BLUE PLAQUES INSTALLED
Museum +Gallery, Market Place
Our first blue plaque, unveiled by the Mayor, Cllr Edgar Hill, commemorates one of the leaders of the Peasants' Revolt in 1381. Although the Revolt was ultimately unsuccessful it shook the whole country and nearly caused the unseating of King Richard II. The tenants and townsfolk of St. Albans also rose up, broke into the jail, generally caused mayhem, and besieged the St Albans Abbey. One of the leaders of the Peasants' Revolt was John Ball. He was an English priest who was famous for his revolutionary sermons where he preached equality and freedom from oppression, “When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman? From the beginning all men by nature were created alike, and our bondage or servitude came in by the unjust oppression of naughty men”.
Following the failure of the Revolt John Ball's trial was held in the Moot Hall in St Albans, which was demolished in 16th century and much later replaced by the present Town Hall building, and is now St Albans Museum+Gallery. Ball was sentenced to death, offered the chance to repent but refused, and he was hanged, drawn and quartered in the presence of King Richard II on 15 July 1381.
College Street
Nathaniel Cotton was an 18th-century poet and a doctor, who was a pioneer in the treatment of mental health, developing a form of clinical psychology at a time when many with mental illness were being locked up in appalling institutions like the notorious Bedlam, Bethlem Royal Hospital, in London.
Nathaniel established a sympathetic asylum, 'Collegium Insanorum' (a College for the Insane) on the corner of what is now College Street (named after his institution) with Lower Dagnall Street where you can now find the blue plaque commemorating him on the site of his college. An intensely private person there is little surviving from his life but we know he was married twice, first to Anne Pembroke and then after her death to Hannah Everett. He died in St Albans on 2nd August 1788 and is buried in St Peter's Churchyard alongside his wives.
Stacey Turner, founder of the mental health charity 'It's OK to Say', unveiled the blue plaque.
Elsie Toms was a celebrated Albanian who was Councillor, Alderman, Mayor, Magistrate, local historian, author and Honorary Freeman of the city. She was born on 18 November 1889 in Bethnal Green in east London, where her father was a joiner. The family moved to St Albans when she was three years old – living first at 18 Church Crescent and then in Union Lane (now Normandy Road).
In 1928 she received a BA degree from the University of London followed by an MA in 1930. In 1936, she was awarded her doctorate in history at Kings College. During the Second World War, she was the headmistress of Fulham Central School for Girls. In 1962 she wrote her popular “The Story of St Albans” which was ‘the’ book on the history of St Albans for many years.
A keen suffragist in her younger days she worked for the Liberal Party in St Albans until they failed to grant women the vote. In 1919, when the St Albans Labour party was founded, she became an important member and helped reduce the Tory majority to only 791. She was twice chair of the local Labour Party, becoming St Alban's third lady Mayor in 1960. She died on 28th May 1982.
During the reign of Queen Anne (1665 – 1714), as her close confidante and advisor, Sarah Churchill became the second most powerful woman in England. John Churchill, her husband won many battles during the War of the Spanish Succession which led to the Queen awarding them the titles of Duke and Duchess of Marlborough plus the Manor of Woodstock which became the site of Blenheim Palace.
Sarah was probably born at Holywell House, St Albans in 1660 and John and Sarah maintained their strong connections with the town, regularly returning.
One of Sarah's greatest legacies to St Albans was the Marlborough Almshouses, completed in 1736 for 18 men and 18 women, primarily veterans of her husband’s battles and servants, at a cost of £50,000 (the equivalent of £4million today). The residents of her Marlborough Almshouses had to be sober and pious and with an income of less than £20 per annum. Rules for the residents included taking the sacrament 3 times in the year, observing a curfew of 9pm in winter and 10.30pm in summer, keeping the premises neat, with no swearing and no sub-letting, and not leaving the almshouses for a period longer than three days. Today a voluntary Board of Trustees run the Almshouses that provide unfurnished dwellings designed for the needs of older people.
11 Normandy Road
Marlborough Almshouses, Hafield Road
1-7 Victoria Street
Percival Blow was born in St Albans on 18 January 1873 where he lived until his death in 1939. He attended St Albans School and then studied architecture at King’s College, London, and was articled to Watford architect Charles Pryor Ayres. In 1898 at the age of 25 he launched his professional career as an architect based in his home city of St Albans. His early work was in designing houses in St Albans and Harpenden but in 1909 he branched out into public buildings and commercial premises and later into banks and shops. He designed generally in the Arts and Crafts mode.
