William Pitt

William Pitt architect and politician, was born on 4 June 1855 in Melbourne and served articles as an architect with George Browne. He commenced practice in 1879 and won first prize for his design for the Melbourne Coffee Palace, the city's first temperance hotel.

The most prolific years of Pitt's architectural practice coincided with the boom period in Melbourne and his work, more than anyone else's, reflected the confident exuberance of boom-style architecture. His greatest achievement was probably his redesigning of the Princess Theatre in Spring Street.

A Collingwood city councillor in 1888-94 and mayor in 1890-91, he was a member of the Legislative Council for North Yarra in 1891-1904 and for East Melbourne in 1904-10. In 1891 he had unsuccessfully introduced a private member's bill seeking registration for the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects, of which he had been vice-president in 1887-88.

Having amassed sufficient wealth to fit out an expedition to the Kimberleys after the gold discoveries of 1885 and to have reputedly purchased two million acres (809,380 ha) near Cambridge Gulf, Pitt’s finances were depleted in the financial crisis of the 1890s. Determined to discharge his debts, he continued throughout his parliamentary career to produce architectural plans at great speed, in his later years in partnership with Albion Walkley who had joined him as assistant in 1900. He was in great demand as a theatre architect: as well as Rickard’s Opera House (later the Tivoli Theatre), the Victoria Hall, Her Majesty's, the New Gaiety (Comedy), the Bijou, the Royal and King's theatres in Melbourne, he designed the Theatre Royal in Adelaide, Her Majesty's and the Opera House in Sydney, Her Majesty's, Ballarat, and in New Zealand, theatres in Auckland and Napier, and a Town Hall in Dannevirke. His only Wellington building was the Grand Opera House on Manners Street, which was supervised on site by his brother-in-law, the architect Albert Liddy.

 

Sources:
Langmore, Diane.  “Pitt, William 1855–1918,” Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, accessed 30 July 2012, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/pitt-william-8058/text14061.