Design and Art Australia Online

Designer, architectural renderings, architect, landscape architect John Oldham , son of Charles Lancelot Oldham , son of James Oldham , and Susan Hoyle 'Dolly’ Russell , daughter of the Fremantle harbour master Commodore Charles Robert Tylden Russell , was born in Perth in 1907. His father was a noted architect and designer of the Esplanade Hotel in Fremantle, Fremantle Markets and many other buildings. His mother was an accomplished artist educated in England, France and Germany. The boy was encouraged to draw and paint from an early age. His father died when John was eleven years old and a boarder at Guildford Grammar School. In 1924 he was apprenticed to the practice his father had owned – by then Oldham Boas. Here he learnt perspective and became very good at rendering. In 1927 he exhibited with the West Australian Society of Arts. His exhibits were “Three Imaginative Designs”. They were not for sale. In 1928 he moved to work for Rodney Alsop who had won the competition to design the University of Western Australia. When the university was completed Oldham went to Melbourne under Alsop’s patronage to do a year of architecture at his atelier. Alsop encouraged his staff to be creative. When Olham returned from Melbourne at the end of the Great Depression of 1929-35 he turned his hand to poster design and with Harold Krantz opened 'Poster Studios’. He discovered he had a facility in this regard. His West Australian first posters were “displayed everywhere”. He and Harold embraced contemporary architecture and formed a partnership. In 1933 he exhibited watercolours Wheat Ships and After the Rain with the West Australian Society of Arts and Coal Hulks with the Perth Society of Artists.

In 1937 John married Ruby Gertrude (Ray) McClintock a radical thinker and journalist who was instrumental in him joining the Communist Party. He inherited some money and they moved to Sydney where he worked for the Communist Party and the architectural firm Stephenson and Turner and then the Commonwealth Department of the Interior. In Sydney in 1938 he was associate editor of the Communist Review.

John Oldham was part of a team for the Australian exhibit at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. He was the designer of the exhibit whilst Douglas Annand designed the brochure. This prefabricated display was set up in the Commonwealth of Nations Building and was highly commended by the judges. Oldham and his wife undertook a study tour to Canada and USA to attend the opening and had the opportunity to see works by, and meet many of the influential figures in the Modern Art movement as well as studying exhibition-display methods and modern architecture. They were very impressed with the social quality of Roosevelt’s 'New Deal’, which they saw in operation. Whilst they were on their way back to Australia war was declared and the Communist Party was made illegal. They threw all their literature and John’s work notes over the side of the ship to avoid future problems.

Ray became pregnant and the pair decided to return to Western Australia arriving in May 1940. John joined Harold Krantz Architects as a partner. The firm designed large blocks of modern flats and Oldham also did watercolour renditions for Oldham Boas and other architects.

Life was a little difficult. John was neglecting his architectural practice for work for the communist party making the partnership untenable and because of his left views former friends often snubbed him. The family were also under observation by a Special Bureau of the Criminal Investigation Bureau, which was monitoring Communist sympathisers. John Oldham was considered a leading communist in Western Australia, as he was the Chairman of the Budget Protest Committee, an organisation that was a front for the party at the time of its illegality. They also joined the Workers’ Art Guild, which was involved in theatre, and art education for working-class people. John became a committee member. The family moved to Sydney in 1941 just before restriction orders on them were to be implemented and where they worked actively for the Communist Party. In 1946 John also became President of the Studio of Realist Art founded by Roy Delgarno. Significantly they became enthusiastic gardeners at this time. During WWII Oldham worked for the Department of the Interior and became friendly with 'Nugget’ Coombs going on to work for his Department of Post-War Reconstruction. Oldham was Chairman of the Inter-Departmental Exhibitions Committee organising a number of displays. He was the Designer/Exhibition Director of the Australian display at the 1947 British Empire Exhibition held in Sydney.

By 1950 he worked for Van Dyke, builders of pre-fabricated houses, and later headed the architectural and town planning drawing office of the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Authority; designing construction towns, power stations and mobile housing. Ray had been researching English and American garden design and John became particularly interested in the work of F. L. Omstead, the designer of New York’s Central Park. Both, although committed to socialist ideology, became less interested in 'the party’ machine and channelled their energy into developing a new design discipline in Australia – called landscape architecture. John designed his first garden for their home at Baulkham Hills and discovered colonial gardens of the English School. In 1953 John finally had time to qualify as an architect in New South Wales. They returned to Western Australia in 1954 where John had been offered work by the architectural firm Oldham Boas and then had a nervous breakdown. He decided to specialize in landscape architecture and became a full-time landscape architect. In 1956 he worked for the Government Housing Commission designing the gardens for the Wandana Flats and undertook private commissions. In 1959 Oldham joined the Public Works Department with the proviso that he was allowed to undertake some private work. Most of his early work for the Public Works Department was on schools and hospitals. Projects included; the landscaping of nine major dams including Serpentine and Wellington Dams, the Regional Environment Plan for the Ord River Scheme, the Peel-Harvey Inlet Study and the landscaping of the new freeway system and Narrows Interchange – part of which was called Oldham Park after his death. Master planning for two national parks and the landscaping around the Parliament House precinct were also designed by him. He was the first Government landscape architect for Western Australia and the first appointed to a Government Department in Australia. Although his title at first was 'Garden Designer’ as landscape architecture was not a qualification available in Australia at this time. He received his first landscape architecture qualifications from England becoming a licentiate of the British Institute of Landscape Architects by 1959 and later became a fellow. He held a position with the Public Works Department throughout the iron ore and nickel booms until 1972 when he retired following a heart attack.

Oldham spent a lot of time studying and promoting the discipline of landscape architecture. He developed many international contacts and travelled widely attending conferences and giving lectures particularly after 1964 when he became a representative for Australia on the Grand Council of the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA). Oldham and his wife were very active in conservation matters. One of his favourite quotes was “A city without its old buildings is like a man without a memory.” John and his wife were a team in everything they did and jointly wrote three books, Gardens in Time, Western Heritage and George Temple-Poole: Architect of the Golden Years. They had two children Patricia Susannah 'Tish’ and Jan Russell. Tish, who travelled to landscape design conferences with her father, also worked with him on project designs such as the Perth Foreshores competition in the 1990s and on two gardens he designed for her at Park Lane, Claremont and Rule Street, North Fremantle. Tish was a fashion designer, textile artist and public art practitioner. Jan was a cookery writer, demonstrator and illustrator with a regular column in the Sunday Times. John Oldham died in Perth in 1999 of a stroke. Oldham Park at the Narrows interchange was named in his honour in a ceremony in 2000.

Writers:

Erickson, Dorothy (Dr)

Date written:

2011

Last updated:

2011