Ross, Donald Aynsley

ROSS, Donald Aynsley (1877-1956), a native of Winnipeg, was born on 5 October 1878, son of Arthur W. Ross, a lawyer and provincial politician. Ross was educated at Upper Canada College and studied mining engineering at the University of Toronto where he graduated in 1898. He worked as a mining engineer in British Columbia for two years, then joined the Canadian Northern Railway in 1901 as a locating and terminal engineer. It was in the Winnipeg offices of the Railway that he met Ralph B. Pratt, who had also joined the company in 1901 as staff architect. In 1906 they formed a partnership in Winnipeg and became one of the busiest and most successful architectural firms in western Canada, sustaining their practise for more than forty years (see list of works under Pratt & Ross). Ross brought his knowledge and skills as an engineer to the partnership, enabling it to provide both architectural and engineering services to major clients such as the Winnipeg Street Railway Co., the Stanley Brewing Co. and the Canadian Northern Railway Co. Ross also took an interest in the 'city beautiful' movement in Winnipeg, serving as chairman of the aesthetic development committee of the Winnipeg Town Planning Commission. He was a respected member of the Engineering Inst. of Canada, and was elected president of the Manitoba Association of Architects in 1924. When the partnership of Pratt & Ross was dissolved in 1945 Ross continued to work as a consultant to the City of Winnipeg and advised the city on the revision of the City Building Code. He died in Winnipeg on 1 April 1956 (obit. Winnipeg Free Press, 2 April 1956, 5; Winnipeg Tribune, 3 April 1956, 24; biog. Who's Who in Western Canada, 1911, 329-30; Manitoba: Pictorial & Biographical, 1913, ii, 14-17; biog. and port. F.H. Schofield, Story of Manitoba, 1913, 581-3)