John Milne

John Milne (1823 - 1904) was a Scottish architect operating throughout the second half of the 19th century, working largely in the Fife area. He was described as an ‘’inventive neo-Jacobean and Scots Baronial designer’’. He exhibited works at the Royal Scottish Academy in the 1860s. He was also an inventor of a pyro-pneumatic grate: a heating system for churches. He self-financed several improvement schemes to the town of St Andrews Life He was born in Fettercairn in the north of Scotland, the son of a joiner and builder. He was apprenticed to John Henderson, an architect in Edinburgh, probably around 1838. He then transferred to the offices of David Bryce, probably around 1845, acting as Clerk of Works on Clatto House, near St Andrews. Milne settled in St Andrews and stayed there for the remainder of his life, operating from an office at 81 Market Street. At the time of the Disruption of the Church of Scotland, Milne ‘’came out’’ and left the established church to join the Free Church of Scotland. Thereafter many of his commissions came from the Free Church. The majority of his works are within Fife other than a small handful in his native town of Fettercairn. In the mid 19th century he did several extension schemes for Leith Docks in combination with R & R Dickson.