Arthur Wakerley 1862 – 1931
A series of articles on this prominent Leicester personality called Arthur Wakerley by Jean Farquhar
This article about Arthur Wakerley was first published as a series in early issues (18,19,20 and 21) of the Evington Echo. The Evington Echo gives permission to reproduce and share this with anyone who wishes to share for educational benefit and not for personal gain.
Arthur Wakerley came to Leicester from Melton Mowbray in 1878 at the age of 16 when he was articled for four years to James Bird, Architect and Surveyor to the Billesdon Rural Sanitary Authority. Born in 1862 and the second son of John Wakerley, of Timber Hill, Melton Mowbray, Wakerley’s interest in politics began early and at 19 he was already a Local Councillor. He was also a committed Methodist and a Total Abstainer. He won prizes for architectural drawings in 1889 and 1884 and contributed to the press of Leicester, Melton and Grantham, poems and articles on historical subjects, which showed that he read voraciously, had an ability for cogent argument, and great self-assurance.
By 1884 Wakerley was a FRIBA and set up on his own as an architect and surveyor in a house at the corner of Mere Road and Wood Hill. Two years later he opened an office in Imperial Buildings, which still stands, at the corner of Gallowtree Gate and Halford Street; he married Bertha Elizabeth Gunn, aged 22, daughter of Thomas James and Selina Dorothy Gunn, at Victoria Road Church; and, while on his honeymoon was elected unopposed to the Town Council at the age of 24.
Cllr. And Mrs Wakerley went to live at 50 Highfield Street (later No 48), and the following year the first of their six children was born. Three years later the family moved to 46 London Road (now No. 58 and occupied by the Lombard North Central Bank and the Tao Clinic). After only nine years in practice as an architect, Wakerley moved his office to 14 Market Place and took as architectural assistant, William W Wells (who later became his partner).
In 1896, Wakerley bought Gedding Hall, near Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk, a moated Tudor manor house, built in 1273 and re-built in the 15th century. Wakerley restored the hall which had fallen into disrepair and added a tower. Gedding Road is named after this mansion, Suffolk Street after its county, and Bradfield Close and Drinkstone Road after villages in the Hall’s vicinity.
By 1903 the Wakerleys had completed their family: Gwendolen, Dorothy, Margaret, Constance all with roads named after them. Arthur John (Jack) their much-loved only son who was killed in the Great War in 1917, and their last child Kathleen Veronica, born in 1903, who survived, sadly, for only one year. Margaret, too, died young at the age of 19 in 1911. The girls all attended Collegiate School, where Gwendolen and Dorothy were each in turn Head Girl. They were keen tennis players and led the life expected of comfortably-off young women passing the time between school and marriage.
Wakerley suffered frequently from ill-health, caused by nervous trouble and long hours of work and attendance at Council meetings, and in 1909 he resigned from the Council. He was thus able to devote more time to his absorbing hobby of collecting – furniture, ceramics, stained glass, historical documents, armour, and other artefacts – most of which he kept at Gedding where there was room to display his acquisitions. In 1913 the Leicester Museum arranged an exhibition of furniture from the times of Henry VIII to George IV, all the exhibits coming from Wakerley’s collection.
In 1912 Wakerley celebrated his fiftieth birthday and acquired a telephone – a Leicester Central 803. But he was finding it hard to recover from Margaret’s death and the girls were beginning to tire of summer holidays at the isolated Hall in the Suffolk countryside. So he began to think about building himself a fine house in Leicester, compatible with his affluent circumstances and the designing of a new house would occupy his mind and please the family. He sold Gedding Hall in 1914, and years later, in 1966, it was re-sold to Bill Wyman, bass guitarist of the Rolling Stones pop group, who spent a great deal of money in restoring the Hall. Wakerley now also sold 58 London Road and drew up plans for the new house, which were passed by the Council in July of that year. He and the family moved into The Cottage, Gwendolen Road (now No 503) a small farmhouse a short distance from his proposed new mini-Gedding Hall, the building of which he would thus be on hand to oversee.
North Evington and Crown Hills
Arthur Wakerley was occupied with the creation of an industrial suburb in north Evington for almost 30 years, from his first purchase of five acres of land in 1885 up to the outbreak of the Great War, by which time there were in the area 28 factories in 31 trades, employing 5170 people. The first factory was built in Halstead Street in 1888, but it stood empty for two years until the first tenant (W H Tomlinson & Co) moved in.
