John Thomas Rochead was a Scottish architect born on 28 Mar 1814. He is most famous for being the designer of the Wallace Monument, a tower standing on the shoulder of the Abbey Craig, overlooking Stirling, it commemorates Sir William Wallace (c. 1270 - 1305). He was born in Edinburgh, the son of John Rochead (or Rocheid) and Catherine Gibb and was educated at George Heriot's School in Edinburgh.
Rochead worked for a number of years, starting in 1831, as an apprentice David Bryce (1803 - 1876), an architect in Edinburgh. In 1834, Rochead sought admission to the Trustees' Academy with a testimonial from Bryce stating that he had been three years an apprentice and was later admitted in June 1835. From around 1841 to 1870, Rochead lived and worked in Glasgow and, during this time, was employed by David Hamilton (1768 - 1843), working alongside Thomas Gildard, a 19th-century Scottish architect and author.
In the Disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843, Rochead received a large number of commissions for new churches for the Free Church. Rochead himself was a Scottish Freemason just like his mentor and fellow architect, David Bryce. He was initiated at St Mark's Lodge at Glasgow, No.102, in 1856. He was also the Grand Architect of the Provincial Grand Lodge of Glasgow.
Rochead was very successful in a number of competitions. In 1849, he won a competition for The Royal Arch, Dundee; in 1857, he won a third place prize of £300 for his Louvre-inspired design for the London War Office; and, in the following year, he won a competition for St Mary's Free Church in Edinburgh. In 1859, he won his most important competition and was awarded the contract for the Wallace Monument in Stirling, which was completed in 1869. The project ended up going £5000 over its original budget, which resulted in the bankruptcy of the contractor and Rochead never receiving payment for his work. His apprentices at this time included John Hutchison (1841 - 1908), who in turn trained both John Kinross (1855 - 1931) and Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868 - 1928). The financial strain and subsequent criticism that Rochead faced caused him to suffer a nervous breakdown and his work was then taken over by John Honeyman (b. 1831), a Glasgow-based architect.
In the early 1860s, Rochead moved office to 201 West George Street and then to 150 Hope Street in c. 1866. In his later years much of his business came from the wool and livestock business in and around Hawick. He lived at 19 Morningside Place in south-west Edinburgh during his final years, only a year after retiring to Innellan with his family, where he added a spire to the West Free Church.
Rohead married to Catherine Jane Calder (d. 1896) in the Gorbals in Glasgow in 1843 and the couple had three children, one of whom did not survive infancy. Rochead himself died quite suddenly of angina, in Edinburgh on 07 Apr 1878 aged 64. He is buried in the north-east section of the Grange Cemetery and left his family a then substantial sum of £7,897 17s 5d plus £326 1s 4d. He was survived by his wife, one son named Stuart, who was living at 4 George Street, Manchester at the time, and a daughter. His widow continued to press for his unpaid fees on the Wallace Monument after his death, but to no avail. Rochead's wife and two daughters, Evelyn Cecilia, who died as a young child, and Henrietta Paul, are buried with him.