Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720 - 1940

Architect, of Belfast and London. William Blackwood Blackwood was born in Belfast in 1876, the second son of James Taylor Blackwood, later a borough magistrate for Belfast and managing director of the Ulster Bank. After attending the Methodist College, Belfast, he served an apprenticeship with YOUNG & YOUNG & amp; MACKENZIE MACKENZIE . He set up in practice with PERCY MORGAN JURY  PERCY MORGAN JURY as BLACKWOOD & BLACKWOOD & amp; JURY in 1900. While the architectural practice of Blackwood & Jury continued to operate from 41 Donegall Place, Belfast, from its beginnings until the late 1960s, Blackwood himself moved to London in the mid-1920s.



Blackwood died in 1951 at the Braeside Hotel in Weybridge, Surrey.  His wife, Henrietta Lilian, daughter of William Paul Metchin, of London, whom he had married in 1904, appears to have predeceased him, and the bulk of his estate was left to his adopted daughter, Ivy Chrisholm.(1)



RIAI: elected member, 4 November 1901, having been proposed by MATTHEW ALEXANDER ROBINSON MATTHEW ALEXANDER ROBINSON , seconded by NICHOLAS FITZSIMONS  NICHOLAS FITZSIMONS and WILLIAM JOHN GILLILAND WILLIAM JOHN GILLILAND ;(1) membership lapsed, 1915; reinstated, 1924 or 1925;(2) resigned, 1932.(3)



Addresses: Work: 41 Donegall Place, Belfast, 1900->=1915; 8 Prince's Street, Westminster, <=1926->=1932.

Home: 30 Elmwood Avenue, Belfast, 1909; 5 Deramore Park South, 1911;(4)  Ebony Grange, Deramore Road South, Belfast, 1924.(5)



See WORKS; see also works of BLACKWOOD & BLACKWOOD & amp; JURY.



References

All information in this entry not otherwise accounted for is from R.M. Young, Belfast and the Province of Ulster in the 20th Century (1909), 598, which is illustrated with a portrait photograph, and RIAI lists of members. The date of Blackwood's death is from Paul Robert Millar's dissertation for the RIBA on aspects of Blackwood & Jury's early work (information from C.E.B. Brett).

(1) Photostat copy of will, 7 Oct 1949, in PRONI, D2672/3/13 (see PRONI e-catalogue).
(2) RIAI minutes of general meeting, 4 Nov 1901.
(3) JRIAI (1925), 7.
(4) JRIAI (1933), 8.
(4) Paul Larmour, The Architectural Heritage of Malone & Stranmillis (UAHS, 1991), 54,55(illus.).
(5) Irish Times, 11 Aug 1924.