Hutchison, William Burnet, 1865-1959

Hutchison, William Burnet, 1865-1959
William Burnet Hutchison was the son of Alexander C. Hutchison, a leading architect in eastern Canada in the latter half of the 19th Century. William B. was born in the town of Westmount and was educated at Montreal High School. He attended McGill University for two years and began work as an apprentice carpenter with Laird, Paten & Sons in 1885. In 1887 his father offered to train him as a draftsman in his busy office of Hutchison & Steele, Architects. He remained with the firm for the next decade, and in July 1898 became a registered member of the Province of Quebec Association of Architects. By the following year he had attained the post of senior assistant in his father’s new firm of Hutchison & Wood, Architects, and for the next 25 years he held the position of Site Supervisor for all outside works by the firm until the death of his father in early January 1922.
At this time, William B. became the successor to his late father‘s practice and continued to work in partnership with George W. Wood who had joined his father’s firm in 1899. Their work included a variety of commercial, industrial, ecclesiastical and residential works in and around Montreal, many of them for English-speaking clients in Westmount, Hampstead, and Hudson Heights, as well as in downtown Montreal.
Prominent examples of their work include Wesley United Church, Notre Dame de Grace Avenue at Royal Avenue, 1926-27; Joseph C. Wray & Bros, Mountain Street, funeral chapel, 1928-29 ; the Trafalgar Apartments, Cote des Neiges Road at The Boulevard, for Joseph Gersovitz, 1930-31; the Guaranteed Pure Milk Company, Aqueduct Street, near Dorchester Boulevard West; and a major addition and alterations to the residence of George Summer, Belvedere Road, Westmount, 1929. By 1942, Hutchison had withdrawn from active practice and in 1952 he died in Montreal at the age of 94.