George Mathewson: A Far-travelled Dundee Architect

Abstract

The Dictionary of Scottish Architects attracts users from all over the world. In 2010 information sent from Darwin, Australia led to new research being undertaken on the life and career of the Dundee architect George Mathewson who disappeared from records in Dundee in the early 1850s and was thought to have died young: however, the information from Australia proved otherwise. Mathewson's story is linked to the history of Dundee in the nineteenth century: the growth of the town, its importance as a port and the development of its railway links. When the Dictionary of Scottish Architects1 became available online in 2006, noone anticipated how many times the database would be interrogated (now over seven million times) and how many professional researchers and academics, genealogists and local historians, planners, museum curators, journalists and other users from all over the world would send in new information, corrections and questions.2 This paper shows how an enquiry received from the other side of the world helped make sense of the fragmentary information the Dictionary previously held on one Dundee architect, George Mathewson, suggesting new lines of research and thus enabling a re-assessment of his work.