WILLIAM
LEIPERBORN and educated in Glasgow, and trained in the office of Messrs. Boucher & Cousland there, Mr. Leiper afterwards spent some time under Mr. Pearson, R.A., and Mr. William White, F.S.A., in London. He settled in practice for himself in Glasgow about 1864, at first in partnership. Dunbarton Town Hall and Academy was the first joint work of the firm, then Mr. Leiper himself built Dowanhill Church, and the partnership was dissolved. The design for Dowanhill Church was one of those selected by the Royal Institute to send to the Paris International Exhibition in 1867. A long series of churches and mansions followed, all more or less influenced by the Gothic revival. Specimens of his churches are to be seen at Whiteinch, Camphill, Lanark, and Brechin. Then in the style of François Premier came Partick Burgh Hall and the mansions of the Elms, Arbroath, Cairndhu, Helensburgh, and Cornhill, Lanarkshire. In the seventies came the influence of the Scottish Baronial or Domestic style of the seventeenth century, and examples are Colearn and Ruthven Tower at Auchterarder, Dalmore at Helensburgh, and the unexecuted design for Earnock, in Lanarkshire. The designs for Colearn and Earnock were both exhibited at the Royal Academy. That of Earnock is a perspective in pen and ink by his own hand, and is hung at the Royal Scottish Academy as Mr. Leiper's diploma work on his election to the R.S.A. About this time he designed the palace portions of the Czar's famous yacht Livadia. In the following years he designed among other houses Kinloch Moidart, in Inverness-shire, Moredun at Paisley, and Kelly House at Wemyss Bay; and among his later churches may be cited Hyndlands, based upon the style of the early Scottish churches. More recent specimens of his work are to be seen in the Venetian Gothic of Messrs. Templeton's carpet factory at Glasgow Green, of red brick, terra cotta, and coloured Mosaic, and the renaissance block of offices for the Sun Insurance Company at the corner of Renfield Street and West George Street. A silver medal was awarded Mr. Leiper for this design at the Paris International Exhibition of 1900. Ruyton Park, Shropshire, and Langarth, Stirling, are examples of his work. The William Black Memorial, near Oban, was erected from his designs. Examples of his art work are also to be seen in the stained glass of several of his churches. The designing of the decoration of the Banqueting Hall in the Municipal Chambers was entrusted to him, and was carried out under his direction. His most recent architectural work has been the designing of the mansion of Ballimore, Loch Fyne, the mansion of Glendaruel, and the new church of St. James, Kilmacolm.
Mr. Leiper was elected Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1881, Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy ten years later, and Royal Scottish Academician in 1896.