George Gordon Macfarlane was born in Glasgow on 22 March 1885 and studied engineering and a range of other subjects at Glasgow University in Glasgow, Scotland. After graduating in 1906 he attended Glasgow School of Architecture and Glasgow School of Art. until 1909 During this period he was also a pupil of Sir John James Burnet (1857-1938) in Glasgow.
After leaving Burnet in 1910 he made a six-months study tour of Italy. Following his return, he joined the office of W. J. Parker in London for whom he worked as an assistant until 1913. fFom November 1913 to April 1914 Macfarlane was engaged as architect to the Wellcome archaeological expeditions in the Sudan. After war service, in which he was severely wounded in the British Army’s Gallipoli Campaign in April 1915, and was awarded a Military Cross for gallantry, he returned to London and set up his own architectural practice in 1919.
In 1925 he was appointed chief architect to the brewers Watney Combe Reid & Co. He subsequently designed several buildings for the firm. Macfarlane practice also included domestic and institutional work. In 1930 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA).
In addition to his work as an architect, Macfarlane was the author of several novels, including The Deep End (1927), The Magic Circle (1933) and Ana the Runner (1937), which he wrote using the pseudonym Patrick Miller. He died on the island of Capri in January 1949.
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 [Note: name given as George G. McFarlane]
'Obituary' The Builder vol. 176, 14 January 1949 p. 78