Day, Mark Cooper

DAY, Mark Cooper jnr (1855–1933) was born in Croydon, Surrey, England, son of a builder of the same name, and Caroline Elizabeth Harman. After working as a builder’s assistant (perhaps as a quantity surveyor and presumably for his father), he was articled to the Croydon architect, John Berney (1822–1903). In 1877, he commenced practice at Croydon, Surrey. By December 1882, he was in Sydney advertising as a ‘qualified quantity surveyor’ to take off qualities and prepare estimates for builders, but he was also a capable designer and was soon calling tenders. In 1883 after JJ CLARK was appointed Queensland Colonial Architect, Day drafted Clark’s successful entry in the Brisbane Town Hall competition, possibly working in Brisbane while GC CLARK looked after Day’s office in Sydney. After CLARK BROS was announced the winner, Day came to Brisbane in February 1884, probably to document the design but possibly also to open Clark Bros office. He soon returned to his Sydney practice as both an architect and quantity surveyor. Day took off quantities for southern tenderers for JJ CLARK’s Brisbane’s Public Offices in 1884 and Customs House in June 1886 and was later commissioned for two major buildings in North Queensland, the Royal Arcade, Charters Towers, and the North Qld Insurance Co offices, Townsville, both built by the Sydney contractors Sandbrook Bros. In Sydney, he designed Gowan Brae, built in 1886-89 for the former North Queensland businessman Sir James Burns (founder of Burns, Philp & Co.) and now occupied by the Junior School of the King’s School. In 1913 he entered partnership with Henry Austin Wilshire (1860–1923) as HA Wilshire & Day. Following Wilshire’s death in 1923, this practice merged with a partnership of Day’s architect son, Harry Cooper Day (1885–1925) and Charles Rosenthal (1875–1954) and continued as Sir Charles Rosenthal & Day until HC Day’s accidental death in 1925. MC Day was living at Bond Street, Sydney when he died in Sydney Hospital on 10 May 1933. In 1885, MC Day married Blanche Evelyn Montagu (1867–1947) who was appointed in 1894 to the New South Wales Public Health Department, becoming a well-known sanitary inspector and protector of children. Towards the end of World War 1, she conceived of the idea of Furlough House, Narrabean, offering rest and respite to ex-servicemen and their families. The buildings were designed by Wilshire & Day. After she retired in 1922, she went to London where she served as an official hostess in the Overseas League. She died in Sydney. After serving in the First World War, their second son, Frank Harmer Day (1893–1967) was a film censor before moving to New York and Hollywood where he worked for Fox Films, re-editing films for distribution to Latin America and elsewhere.