Arnold Dunbar Smith was born in Islington, London, England on 2 December 1866. He was articled to John George Gibbins (1843-1932) in Brighton, Sussex in 1883. He also attended Brighton School of Art, and the Architectural Association Schools and the Royal Academy Schools in London. Between 1884 and 1896 he worked as an assistant to various architects.
Smith commenced independent practice an architect in London in 1895. That year he and fellow architect Cecil Claude Brewer (1871-1918) won a limited competition for the design of a new building for the settlement in Tavistock Place, Bloomsbury (built in 1896-97). Following the success of this project, the pair formed a partnership, Smith & Brewer, that lasted until Brewer's death in 1918. Smith continued the practise until his own death twenty years later.
Smith was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British architects (FRIBA) in 1906.
His address was given as 28 Theobald's Road, London in 1896 and 1897; Kinsbury Knole, Verulam Road, St. Albans, Hertfordshire in 1906; 2 Grays Inn Square, London in 1906 and 1914; 6 Queen Square, Bloomsbury, London in 1923 and 1932. He died in Bournemouth, Dorset on 7 December 1933.
Works by Smith & Brewer included Passmore Edwards Settlement Buildings [now Mary Ward House], Tavistock Place, Bloomsbury, London (1895-98); additions to Royal Hospital, Kew Foot Road, Richmond, Surrey (1896); East Anglian Sanatorium, Nayland, near Colchester, Essex (c.1898); Little Barley End and stables. Aldbury, Hertfordshire (c.1900); Ditton Place, near Balcombe, Sussex (1904); Acremead, Froghole, near Crockham Hill, Kent (1906); interiors of Ely House, 37 Dover Street, Mayfair, London (1908); The Fives Court, Pinner, London (1908); chapel, East Anglian Sanatorium, Nayland, near Colchester, Essex (1909); The Malting House, Malting Lane, Cambridge (1909); National Museum of Wales, Civic Centre, Cardiff (1910-c.1912); and Heal's Furniture Store, 196-199 Tottenham Court Road, London (c.1914-16).
See also
Source of Illustrations
Armstrong, Barrie and Armstrong, Wendy. The Arts and Crafts movement in the North East of England: a handbook. Wetherby, England: Oblong 2013
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
Gray, A. Stuart. Edwardian architecture: a biographical dictionary. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., Ltd., 1985
'Obituary'. The Builder vol. 145, 15 December 1933 p. 958
‘Obituary. A. Dunbar Smith.' RIBA Journal December 23, 1933 pp. 200-201.
Stamp, Gavin. The English House 1860-1914. Catalogue of an exhibition of photographs and drawings. London: InternationalArchitect and the Building Centre Trust, 1980 pp. 62-63