History | Mervyn Ashmore Smith (11/12/1904–14/3/1994) was born in Sydney and lived much of his childhood with his maternal grandmother and aunts, who very likely encouraged him to develop his drawing and to pursue a career in architecture.
After two years at Newcastle High School, in about 1918 Smith began work as a clerk, taking evening classes in art at the Hamilton Technical College from 1921 to 1923; he won the prize for top student in 1921. From 1925 to 1929 he was apprenticed to Wm. D. Jeater in the architectural firm of Thomas J. Pepper & Jeater and in 1927 began night studies for an architectural diploma at the Newcastle branch of Sydney Technical College, graduating in 1933. From 1930 to 1934 he was employed by several firms as a draftsman, and from 1935 to 1938 as supervising architect for P.J. Gannon, New Lambton, NSW. He then returned to Sydney to work as an architect for the Department of Works and Local Government. He joined the Commonwealth Department of Works in 1941 and was sent to Adelaide; he married the artist Ruth Tuck in 1943.
Smith returned to Newcastle in 1949 as a town planner for the Northumberland County Council, qualifying as a town planner in 1952. In 1953 he returned to Adelaide as an architect for the Department of Works, where he remained until his retirement at the end of 1969.
His early architectural works include the nurses’ home at the M.M. Hospital, Waratah and St Joseph’s Church, Condobolin, both in NSW. When employed by the Department of Works and Local Government he was principally engaged on technical colleges, schools, hospitals and nurses’ homes. In South Australia he designed post offices and telephone exchanges in suburban and rural areas and was project architect for the terminal buildings at Adelaide Airport. Unfortunately, because of government bureaucracy, he was seldom given the opportunity to fully implement his original designs, thus there are relatively few buildings that truly reflect his ideas.
In 1935 he gained a qualification with the Royal Sanitary Institute. He became an Associate of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) in 1938, Fellow in 1970. He qualified as an Associate of the Royal Association of British Architects in 1939 and, later, membership of the Royal Australian Planning Institute. The RAIA (SA Chapter) honoured the significance of his combination of architecture and art with an Award of Merit in 1984. In 1994 his contributions to Australia were belatedly recognised with an Order of Australia Medal.
After his retirement from architecture he devoted all his time to his art and was president of the Royal South Australian Society of Arts from 1967 to 1970. From his first exhibition in 1947 until 1993 his works were shown in numerous solo, joint and group exhibitions and he won many prizes for his watercolours and drawings. His works are part of many permanent public collections in Australia. |