Williamson, Henry Rochead 1885 - 1955

Henry Rochead Williamson [also known as H. Rochead Williamson] was born in Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland on 18 January [or 22 May - sources differ] 1855. He was articled to Henry Francis Kerr (1855-1946) in Edinburgh from c.1901 to 1903, and to James Bow Dunn (1861-1930) in Edinburgh from 1903 to c.1908. He then remained with Dunn for a further period as an improver. He worked as a draughtsman with George Washington Browne (1853-1939) in Edinburgh in 1909-10, and Charles Clegg & Son and Fryers & Penman in Edinburgh in 1910-11.  From 1912 to 1914 he was a junior partner with Alexander Hunter Crawford (1865-1945) in the firm Hunter Crawford & Williamson in Edinburgh.

After serving in the Army during World War One, he briefly worked as a draughtsman at H. M. Office of Works in 1920. He resumed his partnership with Hunter, Crawford & Williamson in 1921 and remained with them until the partnership was dissolved with the outbreak of World War Two in 1939. Concurrently with his partnership with Crawford, between the late 1920s and mid-1930s Williamson was also in partnership with the architect and engineer Walter Hepburn Wainwright (1872-1948) in Edinburgh as Wainwright & Williamson. During World War Two (1939-1945), Williamson worked in the Surveyors' Department of the Air Ministry Works & Buildings Department, and in the War Damages Department.  

Williamson was belatedly admitted a Licentiate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (LRIBA) in 1946. Throughout his career as an architect as an architect he lived and had offices in Edinburgh where he died on 17 January 1955.