This led to many other institutional and commercial buildings. He had already completed what would become a wide range of buildings for businesses and shops, starting with a Straw Hat factory in Beaconsfield Road in 1903, and later the The Rats' Castle public house at Fleetville, for Watford brewers Benskins.
Many of his other buildings are locally listed included the attractive Arts and Crafts houses in Hall Place Gardens. He designed Edwardian villas in Clarence Road St Albans and ‘The Avenues’ area of Harpenden. Whilst the bulk of his work can be found in the city, Blow also designed a range of buildings in Harpenden, Luton and further afield. Clients included Sainsburys for whom he designed some eight stores, including the St Albans branch formerly at 29 St Peter’s Street.
38 Cannon Street
Edward was born in St Albans on 18 November 1883, the only son of Mark and Charlotte Warner. He attended Hatfield Road School from 1890 to 1896, and went to work as a straw hat stiffener in a local factory.
He enlisted into the Bedfordshire Regiment late in 1903, and served in India. A reservist when WW1 broke out, he rejoined the 1st Battalion. They were among the first British troops to arrive at the Western Front, on 16th August 1914. They fought at the battles of Mons, Le Cateau, the Marne, the Aisne, Givenchy and Ypres. After the first winter in the shallow, temporary trenches the battalion was stationed at a tactically critical mound of mining slag called Hill 60 in April 1915, after it had been captured from the Germans. On 1st May 1915, he and his comrades had held the firing trenches on the hill for almost a week with very little sleep or rest. They were attacked by concentrated artillery bombardment and gas shells, a weapon used for the first time only a few days before. Blinded, coughing and retching, the Bedfordshires began to abandon the trenches, leaving the position completely undefended. Edward jumped into the empty trench and single-handedly kept the attackers at bay until reinforcements arrived. When he had the chance, he ran back to the Battalion and gathered more men to go back with him. Eventually overcome, he was carried back to the first aid post, where he died from the effects of the gas.
His Victoria Cross was recorded in "The London Gazette", Issue No. 29210, dated 29th June, 1915. In November 1916, his mother received the award from King George V at a private audience in Buckingham Palace.
14 Hillside Road
Stephen William Hawking was arguably the most famous scientist – and certainly the best-known physicist – of his time.
He spent most of his early life in St Albans, leaving St Albans School for Oxford University. He attended St Albans School and at just 17 his university career started at University College Oxford. Being given his First Class Honours degree, Hawking moved to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, to study physics but was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease (MND). In spite of this, he married Jane Wilde in 1965 MND played an increasingly major part in his life, his motorised wheelchair becoming a frequent sight in Cambridge. This did not prevent him from publishing “A Brief History of Time” in 1988 – written for non-scientists, the book became an international best-seller, being translated into many languages .Having needed a tracheostomy, Hawking required a speech-generating device and his computer-generated voice became instantly recognisable throughout the English-speaking world.
He died in Cambridge on 14th March 2018 having lived with MND for more than an unprecedented half-century. Four days later, he was commemorated in the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Winter Games in South Korea. His ashes were buried in Westminster Abbey, between those of Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.
21 George Street.
In 1885 Sander started work on the monumental publication, Reichenbachia (named after the leading German orchidologist, Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach), which would depict orchids life-sized, with text in English, French and German and was illustrated by Sander’s future son-in-law, Henry Moon.
Though his fortune was at times erratic his eventual commercial success enabled him to expand, establishing nurseries in Bruges in Belgium, then the heart of European horticulture, and New Jersey in America. Anne recalls that “Bruges nursery... was thriving due, mainly to a Swedish gentleman, Milstrom, who Frederick brought in as the General Administrator whilst Fredrick concentrated on the orchids and plants. The Belgium nursery made a profit under Mildtrom thanks to ... the Belgian workforce mainly because some German Generals loved orchids including Hitler and orchids were sent by train to various parts of Germany all through the First World War.” However, after WWI the Victorian and Edwardian love of orchids faded and the business declined. In 1920 on a visit to Bruges Frederick, already not well, fell ill and died but was brought back by the family to be buried in Hatfield Road cemetery.
3 Romeland
Born in London, Edward Robert Hughes received his first training from his uncle, the eminent Pre-Raphaelite painter, Arthur Hughes. He spent much of his childhood surrounded by his uncle’s artistic and literary friends, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown, John Ruskin and Lewis Carroll.
