Personal Data

Robert Murray Blackall was born on April 26, 1889, in Cambridge, the son of Clarence Howard Blackall and his wife, Emma Lucretia Murray (daughter of Richard F. Murray).

He married first on June 14, 1916, to Dorothy Evans Brewer, daughter of Edward Winslow Brewer and his wife, Eleanor Seaver Evans.

He married second to Marjory Porrit Nield.

Robert Blackall died on December 30, 1963, in Easthampton, Massachusetts.

Career

Robert Blackall graduated from Harvard in 1912 and from MIT in 1918.  In 1920, he received the Rotch Travelling Scholarship from the Boston Society of Architects, of which his father, Clarence Blackall, was the first recipient in 1884.  In the early 1920s, he worked as a draftsman in his father’s firm — Blackall, Clapp, and Whittemore — until late 1922, when he formed his own firm with Stanley Bruce Elwell.  Blackall and Elwell remained active until about 1929, when they dissolved the partnership.   Robert Blackall continued to practice architecture as a sole practitioner for several years.  From 1934 until his retirement in 1957, he was owner and treasurer of the Clement Company, a cutlery firm in Northampton.

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