William Thomas Leighton was a distinguished Western Australian architect whose career spanned several decades of the twentieth century. Born in Fremantle in 1905, Leighton began his architectural journey with an apprenticeship at the firm Allen & Nicholas. He achieved early professional recognition as one of the first architects registered with the Western Australian Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA). His early career saw him gain diverse experience working with firms such as Eales and Cohen, as well as Bohringer, Taylor and Johnson, the latter of which sent him on various interstate and international commissions.
Leighton is particularly renowned for his contributions to Art Deco and Inter-War Functionalist architecture, styles that reshaped the civic, commercial, and domestic landscape of Western Australia. In 1936, he joined the firm Baxter Cox, eventually becoming a partner before its dissolution in the mid-1940s. Following a brief post-World War II tenure with the Public Works Department, Leighton entered into a partnership with Hobbs, Winning and Leighton. His leadership in the architectural community was cemented when he served as the president of the RAIA (WA) from 1951 to 1952.
Among his most enduring legacies is his extensive work on cinema design throughout Western Australia. Leighton was the architect behind several landmark entertainment venues, including the Windsor Cinema in Nedlands, the Como Theatre in South Perth, and the Princess Theatre in Fremantle. In Perth, his notable designs included the Piccadilly Theatre and Arcade, the Theatre Royal, the Metro, the Grand, and the Plaza Theatre, alongside the Lyric in Bunbury. Leighton retired from his practice in 1975 and passed away at his home in Dalkeith in 1990.