Hughes took lessons at an art school in London, before entering the Royal Academy schools at the age of sixteen where he was an outstanding student, winning a silver medal.
His striking good looks led to his modelling for Rossetti and other artists. After graduating from the Royal Academy, he established a career as a portrait painter and his sensitive portraits of children were particularly popular. He later produced large, ambitious watercolours, inspired by poetry and literature, exhibiting twice a year at the Royal Watercolour Society.
In the late 1880s Hughes worked as a studio assistant to William Holman Hunt. Hunt was suffering from glaucoma in the last years of his life, progressively losing his sight, and Hughes helped him to complete the painting “The Lady of Shalott”. He is also credited with largely painting the third and final version of the “Light of the World”, a hugely popular painting now in St Paul’s Cathedral.
From 1905, Hughes made a series of large watercolours, exploring the themes of twilight, night and dawn, with fairy-like figures. It is perhaps these masterpieces on which the fame and reputation of E. R. Hughes is based.
In 1913 he moved with his wife, Emily, to St Albans. He loved the city but, sadly, he was stricken with appendicitis and died after surgery on St George's Day, 23 April 1914. His funeral at the Cathedral drew a huge attendance, reflecting how much his art had been admired. He is buried in the Hatfield Road Cemetery.
Odyssey Cinema
166 London Road
Arthur Melbourne-Cooper was a photographer and film-maker, known for his pioneering work in stop-motion animation. Later, he set up a documentary and newsreel company, Kinema Industries, which famously shot the 1913 Derby when the suffragette, Emily Davison, threw herself fatally in front of the King's horse.He opened Hertfordshire’s first cinema, Alpha Picture House, on London Road. The building was designed by the local architect Percival Blow and included a restaurant, hairdressing salon and a swimming pool. When this was destroyed by fire, a new cinema was erected on the site and operated under various names until closure in 1995. By the late 1890s he was carrying out 'rush work' filming and later covered important topical subjects, including the Coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra (1902) and the Grand National (1903).
Following his father's death Arthur produced his own films and became one of the founder-members of the British Kinematograph Manufacturers Association. By 1907 he had established his own company, and in the same year filmed the phantom ride London to Killarney from a special observation car attached to the front of a train. Immediately afterwards he filmed a comedy, Irish Wives and English Husbands, starring Kate O'Connor, the first fiction film to be made in Ireland. In 1908 he produced the animated film Dreams of Toyland.
Despite his initial success, financial difficulties ensued when the Alpha Picture House failed an inspection and had to be sold off. With his business wound up, he moved to Manor Park in south-east London. He managed a cinema in Harrow while still making puppet animation pictures – his best known is Cinderella (1912). With the help of a partner's capital, he established Heron Films Ltd, producing comedies and dramas.
. On the outbreak of WWI Arthur closed his companies and moved to Dunstable, becoming a munitions inspector at Luton. After the war he went to Blackpool where he managed a film company called Animads, a sub-division of Langford's Advertising Agency Ltd, making a number of animated advertisements, including one for Cadbury's chocolates.
Arthur retired in 1939 and moved with his wife Kate to Little Shelford near Cambridge. He died on 28 November 1961.
The Saint & Sinner, St Peter's Street
Betty Vivian Entwistle was born in Lancashire, the daughter of Joseph Entwistle and his wife Nora (neé Buckley). She attended Lancaster Girl’s Grammar School and then obtained an Honours degree in Law at Manchester University. She worked in the Morecambe and Heysham Town Clerk's office until she moved to St Albans in 1939 as a Legal Assistant to the City Council. She then became Assistant Solicitor and Deputy Town Clerk (1944) before being appointed Town Clerk in 1960 – in competition with 67 other applicants.
She was the first woman in England to be appointed to such a position. The Council Offices at this time were in The Grange in St Peter’s Street. During her tenure she conducted the ceremony when the Queen Mother was given Freedom of City in 1961 and also in May 1962 when freedom was given to Herts and Beds Yeomanry.
She became Chief Executive Officer of the new St Albans City and District Council in 1973. She was closely associated with the expansion of leisure services, including those of Westminster Lodge and the Civic Centre, and was greatly respected for her dedication to the city community.
Betty was also active in local arts and conservation societies, and was Secretary of the Eastern Orchestral Association.
She died suddenly on 2nd August 1975 at her home at 4 York Road.
