoch designed the South Brisbane Municipal Chambers (1890–1892), Gladstone Place and several South Brisbane hotels, including Broadway Hotel (1889–90) and Burke's Hotel (1890).
In 1893, Murdoch was re-appointed to the Public Works Department where he worked until 1904. During this time he worked on a great number of public buildings throughout Queensland. The design work produced by the department at this time was somewhat collaborative. Other prominent architects working for the Queensland Public Works Department who may have contributed to design work credited to Murdoch (and vice versa) include Thomas Pye and Alfred Barton Brady.
In 1904 Murdoch transferred to the Commonwealth Department of Home Affairs in Melbourne, as a Senior Clerk. Here he was promoted to Architect in 1914 and Chief Architect in 1919–29. He was involved with the planning of Canberra and designed many significant Commonwealth buildings around Australia including the Provisional Parliament House, Canberra (1927), the Canberra Hotel (1922–25), the General Post Office, Perth (1923), Spencer Street Mail Exchange (1913) and the Former High Court of Australia (1925), both in Melbourne. He laid out Forrest Place, Perth (1923), and Anzac Square, Brisbane (1926). Murdoch was promoted to Director-General of Works by 1927 and was appointed C.M.G. (Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George) to honour his service to the Commonwealth of Australia. Murdoch moved to Canberra with his department in 1929 and retired later the same year, remaining a member of the Federal Capital Commission until its abolition in 1930.
List of known works in Queensland:
Notable works include:
Notable Western Australian works include:
Murdoch persuaded Walter Burley Griffin to come to Australia from the US, and went to Sydney to greet him on his arrival in 1913. Later, however, he had a difficult relationship with Griffin.
Murdoch designed the Provisional Parliament House in Canberra, which opened in 1927. However, he had no enthusiasm for the project, saying expenditure on it could not be justified at the time; and he thought the whole idea was a waste of money.
Murdoch also designed many of Canberra's first public buildings, such as: