William Gillespie

Founding partner of Gillespies, a leading British landscape architecture practice. Bill Gillespie was born in Yorkshire and studied landscape architecture under Frank Clark at Reading. He became Chief landscape architect to Cumbernauld New town and left the job to start a landscape architecture practice in Glasgow. It became William Gillespie and Partners when he took Rodney Beaument and Wendy Powell into partnership. The firm took over some work from Sylvia Crowe, with whom Wendy Powell had been an associate. In 1975-6 Bill Gillespie spent much time in Egypt working on the Suez Canal Regional Plan for the United Nations Development Programme. In the mid-1980s, Bill was strategic landscape adviser to the Scottish Development Agency for the Glasgow Garden Festival, and to the London Docklands Development Corporation on the Royal Docks for Reg Ward and his team. Gillespies designed Strathclyde Park under his leadership, with Rodney Beaumont the partner in charge. The form also worked South of Scotland Electricity Board, on Torness Power Station and advised  the Northwest Water Authority, the National Savings Bank, Kodak, Glaxo, Distillers Co. Ltd and the National Trust of Scotland.