7 Fishpool Street
Thomas Kitchin was probably born in the parish of St Olave, Southwark, on 1 December 1717, apparently the eldest child of Thomas Kitchin, a hat dyer. He was apprenticed to the map engraver Emanuel Bowen on 6 December 1732 and seven years later, he finished his time and married his master's daughter, Sarah. From 1746, when he was made freeman of the Merchant Taylors' Company, he took on apprentices in his expanding firm. His early production includes John Elphinstone's 1746 map of Scotland (used before the Battle of Culloden), the first pocket atlas of Scotland, Geographia Scotiae (1748–9), and The Small English Atlas (1749), co-published with Thomas Jefferys, another of Bowen's apprentices. The Large English Atlas (serially produced with Bowen between 1749 and 1760) was the most important county atlas since Elizabethan times and the first real attempt to cover the whole country at large scale. In 1755 Kitchin engraved the great John Mitchell map of North America, used at the peace treaties of Paris and Versailles, which ended the American War of Independence.
As an engraver, Kitchin showed a fine technical facility, the lettering clean and assured, and the etched decoration from his workshop was among the most impressive of all English rococo work. He appears in the Royal Kalendar as hydrographer to the king.
Eventually retiring from Holborn to St Albans to live at 7 Fishpool Street, Kitchin continued map-making to the end of his life. Clues, however, to his personal life are meagre, although it is known that he was extremely active in the Baptist community and served as deacon of his chapel. His will, which requests burial 'with as little expense as may be', reveals his modesty. Kitchin died in St Albans on 23 June 1784 and was buried in St Albans Abbey on 29 June.
40 Holywell Hill
Born Margaret Annie Wix in Bath in 1877, she moved to St Albans at the age of eight when her father was appointed Inspector of Schools for Hertfordshire. The family home was Holywell House, No 40 Holywell Hill; Margaret lived here until 1925, when she moved to Glebe House, Watling Street. She was active in civic life and in the life of the Cathedral and Abbey Church. Her organisational and liaison skills were much appreciated. In 1905 she was Organising Secretary for the St Albans Church History Exhibition and two years later Secretary of The Costume Committee for the St Albans Pageant. During the First World War she served as a volunteer at Bricket House Military Hospital, first as a cook and then as the Quartermaster in charge of supplies. She was described as “tactful, reliable, persistent and not afraid to work.” It is said that she had a good sense of humour.
She was the 378th Mayor of St Albans in a line stretching back to John Lockey in 1552. Each Mayor, for the duration of the Mayoralty, is the Queen’s representative and the senior citizen of The City and District of St Albans, taking precedence over anybody and everybody else except HM’s Lord Lieutenant, who is the monarch’s representative for the whole county. Mayors usually take a particular theme or charitable focus for their year in office. Miss Wix secured enough public donations and pledges to establish a fund to help women who needed financial support during their maternities. She was a champion of education and in 1955 the Margaret Wix Primary School was opened in High Oaks and named in her honour.
11-13 Market Place
Frederic George Kitton was born on 5 May 1856 in Norwich, the eldest of five brothers. His father was a tobacconist and a keen naturalist proficient in microscopy. Frederic’s early studies were at the Norwich School of Art. At the age of 17 he moved to London as an apprentice on The Graphic, a weekly newspaper only recently established as a competitor to the Illustrated London News; it was very successful and had a host of contributing artists. He came to St Albans in the 1880s and started to produce his iconic sketches of local medieval buildings and scenes. Many of these appeared in the 1893 limited edition of St Albans Historical and Picturesque authored by Charles Ashdown and some were later released as postcards by his widow. At the same time he wrote authoritative books and papers on Dickens and his illustrators, being at one time vice-president of the Dickens Fellowship. He continued to work on both of these themes for the rest of his life.
In 1890 he married Emily Lawford, from South Australia, at St James’, Kidbrooke, Blackheath. They resided in ‘Richmond Lodge’, Church Crescent, moving to ‘1 Lawn Villas’ in Verulam Road and then from about 1897 to Pre Mill House outside the city on the Redbourn Road. Unfortunately his health failed and surgery for a gastric problem was ineffective and he did not fully recover; he died in a nursing home in Marylebone on 10 September 1904, at the age of 48. He was accorded a grand funeral service in St Albans Abbey and then buried in the Hatfield Road cemetery.
John Chapple spent the last 16 years of his 61 in total living in St Albans and looking after the day-to-day activities of the restoration of the Abbey Church to turn it into a Cathedral.
