James McLellan Fairley was born in Canada on 29 June 1860. His address was given as Guelph, Wellington, Canada West, Canada in 1861. By 1867 he had moved to Aberdeen, Scotland and was apprenticed to the architect Hippolyte Jean Blanc (1844-1917) in Edinburgh in 1875. He worked as an assistant for five years in the office of J. Maitland Wardrop (1824-1882) and Charles Reid (1828-1883) of Wardrop & Reid, Archibald Macpherson (1851-1928), W. Whybrow Robertson (1845-1907) of H.M. Office of Works in Edinburgh and Arthur George Sydney Mitchell (1856-1930).
Fairley qualified as an architect in 1886 and was elected an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (ARIBA) later that year. He commenced practice as an independent architect in Edinburgh, Scotland in the 1880s. From 1895 he was in partnership with Thomas Greenshields Leadbetter (1859-1931) in the Edinburgh-based architectural firm Leadbetter & Fairley (1895-1909). In 1909 Robert Stirling Reid (1883-1947) became a partner in the practice which was then renamed Leadbetter Fairley & Reid. Fairley died in Inverugie, Scotland on 18 May 1942.
See Dictionary of Scottish Architects 1660-1980 [link below]
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See also entry on Thomas Greenshields Leadbetter
Directory of British Architects 1834-1914. Compiled by Antonia Brodie, et al. Volume 1: A-K. London; New York: British Architectural Library, Royal Institute of British Architects/Continuum, 2001
‘Obituary’. The Builder 5 June 1942 p. 504
‘Obituary’. Architect and Building News 29 May 1942 p. 123