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Robert Maurice Trimble
Robert Maurice Trimble, usually called Maurice Trimble or R. M. Trimble, learned the contractor’s trade before he became an architect, and his body of work shows thorough mastery of every branch of architecture. We seldom hear his name when important Pittsburgh architects are brought up, but a look through the list of his works will convince us that he belongs at the second level if not among the giants.
In the 1930s, Trimble wrote a series of reminiscences of Pittsburgh architects and their work for the Charette, the magazine of the Pittsburgh Architectural Club. They are treasures for the historian of Pittsburgh architecture, and we have collected Trimble’s Rambling Reminiscences on a separate page.
Allegheny YMCA.
A biography of Trimble was printed in Pittsburgh of Today: Its Resources and People, by Frank C. Harper (New York: American Historical Society, 1931), Vol. III, p. 147.
ROBERT MAURICE TRIMBLE—Great cities owe their attractiveness to their architects for the appeal of beauty is universal; good construction provides practical business facilities and brings about a general development of the commercial activities. In this sense Pittsburgh is greatly indebted to Robert Maurice Trimble, architect, under whose inspiring hand many of the attractive and useful edifices of the district have been born. Mr. Trimble has been in independent architectural practice since 1808, during which period he has designed and erected banks, schools, hospitals, churches, factories, residences—in fact, buildings of every type, and has won a high reputation as an artist and constructor.
He was born in Allegheny City, now the North Side of Pittsburgh, May 15, 1871, son of John Harvey and Elizabeth (McAllister) Trimble; and he there obtained his education in the public schools. Completing the course at Allegheny High School, he studied for a period at Western University, now the University of Pittsburgh, and then entered into association with his father in the contracting and building business. In 1892 he began his architectural studies and for six years was in the office of a Pittsburgh architect, which he left to engage in practice on his own account.
Mr. Trimble’s antecedents are recorded in this country from 1732 on his mother’s side, and 1790 on that of his father. Thomas Trimble, his greatgrandfather, came from the north of Ireland in 1790 and settled near Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, where he lived until 1807; about that time he removed to Butler County, where he resided until his death in 1837. He was the father of four daughters and one son, Samuel, who had five sons, Robert, William F., John H., James, and Thomas, and one daughter, Margaret.
John Harvey Trimble was born in 1841 in Butler County and resided there until 1860 when he moved to Allegheny. At the outbreak of the Civil War he enlisted in the 123d Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers, a regiment recruited in Allegheny and commanded by Colonel J. B. Clarke; in this regiment he served nine months, the term of his enlistment. After leaving the service he engaged in the building industry and in the early "seventies became a member of the firm of Trimble, McIntyre and Company, which later became Trimble and Company, its partners being the brothers, William F. and John H. Trimble. The firm was dissolved in 1885 and John H. continued under his own name until 1891, when he took into business with him his younger brother, James, and the two carried on a successful contracting and building enterprise until John H. Trimble died in March, 1908. He was one of the prominent men of old Allegheny, serving for seventeen years on the school board and for ten in the city council. He was active in religious affairs and was an elder in the Sixth United Presbyterian Church. He married Elizabeth McAllister, daughter of John and Lavinia (Jack) McAllister; John McAllister came to Allegheny from the North of Ireland and resided there until his death in 1871. Lavinia Jack was born in 1802, and was a daughter of James Jack, Jr., who served in the Revolutionary War as a lieutenant in the Pennsylvania Militia of Cumberland County; and the granddaughter of James Jack, Sr., who settled in Cumberland County in 1732; her death occurred in 1886. John H. Trimble and his wife were the parents of three children: Anna McAllister; Robert Maurice, and Francis Herron. The last-named carried on the business established by his father until his death in 1917; he married Louise Evans and they are the parents of three children. John Trimble died in March, 1908, his wife in February, ‘1905.
Robert Maurice Trimble has devoted much time to the affairs of his profession: he became a member of the Pittsburgh Chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 1905, and has served the chapter in every official capacity, twice being its president; he was made a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1926. He is a trustee of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and a member of Shannopin Country Club.
Among the buildings that have risen through his artistic inspiration and professional abilities are: Taylor-Allderdice High School; Perry High School; the Sarah Heinz House; St. John’s Hospital; the Nurses’ Home, South Side Hospital; the St. Thomas Memorial Church of Oakmont; the Ben Avon Presbyterian Church; the Ben Avon United Presbyterian Church; the North Side Unitarian Church; Young Men’s Christian Association buildings in Lawrenceville and Allegheny; Pittsburgh Free Dispensary; Ben Avon High School; Sixth Ward Manual Training School, and others. He designed the Community House of the First United Presbyterian Church, North Side, Pittsburgh, one of the largest and most complete institutions of its kind in the country. He has designed many of the fine residences in western Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, and Institutional Buildings in Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Alabama.
He has recently completed drawings for United States Consulates in Shanghai, China; Calcutta, India; and Aden, Arabia, having been selected by the Foreign Buildings Commission of the United States of America to design these buildings. Under the authority of the commission he made a trip around the world in the winter of 1929 to investigate sites for consulates and to secure information relative to these buildings.
For some years he served as a member of the Town Council of Ben Avon, the beautiful suburb where he and his family have their home.
He married, October 20, 1896, Sarah Latimer Hamil, daughter of William J. and Mary Hamil, of Allegheny; her father a well-known and highly respected business man of old Allegheny City, died September 15, 1915, his wife in 1898. He and his wife were natives of the North of Ireland and were of the Presbyterian faith, affiliated with the congregations of the Eighth Street Reformed Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, and later of the Sixth United Presbyterian Church of Allegheny. Robert Maurice and Sarah Latimer (Hamil) Trimble are the parents of the following children: 1. Robert Maurice, born August 15, 1897, educated in the schools of Ben Avon, and Princeton University, where he achieved national fame as one of its great all-around athletes. 2. Mary (Mrs. Howard S. Wilcox) educated in the schools of Ben Avon, and the Pennsylvania College for Women. 3. William Hamil, born May 5, 1902, a student in the Ben Avon schools, and Princeton University. 4. John Harvey, born June 3, 1907, attending Ben Avon schools and Lafayette College.
Mrs. Trimble is a graduate of the Pennsylvania College for Women and was a charter member of the College Club of Pittsburgh; she is a woman of great refinement and culture and a hostess of rare charm, both she and her husband taking a great pleasure in extending hospitality to a select circle of friends.
Allegheny Unitarian Church.
Here is a partial list of buildings by R. M. Trimble:
Engine Co. No. 15, 1519 Orchlee Street, Brighton Heights, 1900
St. Thomas Memorial Episcopal Church, Delaware Avenue at 4th Street, Oakmont, 1905
North Side Unitarian Church, North Avenue at Resaca Place, 1909
Ben Avon Presbyterian Church, Church Avenue at Rostrevor Place, 1911
H. J. Heinz Factory, 1913
Sarah Heinz House, 1 Heinz Street, 1915
Community House for 1st UP Church, 801 Union Avenue, Allegheny Center, 1916
Allegheny YMCA, North Avenue at Monterey Street, 1926
Taylor Allderdice High School, Shady and Forward Avenues, Squirrel Hill, 1927
Perry High School, 3821 Perrysville Avenue, Observatory Hill, 1931
Check the Great Big List of Buildings and Architects for Father Pitt’s latest research.
