Red 25 - Principal Assistant, Imperial War Graves Commission, EA

Worked in Transvaal PWD before 1910

https://www.artefacts.co.za CUNNINGHAM, Samuel Baikie:
LRIBA (1911); ATA; TPIA (1927); ISAA (1927).
Was working as an architect in the PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT in Pretoria from about 1908 and was part of the PWD team, with C BRADFORD and H SIEMERINK, working on the Union Buildings in Pretoria. Cunningham was appointed the Middelburg representative of the practice committee of the Association of Transvaal Architects in 1917, having served in the Miscellaneous Trades Company during the First World War. In 1920 he returned to Pretoria, rejoined the Public Works Department and was appointed Inspector of Buildings in that year before being appointed to the Imperial War Graves Commission in France. On his return to South Africa he was employed by the Public Works Department as an assistant district engineer. By the time he retired from public service in 1938 he was living in Port Elizabeth. In 1959 he is recorded as being of Arcadia Villa, Broadbent Street Wolmaransstad, then Transvaal, where he still is recorded as retired member in 1969. He retired as an architect in 1961. Cunningham wrote an illuminating account for the Pretoria News (Oct 25 1955) of his work on the Union Buildings in which he recalled some of Baker's intentions and influence.
His address in 1959 is listed as Orcadia Villa, Broadbent Street, (Box 3), Wolmaransstad, Transvaal. (ISAA Yearbook, 1959)
(Jnl ATA Jun 1917:74; Ploeger 1963; PSL 1926, 1934; PWD ar 1918) Publ: Architect envisaged Peace Temple for Union Buildings, Pta News Oct 25, 1955.