Born in 1826 and raised in the Somerset village of Dulverton, son of a saddler and ironmonger, the second child of 10. He grew up to follow the same trade and take on the family business on the death of his father at the age of 25. Little is known of his early life but it is thought he had some experience working with or for Isambard Kingdom Brunel and also with the architect Edward Ashworth on Exeter Cathedral.
He started working for the architect George Gilbert Scott in the 1860’s, initially on churches in Sussex, namely Boxgrove near Chichester and Itchingfield near Horsham.
He then went on to work for Gilbert Scott at Danbury Place in Essex, St. Dunstan's, Frinstead in Kent and then St. Mary's at Chesham before being asked to come to St.Albans in 1870 and take up the role of Clerk of Works on the early restoration works.
He and his wife Elizabeth moved into Romeland Cottages, renting from the Agutter family.
Shortly afterwards, in August 1870, he made the momentous discovery of the perilous condition of the tower. This led to the need for urgent action to stabilise, secure and then repair the tower and its foundations over the following two years, under the guidance of George Gilbert Scott and working for Rev Walter Lawrance. He then followed on with further restoration work which, after the school moved out of the Lady chapel lead to him discovering the fragments of the shrines of both St.Alban and St. Amphibius.
His role in civic life had gradually been increasing, becoming the architect to the City Council on the plans for the new art college and library in Sweet Briar Lane from 1876 and becoming a councillor from 1877. He was elected mayor in 1879/80 and served as an Alderman until his death. He was a City Councillor and member of the Watch, Finance and General Works committee in 1881 and 1883. He was a very active Freemason and was a Director of St Albans Permanent Benefit Building Society between 1881 and 1885.
He had a strong interest in education as well as architecture. He acquired property along Holywell Hill and designed and built Torrington House as his personal home. He moved into his new mansion in October 1885 but sadly did not enjoy it for long and passed away there on 6th February 1887.
The city and all his work associates gave him a grand send-off at his funeral. He was well regarded by all who knew him and was possibly the only man Lord Grimthorpe took advice from in relation to building matters.
He is buried along with his second wife in the north churchyard of the Cathedral.
Samuel Ryder was a businessman who founded the Ryder Cup golfing tournament. A prominent citizen of St Albans, he was elected as a Liberal Councillor in 1903 and Mayor two years later.
Samuel had the idea of selling penny packets of seed by mail. Although there were rivals his seeds were cheaper and he shipped them by rail on a Friday night so they arrived on Saturday, when working people had time to tend their garden and allotments. He moved his St Albans business into larger premises on Holywell Hill, employing over a hundred staff. In 1911 he commissioned his friend Percival Blow to design new offices on the site (now The Clarion Collection Hotel) and in 1931 the same architect built the seed and exhibition hall next door (now Cafe Rouge). He and his brother James also took over an old hat factory in 1924 for a new herb business. In 1926 an informal golf tournament was held between Great Britain and the USA, which spawned the idea of the Ryder Cup. The most significant change in the biennial tournament took place in 1979 when European and British players joined to compete against the USA.
Samuel was born on 24 March 1858 at Walton-le-Dale, near Preston, Lancashire, the fourth of eight children. His father ran his own market garden and florist business and his mother was a dressmaker. He trained as a teacher at Owens College in Manchester but never qualified due to ill health. He started work as a clerk in a shipping company but left to join his father. They fell out over disagreements about how the business should be run, so he left Manchester to join a seed company in London. He married Helen Mary Barnard in 1890 and they moved to St Albans where he established his own business selling seeds from his home in Folly Lane. With the help of his wife and daughter this was soon thriving and the family became wealthy.
He was a committed Christian, belonging to the Reformed Church. Initially worshipping at Spicer Street, he was the moving force in building the much larger Trinity Congregational Church on the corner of Victoria Street and Beaconsfield Road, where he was a Deacon until 1922. He was persuaded to take up golf for health reasons. He soon became an enthusiastic amateur and, along with his brother, sponsored golfing tournaments.
Later in life, due to ill health, Samuel spent some time in what is now Zimbabwe where his daughter Majorie had emigrated. Returning to the UK he died on 2nd January 1936 at the Langham Hotel in Portland Place where the family usually spent Christmas. He is buried in the Hatfield Road Cemetery.
