Eimer 1323, BHM 1884.
68mm. Silver. 188.4g. By B. Wyon after J. Noel Paton.
Royal Scottish Academy of Painting, Sculpture & Architecture silver award medal. Obverse with a tripod on which rests a laurel branch with legend around, reverse with a kneeling figure of Mercury supporting a lighted lamp, with Pegasus standing on rim. Edge engraved 'James Miller - Elected Academician MCMXXX'.
About Uncirculated and housed in fitted case of issue. An incredibly impressive medal, awarded to an incredibly impressive architect, and very rare in silver.
James Miller FRSE FRIBA FRIAS RSA (1860–1947) was a Scottish architect, recognised for his commercial architecture in Glasgow and for his Scottish railway stations. Notable among these are the American-influenced Union Bank building at 110–20 St Vincent Street; his 1901–1905 extensions to Glasgow Central railway station; and Wemyss Bay railway station on the Firth of Clyde. His lengthy career resulted in a wide range of building types, and, with the assistance of skilled draughtsmen such as Richard M Gunn, he adapted his designs to changing tastes and new architectural materials and technologies.
In 1892, having won the competition to design Belmont Church in Hillhead, he set up in full-time practice on his own account and rented an office at 223 West George Street, Glasgow. His experience of railway work brought commissions in 1894 from his prior employer Caledonian Railway for 'chalet-style' stations on the West Highland Line. In 1901, his designs were followed during construction of the Mallaig Extension Railway by Sir Robert McAlpine using mass concrete. He also designed the Scottish Jacobean-style St Enoch subway station for the Glasgow District Subway Company and two major railway hotels, Turnberry Hotel and Gleneagles Hotel.
In 1910, he won the competition to design the headquarters of the Institution of Civil Engineers at One Great George Street in London's Westminster, together with the adjacent matching extension to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, which were built of Portland stone in a neo-Baroque style.
In 1937 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Magnus Mowat, Sir Thomas Hudson Beare, Sir Thomas Henry Holland, John Barber Todd and Sir Alexander Gibb. He exhibited at the RSA from 1890 until 1944, he became an Associate Member of the RSA in 1906 and an Academician in 1930.
Miller died on 28 November 1947 at Randolphfield, Stirling, which had been his home since 1911.