Los Angeles County
Biographies
FRANK SHEARER
SHEARER, FRANK, Civil and Landscape Engineer, Los Angeles, California, was born at Aberdeen, Scotland, September 3, 1875, the son of Frank and Margaret Shearer, of good old Scotch stock.
He attended the Cairnbanna Public School of County Aberdeen, Scotland, between the years 1880 and 1888; then for two years he worked on a farm, and for five years more was in the employ of the Duke of Richmond & Gordon, indentured as an apprentice for three years to study practical gardening and was afterwards in charge of the conservatories. He resumed his student life in the year 1896 at the Heriot Watt College, Edinburgh, Scotland, and he attended its lectures and recitations during that and the succeeding year. He also entered the Whiteley Business College, Edinburgh, in 1896, and secured a scholarship from the British Government in the same year, which enabled him to enter the College of forestry and Engineering, University of Edinburgh. He continued his courses at the business college while studying at the University of Edinburgh during the years and in the classes of 1896, 1897 and 1898.
The scholarship to the University of Edinburgh, which was given him by the British Government, entitled him to an exceptionally valuable education. Part of his course was practical work, connected with the reconstruction and remodeling of the Royal Botanical Gardens, and the rearrangement of the plants in its various departments. He helped rearrange the Herbaceous Plant Department, the Alpine Plant Department, and Arboretum, and the Economic Plant Collection, under glass. The Royal Botanical Gardens at Edinburgh are among the most important in the United Kingdom and contain innumerable valuable specimens. His course familiarized him with the care of almost every known variety of tree, shrub and plant, whether decorative or useful. An important part of his education was a complete preparation in civil engineering, and he was given both technical and practical work in the field. He graduated with a Certificate of Distinction from the University of Edinburgh in the year 1898.
His first actual work was before he attended the University, when, as a boy of thirteen, he labored on a farm. After two years of this manual labor, he was indentured for three years as an apprentice on the estate of the Duke of Richmond & Gordon, at Gordon Castle, Morayshire, Scotland. This was an exceptional privilege, for which a bond had to be given and an annual payment. The Duke’s estate is one of the finest on the islands, with formal gardens, orchards and farms conducted in the most scientific manner and of large area. The men in charge are expert gardeners, landscape architects and scientific agriculturists. His work as an apprentice was to learn the care of the plants, outdoors and under glass, where all manner of fruits, flowers and vegetables of the temperate and tropic zones are raised with artificial heat, protected from the severe northern climate of Scotland. These gardens of the Duke of Richmond are of many acres extent, sufficient to supply the ducal family and guests with all the exotic fruits and flowers. At the expiration of his apprenticeship Mr. Shearer, then only eighteen years old, was appointed florist and decorator, in charge of the conservatories of the estate for two years.
Then for one year he was on the Coltness estate, Wishaw, Scotland, the property of James Houldsworth, the English steel manufacturer. This position he held until he was given his scholarship to the University of Edinburgh, secured owing to exceptional attainments in gardening sciences.
On the completion of his university course he was appointed overseer in charge of all construction and outdoor work connected with the Royal Botanical Garden and Arboretum at Edinburgh.
At the age of twenty-six he left the employ of the British Government to come to the United States, where he saw great opportunities for a landscape architect skilled in botany as well. He secured immediately the work of landscape construction on the Tilden estate on the Hudson. While there he accepted the offer of a position as landscape engineer on the Castle Gould estate on Long Island, the property of Howard Gould. A year later he took a three years’ contract to lay out and construct the private estates belonging to members of the Carnegie family on Cumberland Island, Florida. This was a task of considerable magnitude, requiring the labor of several hundred men continuously during the three years. The greater portion of the island was transformed into a tropic park, intersected by boulevards.
On completing this work he was made Chief Engineer of the Shenandoah Land and irrigation Company of Southwestern Colorado, a concern with ambitious plans. For that firm he made extensive surveys, and then in 1906 he became associated with the Denver Park Department as Construction Engineer on park extensions and boulevards. He built Denver’s first boulevard. Later he was made Superintendent of Parks in the Highland Division.
He went to Los Angeles in 1908 to engage in the citrus business in the Cahuenga Valley and later took up his work as Landscape Engineer, being employed on several of the estates at Hollywood. He attracted the attention of the Los Angeles City Park Department and they offered him the position of Landscape Engineer in 1910. He was made Superintendent of Parks for the city later in 1910.
He found in his last position his greatest opportunity. Los Angeles had hardly a nucleus of a park system when he took hold, but since his incumbency has begun a development which will give it one of the greatest park systems in the United States, with thousands of acres of land of the most beautiful natural topography, and which it will be the task of Mr. Shearer to improve with boulevards, paths, lawns, gardens, trees and flowers. Under his superintendency, the city is planning to spend many millions of dollars. This work will give him an opportunity to make use of all his varied knowledge of plants, because in the climate of Los Angeles will grow the tropical verdure of Mexico, as well as the hardy flower and tree of Scotland. And to this work he took an exceptionally wide experience, one which ranges from the near Arctic to the Tropic, from the precise and minute knowledge of each plant, to the comprehensive scope of the landscape architect and engineer who is able to devise a whole city system.
One of the important developments by Mr. Shearer in the maintenance of parks has been the automatic system of lawn irrigation, by which the cost of maintenance has been reduced fully 80 per cent, the reduction paying for installation within three years.
While in Scotland he served three years as a volunteer in the British army and in addition to his office of Overseer in the Royal Botanical Gardens of Edinburgh was custodian of the Government Meteorological Station.
Transcribed
11-2-10 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: Press
Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 535, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San
Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta.
1913.
© 2010 Marilyn R. Pankey.
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