SAMUEL MACLURE
Canadian 1860-1929

His wife Margaret Catherine Maclure

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The well-known British Columbia architect and painter Samuel Maclure was born in Sapperton, New Westminster in 1860 to John and Martha Maclure. He studied painting at the Spring Garden School of Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 1884-1885.  He was also a self-taught architect of over 450 commissions and is best known for his Tudor Revival and Craftsman style houses in New Westminster, Vancouver, and Victoria. He was the foremost domestic architect of his time and known for open plans and two-storey central halls using native materials and local construction techniques.

Samuel Maclure married the accomplished pianist and portrait painter Margaret Catherine (Daisy) and the couple were founding members of the Vancouver Island Arts and Crafts Society in 1909. Samuel was also a consultant to the Butchart Gardens near Victoria where he designed many of the famous historic buildings as well as several additions to the residence Benvenuto.

Maclure painted extensively, documenting the local landscape and indigenous portraiture in watercolour. He was published in Canadian Illustrated News (Montreal) August 20, 1881, and Studio Magazine (London) XLV (1909) 122-4. He exhibited with the Royal Canadian Academy in 1906, and his work is represented in the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Maltwood Art Museum at the University of Victoria, and the Public Archives of British Columbia. His architectural plans and drawings are held in the University of Victoria Architecture and Special Collections (Samuel Maclure fonds). He died in Victoria in 1929.