Melville, William Noble | Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada

MELVILLE, William Noble (1871- c. 1914), the older brother of Alexander Melville of Winnipeg, Man, and active in partnership with him from 1904 to 1914. Born in Fraserburgh, near Aberdeen, Scotland on 11 August 1871, he was recorded as an architect in the City of Aberdeen where he designed two houses on Fonthill Road (1897), as well as his own house on Springbank Street, Aberdeen in 1898 (Aberdeen City Archives, Plans Committee Minutes, 29 June 1897; 30 June 1898). Melville emigrated to the United States in 1900, then moved to Canada in 1902 and settled in Winnipeg. The prospects for the architectural profession in that city seemed good, so William wrote to his younger brother Alexander in Scotland, urging him to come to Manitoba to join him. The brothers formed a partnership in early 1903 (Manitoba Free Press [Winnipeg], 11 May 1903, 12) and during the next ten years they obtained many commissions for residential, commercial and institutional work including the design of fifteen fire halls for the City of Winnipeg (see list of works under Alex & William Melville). Their collaboration ended in 1914 with the outbreak of WWI, and the name of William Melville disappears from Winnipeg City Directories in 1915. He may have returned to Scotland after that date.