John Kinross was a Scottish architect who began practicing in Edinburgh in 1882. In 1885 Kinross became architect to the third Marquess of Bute, largely as the result of Bute having read Details from Italian Buildings, Chiefly Renaissance which Kinross published after spending time in Northern Italy, with Florence as his base. This not only launched his career but proved to be a major influence throughout his life. Kinross restored a number of historic buildings such as Falkland Palace, Fife, the Augustinian Priory in St Andrews, and the fifteenth-century Franciscan Friary in Elgin (Grey Friars). He built many country houses and by the last decade of the nineteenth century he had become one of the leading domestic architects in Scotland. Manderston House, near Duns in Berwickshire, is considered his masterpiece. 

The John Kinross Memorial Fund was established in 1981 by his son, John Blythe Kinross CBE HRSA, in memory of his father, to assist young artists and architects from degree-giving Scottish art schools, within the departments of architecture and fine art, to spend three months in Florence.