The history of Holmes Edwin Cornelius Winter is the story of a man caught between two eras. Born into a family of esteemed East Anglian artists in 1851, he spent the latter half of his life ensuring that the medieval soul of St Albans was not forgotten in the rush toward the twentieth century. His journey began in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, where he was born into an artistic dynasty led by his father, Cornelius Janson Walter Winter, a well-known illustrator and animal painter specializing in Norfolk antiquities. Growing up in this environment, Holmes developed a topographical eye and a rare ability to render buildings with architectural precision while maintaining an artist’s sense of light and atmosphere. For a time, he worked in the shadows of the Norwich School of painters, but in 1880, he made the move that would define his career by relocating to St Albans, Hertfordshire.
Upon arriving in the city, Winter adopted the professional pseudonym W. Cornelius, a choice historians suggest was likely a tribute to his father that also allowed him to establish a distinct brand within the local art scene. Living at a time before photography was accessible to the masses, he became the city’s unofficial visual biographer. His studio became a repository for the changing face of the city as he worked as a prolific watercolourist and etcher. Winter arrived during a period of radical change when the St Albans Cathedral was undergoing a massive, controversial reconstruction by Lord Grimthorpe, and the Great Redesign of the city centre was underway. He watched as ancient, leaning timber-framed pubs were replaced by Victorian brick storefronts, narrow medieval alleys were widened for modern traffic, and rural outskirts were swallowed by the expanding railway industry.
Driven by a sense of urgency, Winter embarked on his most famous project, a collection of sketches and hand-coloured works titled The Last of Old St Albans, which captured buildings that were sometimes demolished only days after he finished his paintings. He found a kindred spirit in Frederick Kitton, a local scholar and illustrator, and together they became the city’s premier heritage defenders.
While Kitton drew detailed pictures more akin to lively photographic records, Winter’s fluid artistic style resulted in evocative imagery, ensuring that, even if a building was lost to the sledgehammer, its ghost remained in the public consciousness. This collaboration laid the foundational sentiment for the modern conservation movement in Hertfordshire. Winter lived a long, productive life, eventually moving in 1911 to 9 Alma Road. When Winter passed away in 1935 at the age of 84, he left behind thousands of works that today are considered essential legal and historical records used by the St Albans Museum + Gallery to understand the evolution of the city.
St Albans was Albert Moody’s life’s work. He was a pioneer, introducing Conservation areas long before such a term was adopted. Post-war, when the pressure was to clear away and replace old buildings, he persuaded the Council to buy historic buildings and organised their conservation. This led to the designation of much of the old town as one of the country’s first Conservation Areas and the statutory listing of many of its more significant buildings.
Without Albert Moody, many of the iconic St Albans buildings that preserve the historic character of the city would have been demolished. He persuaded the Council to buy and conserve them and as an early pioneer of conservation, led St Albans to create some of the earliest Conservation Areas. An example of his sensitivity is his rule that no new buildings should be allowed to interfere with the view of the Abbey when approaching the city on any of the main routes.
He was not against new development and, apart from his conservation work giving old buildings new life, he organised the post-war house-building programme, increasing the Council’s housing stock from around 730 to more than 4,300.
He was born on 11 July 1908 in Luton. He came to St Albans when he joined St Albans Council as a Chief Engineering Assistant aged 25. He lived at 80 Harpenden Road with his wife Dora and when he retired in 1974, was granted the honorary Freedom of the City in recognition of his work for the City and community. He died in St Albans on the 27th October 1988 and was given a civic funeral in the Cathedral.
He was educated at Dunstable Grammar School and obtained his Civil Engineering qualifications at night school. In 1933 he joined St Albans Council as a Chief Engineering Assistant. In wartime, this was a reserved occupation, and he became Chief Warden for the City. In 1946 he became City Engineer and Surveyor until his retirement in 1974.
He decided to preserve the character of the city. Known as ‘Mr St Albans ', he is described as a quiet man, unflappable, with old-fashioned formality, and a quiet sense of humour. To begin, he persuaded the council to buy and restore the Christopher Inn in French Row, which was in terrible condition. The Tudor Tavern came a little later and was eventually housed in Fishpool Street and Sopwell Lane. In the early 1970s, when National Westminster Bank wanted to upgrade their premises, planning permission was granted on the condition that the original facade of the building was retained. He was also involved in many new developments in the city. He planned and designed the 5000 post war houses and flats for Cottonmill, St. Julians, Batchwood, and New Greens estates and the beginning of the Marshalswick estate.
He lived in St Albans from 1933 until his death in 1988, with his wife, Dora, and their family and the city owes him a great deal. His notebooks are lodged with SAHAAS and are available for consultation.
9 Alma Road