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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.