William Henry Playfair

(1789-1857)
Architect

Son of the London architect James Playfair and nephew of John Playfair, Professor
at the University of Edinburgh first of Mathematics (1785-1805) and then of Natural Philosophy (1805-1819), William Henry Playfair was born in London and came to live
with his uncle in Edinburgh in 1794. He built up a considerable private practice as an architect, and was engaged to lay out part of the New Town. From 1817 to 1824 he redesigned the University's college building in South Bridge, having won the competition to complete what had begun in 1789 to the design of Robert Adam and had been left unfinished at the outbreak of the war with France. He went on to design many other public buildings in Edinburgh, in the Gothic as well as in the classical style.

On his death, his trustees presented 5,062 of his drawings to the University, where they are held in the University Library. They have been joined in recent years by other collections of Edinburgh architects and planners, notably by those of Sir Robert Lorimer, Sir Robert Mathew, Sir Rowand Anderson who designed the McEwan Hall and the Medical School in Teviot Place, and who designed the dome which crowned Adam's and Playfair's Old College building, and of Percy Johnson-Marshall, Professor of Urban Design and Regional Planning.