User:Cala Munda/Kenneth Cavendish Duncan

Kenneth Cavendish Duncan (13 December 1918 – 7 July 2008) was as a British-Australian architect who worked in the Public Works Departments of Perak and Kuala Lumpur during the period preceding the proclamation of Malaysia in 1963 and in Tasmania from 1965 to his retirement in 1980. Duncan’s work included the British Council building (1956), the Maternity Block at Kuala Lumpur (1962) and the extensions to the Royal Hobart Hospital (1970).

Early years

Kenneth Cavendish Duncan was born at West Derby, a suburb of Liverpool in December 1918. He lived much of his childhood in the Wirral peninsula of northwest England which is bounded to the west by Wales and to the east by the River Mersey.

Education

Being Merseyside and with an interest in design, the School of Architecture, University of Liverpool provided the opportunity to attend the first architecture school in the United Kingdom to be affiliated with a university and the first to have degree programs accredited by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). While service in World War II interrupted his studies, he submitted his thesis in 1949 entitled ‘A Maternity Hospital, Leeds’.

Peninsular Malaya

In 1953, Duncan took up the position in Malaya as Senior Architect in the Public Works Department, Kuala Lumpur. American architect and engineer Stanley Edward Jewkes was then head of the Design and Research Branch and later Director 1959 to 1963.