page_title: William S. Edmiston
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: William S. Edmiston / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: From The Edmonton Bulletin, August 21, 1893, Page 4
context_page_description: William Somerville Edmiston was an architect and politician in present-day Alberta, Canada. He was a member of the Edmonton Town Council and for two terms, the mayor of Edmonton.
  Originally a native of Scotland, Edmiston came to Canada to settle in Clover Bar, Northwest Territories in the early 1880s. After living there for about ten years, he relocated to nearby Edmonton where he would employ himself as an architect, the first ever in the town. Engaging in a partnership with another fellow architect, his firm would design some of the first buildings in the newly developing town. He would also involve himself with the town's politics, sitting on the Edmonton Town Council, and later serving out two terms as Mayor of Edmonton, from 1897 to 1899. During his time as mayor, he involved himself in local affairs as well as run his architectural business. He would also lobby for a new bridge to be built over the North Saskatchewan River, connecting Edmonton with the town of Strathcona. He would voluntarily relinquish his position as mayor and not run in the 1899 election, opting to retire.
context_section_description: He relocated to the town of Edmonton in 1892, becoming the town's first architect. He also operated a brickyard upon settling. In 1892, Edmiston, working independently at the time, was contracted by the Edmonton Town Council to draft a map of the town. In that same year, he was also a member of a committee tasked with a project to establish a brewery in Edmonton. In 1893, he established a partnership with local architect Nathaniel G. Flater, and operated under the name Edmiston & Flater, headquartered at the Edmonton Imperial Bank Building. The firm designed many notable buildings for the town, including the first post office, the city's first brick school (for the Edmonton Public School District), the All Saints' Anglican Cathedral, a home for Herbert Charles Wilson, the McDougall & Secord retail store, and a fire hall. In 1899, he would end his partnership with Flater and enter into a new one, with Henry D. Johnson of Calgary, under the firm name Edmiston & Johnson Architects, Draughtsmen, Valuators and Insurance Agents. This firm was responsible for constructing, amongst many, a hospital building, a new Presbyterian church and making alterations to the Robertson Hall Theatre.
  In 1900, an article was published in the Edmonton Bulletin, praising the firm Edmiston & Johnson, specifically for their "skill and artistic tastes", stating that they had "built for themselves a reputation that is second to none in their line".
  William Edmiston was also briefly involved in the meat industry, establishing a pork packing business, the Edmonton Pork Packing Company, around 1896. During the 1890s he was also a director of the Edmonton District Railway Company.
caption: Advertisement for Edmiston & Flater, 1893
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