Paterson lived in a flat at 24 Buccleuch Place, EdinburghBarmoor Castle.Pinkie House West FaceLeith Bank, Bernard Street, EdinburghSeafield Baths, Leith. 1810. Seafield Road and Seafield Place.
He was the second son of George Paterson (d. 1789) an Edinburgh architect and builder linked to Robert Mylne and living on St John Street in the Canongate in a building he had built with Francis Charteris, Earl of Wemyss and March and thereafter shared.[3] Its site is remembered in the building Charteris Land, a modern building which replaced it. The family also owned a small estate at Monimail in Fife called Cunnochie. The estate passed to the oldest son (also George Paterson) on the death of the father.
John lived on St John Street until 1784 and then moved to Elgin to work with Sir James Grant.[3]
He returned to Edinburgh in 1789 to oversee the building of Old College for Robert Adam. His business connection to Adam ended in 1791, whereafter he opened an office at 2 North Bridge. In 1820 he apprenticed Anthony Salvin.
The original concept for a road on the line of what is now Waterloo Place in Edinburgh was mooted by Paterson as early as 1790.[4]
Just before death he is listed as living at 24 Buccleuch Place in Edinburgh's south side, just south of George Square.[5]
