Davidson, Alex & Co

DAVIDSON, Alex & Co, was a company formed at Geelong, Victoria by the former Edinburgh architect, Alexander Davidson (1839–1908). Davidson was born at Edinburgh, son of Samuel Davidson, a master spirit dealer, and Mary Kennedy. By 1861, he was listed as an architect having studied at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh. His family had moved to Inverness and he was lodging with an uncle and working for the architect, John Henderson (1804–1862). Davidson migrated in 1864 to Victoria, where in 1865 he married his cousin, Euphemia Cooper Davidson. In 1867 he was joined in Victoria by a fellow pupil, John Henderson’s son, George Henderson (1846–1905) which whom he practised as Davidson & Henderson at Geelong from late 1869 until 1876 when Henderson returned to Edinburgh to enter partnership with William Hay (1818–88) as Hay & Henderson, a well-known firm. An early work of Davidson & Henderson was the constructional polychrome Geelong College. In 1877 Davidson practised as a limited liability company, Alex Davidson & Co. reflecting a prior history of losses in speculative developments and contractual disputes. Despite ill-will generated by a rival’s public criticism and contractual clauses prohibiting referral of disputes to arbitration, he was reasonably successful with a branch in Melbourne, but partnerships with Edmund George Ovey (1850–1936) in 1881 and GR JOHNSON were only short lived. Following deferral of a hall for the Colac Shire, he left Geelong. In early 1885, he relocated to Brisbane where the company commenced practice as architects and surveyors in the Australian Chambers, Queen St, Brisbane. J Hill KAYS, a fellow Scot and an employee may have moved with him, but shortly afterwards Davidson was appointed architect for the Melbourne Tramway Trust and returned to Victoria. He died in Melbourne.