Watercolour on paper, c.1840
William Henry Playfair (1790-1857)
RCAHMS: Notman Collection presented in 1968
In 1830 Sir James Donaldson of Broughton Hall died and left money to found and build an Orphan Hospital. An architectural competition to design the building attracted the prominent architects of the day and in 1838 William Henry Playfair was declared the winner. Opened by Queen Victoria in 1850, the building became home to Scotland’s National School for the Deaf.
The Playfair building has recently been purchased for conversion into luxury flats, while Donaldson’s College for the Deaf moved to a new purpose–built school on a landscaped site at Linlithgow in 2008.