In Asfordby Street, Wakerley built a Post Office, a Coffee Room, a Market Square an a Market Hall (now occupied by the N E Conservative Club), a Police Station which housed a Lamplighters’ Dept. and a Fire Station, no longer operative but whose premises are now included in those of the police Station next door.
On 10th December 1891 Wakerley invited the Mayor (Alderman Thomas Wright, JP) to his Market Hall and handed him a deed of gift by which the Corporation became owners in perpetuity of the Market Square. Around this time Wakerley built 29 houses in Asfordby Street and Halstead Street, which were offered at 8s 10d per week; this charge included purchase money, rent, rates and insurance, and the purchase would be completed after 18 and 1/2 years.
Wakerley sold 63 acres at practically cost price to the Leicester Board of Guardians in 1900 for the erection of an Infirmary (now the General Hospital) into which the hospital wing of the Swain Street Institution would be moved. The Hospital was built by William Moss & Sons Ltd, of Loughborough and in 1901 Wakerley designed Crown Hills House (a short distance below where Crown Hill House would be built 14 years later) for Robert Moss, who lived there from 1902-1905 so that he could be on the spot to oversee the Hospital building operations. George Kirby was the occupier for the next 16 years, for whom, in 1906, Wakerley added a dairy.
In 1897 Wakerley gave the site at the corner of Gedding Road and Gwendolen Road to the Wycliffe Society for the Blind. 6 cottages and a hall of residence were built, with a garden and a lawn in between and the buildings were opened by Mrs Wakerley in 1996. On 1st June 1922 Wakerley laid the foundation stone for workshops for the blind. A clock, given by an anonymous donor, was inserted in the tower above the entrance and hymn tunes were played on its carillon of tubular bells.
Nearby are the delightful Gwendolen Gardens, planted with sweet-scented flowers, for the blind to walk and sit in. In 1930, Wycliffe Hall was extended and the dedication ceremony was attended by Mrs Wostenholm on behalf of her father who was ill.
Wakerley attend Bishop Street Methodist Church all his adult life, but was generous to other Methodist groups, giving the land at the corner of Mere Road and Hartington Road for the erection of Wesley Hall (1896) by Draper & Walters. He also designed the Belgrave Methodist Mission Church in 1896 and built the Salvation Army Hostel in Rolleston Street in 1902 because of his friendship for General Booth.
In 1910 Wakerley designed a terrace of 10 houses in East Park Road (Nos. 216 – 234) with projecting gabled wings, giving the impression of five pairs of semi-detached houses; their entrance situation not at the front but at the side, as often found in Wakerley-designed houses.
To encourage people from outside the area to spend their money in north Evington Market, Wakerley ran a free omnibus service on Saturdays between the Market Square and the surrounding districts (although neither his descendants nor the writer could understand its working!) When the Corporation took over the tramways in 1901, Wakerley agitated successfully for the lines to be extended along East Park Road (hence the right-angled bend at Evington Road corner).
But in spite of all Wakerley’s efforts to make North Evington a viable community, it remained an area of factories and shops with workers’ residences nearby. The Market Square was intended to be a focal point to which people could relate, but the idea did not work – perhaps because the Square was surrounded by official buildings. The Imperial Hotel, at the corner of Mere Road and St. Saviour’s Road, built and licensed in 1880/81 by J I Hallam, had a coffee-room equal in size to its bar-room , so perhaps this hotel attracted some of the men and women of North Evington. But there was no public house in Wakerley’s North Evington, no hall where dances or whist drives could be held or billiards played. (Wakerley would not have approved of such goings-on) and so the area failed to develop a soul or become a community.
