WATERS, Spencer

Architect

Waters practised mainly as a quantity surveyor; he was active in partnership with JC TULLY in Cape Town and Johannesburg from 1897. He served articles with Messrs Dyer of Alton and London, specialists in large country houses, from 1880 until 1885. On completion of articles he stayed on as assistant in the firm, taking charge of the office until 1894. The practice specialised in large country houses. He left Britain in 1895 and arrived in South Africa the same year, engaged as assistant to Sydney STENT, FRIBA, in Cape Town. In 1897 he entered into partnersip with JC TULLY in Cape Town (cf. TULLY & WATERS), a firm earnest in their efforts to encourage professional standards of work in the Cape and set about it by organising and adjudicating one of a series of competitions for students, the one (1906) being entitled Garden village near a colonial city.

In 1908 Waters left for the Transvaal to supervise the erection of the proposed municipal abattoirs in Johannesburg, won in competition by Tully & Waters, the project was later abandoned but Waters remained in the Transvaal. Waters had also worked in partnership as TULLY, WATERS, CLELAND & PPENTLAND SMITH on the competition for Natal University College which they won in 1910, the old Main Building of the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg campus. In 1910 he was employed as temporary staff in the Architectural branch of the PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT in Pretoria; his obituary says that both after the Anglo-Boer War and again about 1913 he was employed by the PWD as a quantity surveyor where he was said to be largely responsible for the survey of quantities of the principle Government buildings including the Union Buildings, the University College and high schools in Pretoria. He seems to have been in practice on his own account by 1915 in Pretoria which took him to various parts of the Union. Shortly before his death he completed the quantities of the Pretoria Hospital for Infectious Diseases in association with Tom MOORE of the Pretoria Technical College. Waters lived latterly at Highbury, Beckett St, Arcadia in Pretoria where he died.

LRIBA 1910. (ISAA mem list; LRIBA nom papers (1910); RIBA Jnl 1931-32:25 obit; SAA&B Aug 1904 bus dir; SAA&B Nov 1906 bus dir; SAA&B May 1905:157; UTD 1915)

All truncated references not fully cited in 'References' are those of Joanna Walker's original text and cited in full in the 'Bibliography' entry of the Lexicon.

List of projects

With photographs
With notes

Newlands Rugby Grounds and Stand: c. 1920. Cape Town, Western Cape - Architect *

Books citing WATERS

Brodie, Antonia (Editor). 1993. Directory of British Architects, 1834-1914: Vol. 2 (L-Z). London: Mansell. pp 927

Radford, D. 1979. The architecture of the Western Cape, 1838-1901. A study of the impact of Victorian aesthetics and technology on South African architecture. Johannesburg: Unpublished Ph.D thesis. Dept of Arch. University of the Witwatersrand. pp 137

Walker, Michael. 2010. Simon's Town : An historical review with early postcard illustrations. Cape Town: Michael Walker. pp 29