Allen, Newstead Adams

ALLEN, Newstead Adams (1885-1944) was active in Montreal as assistant to William J. Carmichael, the Chief Architect of the Bell Telephone Company, from 1912 until the death of the latter in 1927. Born in Newport, Co. Monmouthsire, Wales in October 1885, he served an apprenticeship with G.P. Milnes, an architect in Stroud, England from 1901 to 1904, and later worked in Liverpool for Williams & Sutcliffe, Architects while taking part time courses at the Liverpool School of Art and Technical Schools. He arrived in Montreal in January 1910 and was employed in the office of Kenneth G. Rea for two years. He joined the Bell Telephone architectural department in early 1912 and assisted with the design and construction of dozens of exchange buildings in Ontario, Quebec and in the prairie provinces. During this period, he also freelanced, and in 1913 he submitted an entry in the architectural competition for the Winnipeg City Hall. He was one of 39 architects from across Canada who sent in plans, but he was not among the five finalists (City of Winnipeg Archives, Council Communications, 1913, Box A 169; Item 9741, list of competitors). The competition was won by Clemesha & Portnall of Regina, but their winning design was never built.
Allen remained as Assistant Architect for Bell Telephone Co. until 1932 when he resigned to take up private practice in Montreal (R.A.I.C. Journal, ix, June 1932, 156). In 1933 he prepared a design for the residence of A.M. Clark, Cedar Avenue, Pointe Claire (C.R., xlvii, 1 March 1933, 38). He resigned from the Province of Quebec Association of Architects in January 1939 (inf. R.I.B.A., London). Allen died at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England on 3 April 1944.