Francis Lorne was born in Falkirk, Scotland on 30 March 1889 and was articled to Thomas Mair Copland (1866-1942) in Falkirk from 1905 to 1910. He also attended Falkirk School of Art from 1905 to 1910 and Glasgow School of Art in 1910-11. After completing his articles he worked as an assistant to John James Burnet (1857-1938) in Glasgow in 1910; to Banister Flight Fletcher (1866-1953) and Herbert Phillips Fletcher (1872-1916) of Banister Fletcher & Sons in London in 1911-12; and in H. M. Office of Works in London in 1912-13.
During the years 1913 and 1930 he lived at worked at various times in the USA and Canada. In New York he was employed in the offices of Cross & Cross and Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue and in Montreal he worked for Frederick Garfield Robb.
In World War One he served with the Canadian Engineers. By August 1930 he had returned to London where he formed a partnership with Burnet and Thomas Smith Tait (1882-1954) as Sir John Burnet, Tait & Lorne. Lorne subsequently remained with the firm until it was dissolved in c.1948. Burnet had died in 1938 and he and Tait had run the practice up until then.
During the late 1930s, Lorne spent some time in South Africa and in 1947 he returned to the country and formed a partnership with Kenneth Birch (1914-2010) as Lorne & Birch in Johannesburg. He subsequently remained in South Africa where he worked on a number of industrial and housing projects, particularly for mining concerns.
He died in Salisbury, Rhodesia [now Harare, Zimbabwe] in June 1963
Architectural projects by Lorne included Hampsted Golf Clubhouse in Hampstead, London (1931); Mount Royal Flats in London (1932); Buchanan Hotel in Glasgow (1933); Curzon Cinema in Mayfair, London (1933); flats in Berner Street, Stepney, London (1934); Chelsea House Flats in Chelsea, London (1934); Howard Hall Masonic Temple in Braintree, Essex (1934); Evelyn Court in Hackney, London (1934); Ey Infirmary in Glasg ow (1935); German Hospital in London (1935); Steel House in Westminster, London (1935); St. Dunstans Hospital in Ovingdean, East Sussex (1937); residence of the Marques and Marquesa de Casa Maury in London (1937); British Linen Bank in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland (1938); Wilberforce Housing Estate in Battersea, London (1938); Ecclesfield Town Modern School in Ecclesfield, Yorkshire (1939); 650 concrete houses for the Scottish Special Housing Association in Rosyth, Fife, Scotland (1941); Joseph Triton School in Battersea, London (1947); and a bakery and store in Plymouth, Devon.
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See also entry on Sir John Burnet Tait & Lorne
‘Buttersteep House, Ascot’ [Architect: Francis Lorne]. Country Life 2 January 1947 pp. 24-27
‘Buttersteep House, Ascot’ [Architect: Francis Lorne] Architect & Building News 16 January 1942 pp. 55-59
Directory of British Architects 1834-1914. Compiled by Antonia Brodie, et al. Volume 2: L-Z. London; New York: British Architectural Library, Royal Institute of British Architects/Continuum, 2001
Fox, Thomas N. ‘Francis Lorne 1889-1963’. The Thirties Society Journal no.6, 1987 pp.26-31
‘Pearl Assurance Building, Salisbury’ [Office of Francis Lorne]
‘St. Dunstan's Home, Ovingdean; Architect: Francis Lorne, of Sir John Burnet Tait & Lorne, a convalescent and holiday home for blind ex-servicemen of the last world war’. Architectural Review May 1939 p. 247