Burrell Douglas

BURRELL Douglas(1835–1873) was born in Surrey, England, fourth of five sons of John Burrell (1798–1870), architect, and Sophia Thornhill. His elder brother John Fletcher Burrell (1824–1890) was also an architect and younger brother Octavius, a ‘landscape artist’. Douglas Burrell may have trained with his father before working from c1859 for three years as ‘head assistant architect’ to the London architects, Stent & Laver, Thomas Stent (1882–1912) & Augustus Laver (1834–1898), whose design was selected in 1859 for the East and West Buildings in the Parliamentary precinct, Ottawa, Canada and who came second in 1861 to WH Lynn (1829–1915) of Dublin in a competition for new premises for the New South Wales Parliament. In 1864, they forwarded construction photographs of the Canadian buildings when applying to enter a competition for Queensland’s Parliament House. By then, Burrell was in Brisbane where he arrived in September 1863 and worked as Chief Assistant to William COOTE, architect for Brisbane’s Town Hall. By late 1865, Coote’s finances were in disarray and in March 1866 he was declared insolvent. Unemployed, Burrell moved to Toowoomba by June 1866 where he commenced private practice. With economic conditions deteriorating, he was unsuccessful and by 1868 moved to Sydney where he died in 1873, aged only 38. His youngest son, Henry James Burrell (1873–1945) became the foremost authority of the platypus.