Peter John Wilson

Peter John Wilson was born on 4 May 1869 in Melbourne,[1] the second son of Peter John Wilson (1840-1911), a lawyer, and Elizabeth Jane (née McGuire).[1][2] He had four siblings.[1] They grew up at Boa Vista, a family residence in Kensington, a suburb of Melbourne.[1] His mother died in June 1878, when he was nine years old.[1] After his father remarried, to a woman named Mary, he had two additional half-siblings.[1] They lived at Royal Park Villa in Melbourne.[1] The family was hurt by the economic recession of the 1890s.[1]

He served as an apprentice for other architects, including William Pitt (1855–1918), when he was designing the Princess Theatre in Melbourne.[1] He then became an Associate of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects in June 1892.[1] To escape the eastern economic recession, he moved to Western Australia, settling down in Fremantle.[1][3] In 1892, he advised the architectural team on the addition of the proscenium to the Fremantle Town Hall.[1][4][5]

He designed a shop on Packenham Street in Fremantle for Cruickshank & Co. in 1894 and a cottage and shop in Rockingham for Mr J. Bell in 1895.[1] That same year, in 1895, he also designed two-storey shops on High Street, Fremantle opposite the Town Hall[6] as well as private residences in Beaconsfield, Fremantle and Cottesloe.[1] Additionally, he designed the brewery and cellars for the Fremantle Brewing Company and cottages on Gordon Street in Perth.[1]

The Melbourne Hotel in Perth

In 1896, he was commissioned by investor John De Baun (1852-1912) to design the Melbourne Hotel on the corner of Hay Street and Melbourne Street (now known as Milligan Street), in Perth.[1][7][8] He also designed the former grandstand of the West Australian Cricket Association.[1][9] A year later, in 1897, he designed a shop and offices on the corner of corner Market and Bannister streets in Fremantle for Holmes Bros & Co.[1]

In the early 1900s, he became a farmer in Cannington, Western Australia and was appointed a member of the Canning Drainage Board,[10] as well as joining the Canning Agricultural and Horticultural Society.[1]

Wilson died in Drummoyne, an inner western suburb of Sydney on 21 February 1918.[11][12]

He married Sarah Owston, the daughter of Benjamin Mason and widow of William Owston, in 1893 in Fremantle.[1][13] They had four children: Peter John (Jack) in 1894, Esther Enid in 1895, Doris Day in 1897, and Frederick Gladstone in 1899.[1] Both his sons died in action during World War I.[14] He later moved to New South Wales, where he died in February 1918.