Talk:Peter Nicholson (architect)

Jane Nicholson's age at death
Nicholson's first wife, Jane died in 1832 at the age of 48 according to the entry in Laxton's Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal, Scientific and Railway Gazette, as cited in the article. At this time Nicholson himself was 67 and their son, Michael Angelo, being born in c. 1796, was c. 36, which implies that he was only approximately 12 years younger than his mother! While this may be technically feasible - just about, the implication is highly disturbing and, not wanting to cast doubt on the man's reputation, I have to conclude that Jane was actually older than 48 when she died. Perhaps someone was being modest on her behalf in quoting her age. I'd like to correct this but, alas, I can find only the one reference. MegaPedant (talk) 00:02, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Nicholson's second wife and her children
Nicholson was 67 when Jane died but he re-married late in life and had two further children with his second wife (again, the citation is Laxton's Journal). At the time of his death they would still be children, not yet in their teens. I can find no information about this second wife but I can't help wondering if she was related to Thomas Jamieson, who supported the Nicholsons financially. Also, their son was named Jamieson T. and, while it is purely speculation and not admissible in the article itself, I can't help thinking that the boy's second name might have been Thomas, as a tribute to the generosity of their benefactor. All I can find out about their daughter, Jessie is that she married a Mr Bowen. MegaPedant (talk) 00:21, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Parents and siblings
The only thing at all that I've been able to discover on this subject is that Nicholson's father was a stonemason. MegaPedant (talk) 02:20, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Nicholson's nationality
I see that an editor has systematically changed all instances of "British" in this article to "Scottish". Now, this is a contentious issue, as the MOS points out, and anyone making such wholesale changes without putting a case forward for doing so is being disrespectful to those editors who wrote "British" in the first place, just as someone who goes around changing the spelling of "color" to "colour" or of "aluminium" to "aluminum". I don't have any problem with Nicholson being described in the lead as "a Scottish architect, mathematician and engineer", just as I have no objection to myself being described as an English Wikipedian. However, I do insist that Nicholson's nationality, like mine, is British. —MegaPedant 20:14, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Criticisms of Nicholson's work
Having discovered the paper war that raged between Nicholson and others I feel the need to mention that his work was not universally praised and that W. H. Barlow, in particular, was very scathing (to the point of being rude) of his approach to the skew arch. Perhaps it should go at the end of the Legacy section. —MegaPedant 22:59, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Orthographic projection
I have a reference to a claim that the principles of "orthographical projection" were discovered by Nicholson in 1813 but before I add it to the article and to the orthographic projection article I'd like to try to research it further and to give others a chance to comment. —MegaPedant 13:48, 1 February 2011 (UTC)