Over the years the whole area of north Evington declined and became neglected, and in 1947 even its market licence was withdrawn. Happily the Council is now restoring and conserving the Market Square and the surrounding buildings. North Evington is once again a pleasant place to visit and a cheerful and attractive environment for the residents of the area. It is good that the work of one of Leicester’s most illustrious sons is receiving the attention it deserves and a graceful tribute to him has been made in Halstead Street by the naming of Wakerley Court. (See Appendix 1)
The area in which Wakerley chose to build his new home was, naturally enough, land which he owned in Crown Hills, on Eleven Acre Field, once part of the manor of Evington. The architectural concept of Crown Hill House, as it was to be called, was based on Gedding Hall, an it was to be of old red brick and wooden beams like the Suffolk manor house but without a tower. The house is roughly ‘H’ shaped (as were many manorial houses) but with one arm of the ‘H’ missing, the other arm containing the servants’ and utility rooms, all facing Gwendolen Road and to the north. The family’s day and night quarters, facing the sun and overlooking the gardens and fields, were in the two remaining arms of the ‘H’ and its waist contained a foyer and hall downstairs with a gallery overhead. There are two flights of stairs, five bedrooms for the family, all with fireplaces, and a library, or muniment room, which housed the Wakerley collection of ancient documents and books. In the ceiling of the hall is a beam from Little Dalby with its maker’s inscription “William Matthew did this make, the first week after Dalby Wake, 1686.” At the two corners of the lawn furthest from the house are two turreted summerhouses, and a large pond was made beyond the westernmost one, giving a notional Gedding moat to the house, on which the Wakerley grandchildren and great grandchildren used to paddle around in a little boat. Wakerley affixed a plaque to the rear of the house which displays a delightful sense of humour as well as a knowledge of the punning qualities of heraldry.
Arthur and Bertha with Gwendolen, Dorothy, Constance and Arthur John took up residence in Crown Hill house in 1915 and apart from the tragedy of Arthur John’s death in 1917, the family lived happily there for many years.
About the time of her brother’s death, Gwendolen fell in love with the dashing Captain Harry Leslie Wostenholm, Mc, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, whom she married the following year on 17th June. Captain Wostenholm was the son of the Minister of the Bishop Street Methodist Church, where Gwendolen’s father was a lay preacher for forty years. Gwen continued to live with her parents until the end of the war when Leslie joined her and was made manager by Wakerley of the estate farm around Crown Hill House. Angus cows were bought for the farm from Scotland and send down by train to Leicester station where they were collected by Leslie and Mr. Simpkin, the head man on the farm, and driven through the streets all the way to Crown Hill Farm.
In 1920 a brick and timber house was being demolished in Highcross Street and Wakerley transported its bricks and timbers to Gwendolen Road where he re-erected Highcross House, as it was to be called. The year previously he had bought the freehold of The Crescent, King Street, in order to acquire a pillar of the High Cross which was standing in front of the buildings; this pillar he transferred to the garden of Highcross House. In 1954 it was removed to Newarke Houses, and in 1977 was set up in Cheapside by the Leicester Rotary Club in celebration of its 50th Anniversary. Wakerley also acquired the Hor-stone (Evington’s equivalent to the Humber-stone) which he placed on a brick plinth in the garden of Highcross House, where it still stands. Gwendolen and Leslie moved into Highcross House in 1923 and lived there for the remainder of their lives – Leslie dying in 1974 and Gwendolen in 1978 at the age of ninety-one.
From 1886 onwards, Arthur Wakerley was greatly occupied with the design of buildings, both singly and in groups. A house at the corner of London Road and Highfield Street which he designed for Callards, the Confectioners, in 1888 is full of architectural interest, and between 1889 and 1896 Wakerley designed many large houses in Mere Road for directors of businesses and professional workers. Public buildings designed by Wakerley include the Public Lecture Hall and Liberal Club in Clarendon Park Road (1892) and the Wyvern TempTurkey Caerance Hotel on the corner of London Road and Station Street (1894), demolished in 1975. Leicester’s Jewish community commissioned Wakerley to design a Synagogue in Highfield Street in 1898 which is vaguely Byzantine in style and clearly a religious, though not Christian building. He also designed the art nouveau Turkey Café in Granby Street (until recently, Brucciani’s) in 1901 and here Wakerley showed his enjoyment of a pun by creating the façade in a Turkish style, ornamented with turkeys. The ground floor frontage was subsequently altered but a potential buyer now intends to restore it, together with the two missing turkeys;. An important and large commission was the Singer Building in High Street (1904) to commemorate the coronation of Edward VII. The building was cleaned in 1983 and now shows its brightly coloured tile-pictures of ships and Union Jacks surmounted by bird and animal symbols of the Empire.
After the Great War, Leicester had a severe housing shortage and much rundown property but steeply rising costs meant the Council was reluctant to spend too much on re-housing the poor. A housing manual issued to local authorities in 1919 recommended that every house should contain an interior WC, a scullery-bath or bathroom, and frontage wide enough to allow air, light and garden space. Wakerley rose to the challenge and he is probably most remembered for his design for the ‘Wakerley Council House’ which was acclaimed in the national press and adopted by the housing committees of Glasgow, Belfast and Welwyn, as well as of Leicester. The prototypes for the £299 semi-detached council houses were Nos. 258/260 Gwendolen Road, completed in 1924, and the first to be built for the Council were on the Coleman Road Estate. Downstairs are the hall, living room, 3rd bedroom, kitchen-scullery with bath, larder, indoor WC and coal-store. Upstairs are 2 bedrooms with storage space under a steeply pitched roof and there were fireplaces in all rooms. Building costs were kept to a minimum by having a chimney and water-inlet pipe in common, and since there was no bathroom, upstairs no plumbing was required.
