James Cormack

James Noble Cormack (28 January 1877 – 22 January 1965) was a Scottish architect and track and field athlete who competed at the 1906 Olympic Games.

Biography James Cormack was born in Ayr, a small town near Edinburgh, Scotland. No definitive information is available about his family. He was educated at Ayr Academy and the Edinburgh Institution for Languages and Mathematics. In 1902, he took the position of draughtsman at the Public Works Department of Cradock, South Africa. Later that year, he transferred to the Public Works Department of the Transvaal in Pretoria and, in 1910, became Inspector of Works. He was a member of the South African Institute of Architects and received his RIBA membership in 1911. In 1912, he became the Transvaal Public Works Department’s Assistant Engineer.

With the outbreak of World War I, Cormack enlisted in the Cape Town Highlanders and was commissioned with the rank of Major. It is not known if he fought in the regiment’s African campaign, or its battles in France, but he may have been injured, as the Public Works Department listed him as being ‘On Leave’ in 1919. In 1924, he went to work for the Imperial War Graves Commission, which named him Deputy Director of Works in East Africa, and then he became the commission’s Director of Works in South West Africa. In 1962, the Cormacks sold Aisla to missionaries and moved to England, where Cormack died in 1965.

Athletic Career Cormack was a distance runner

In South Africa, he was a member of the Transvaal Athletic Association and captain of the Pretoria Harriers; he won the club’s cross-country championship in 1904.