Leicester would have been a poorer place without Wakerley’s designs, both for public and private buildings, but the greatest legacy he left to the city was his gifts of land and building designs for charitable purposes.
In 1897, at the age of 35, Arthur Wakerley became the youngest-ever Mayor of Leicester.
That Christmas he gave a party in the old Town hall for the Trinity hospitallers, providing the men with ‘churchwarden pipes’ and joining in the singing and dancing with “so much vim that his own long clay was bitten almost to the end”. He kissed the ladies under the mistletoe and took part in “some forfeit games which resulted in uproarious fun among the old folk.” Wakerley was clearly an approachable man and he received many letters – a complaint about ribbons being stolen from floral tributes at interments, a little girl’s lea for money to provide a Christmas tea for poor children and requests to preach at a Sunday School Anniversary, to open a bazaar, to take the Chair at meetings, and to open exhibitions. He was also invited to perform the Opening Ceremony of the Newark Bridge which he carried out in splendid fashion by a spirited drive across the bridge between potted palms in an open carriage and pair.
No special rooms were allocated for the Mayor’s use so Wakerley frequently used his own home at 58 London Road. Here he received Ramsay MacDonald, whose wife was a close friend of Mrs Wakerley, and also the Churchills. Although a Liberal himself, Wakerley had many good friends in the Labour Party too.
In April 1898, after an explosion at Whitwick Colliery, the Mayor set up a Trust Fund for the 27 widows and 124 fatherless children for whom £6,000 was raised. Every widow and every child under 13 years received 2s 6d and 1s 3d per week, respectively.
Leicester’s water at this time was obtained from Thornton, Cropston and Swithland Reservoirs but Wakerley realised that more would be needed for use in the 20th century and conducted a party of 8 prominent Leicester citizens to the Derwent Valley where, in collaboration with Derby, Nottingham and Sheffield, a large reservoir was subsequently built. In order to encourage industry and attract Rolls-Royce to Leicester, Wakerley wanted the Council to provide water free of charge to factories. But Derby’s Council was more enterprising and lower rates for electrical power persuaded Rolls-Royce to settle there. Far-sighted Wakerley even raised the question of nationalised water resources but was against metered supplies because he was ‘afraid it would be putting a tax on cleanliness.”
Also in 1898 the Council considered the question of compulsory purchase of the Leicester Tramways Co Ltd. The total cost was £153,500 but before the purchase was finally made in 1902, the 12 miles of existing lines had to be replaced and equipped with new cars, travelling at an average speed of not less than 8mph. The new service was to be regular and frequent, and passengers would be able to get on and off at any point. The inauguration of the Corporation’s Tramway Service in 1904, with a grand ceremonial parade of decorated electric tramcars on the Stoneygate route, was the end result of the important decision taken six years previously in Alderman Arthur Wakerley’s Mayoral Year.
Appendix 1 – Opening of Wakerley Court in 1983
In October, Minister of Housing, Ian Gow visited Leicester to open Wakerley Court, a new set of retirement homes in Halstead Street, North Evington. Much praise was given to architect Pol Jozsa for an attractive and functional design.
The complex was built by East Midlands Retirement Homes with some city funds. It provides 34 homes plus accommodation for wardens. Constructed around a small court it is pleasantly laid out with numerous balconies and overhead walkways.
Echo readers are presently enjoying Jean Farquhar’s articles about Leicester benefactor Arthur Wakerley after whom the flats were named. Jean was present at the function with Jack and Christopher Sawday, descendants of Wakerley, who have helped her in her research.
The Minister was most impressed by what he saw, congratulating the City Council for funding the project – ‘a development of the greatest imagination.’ he said.
Appendix 2 – Plaque erected in 2023 outside the Crown Hills House that Arthur Wakerley build for himself and his family.
Arthur Wakerley was born in Melton Mowbray in 1862. He was an architect, businessman and politician. He trained with the Leicester architect James Bird, and used many different architectural styles, designing churches, synagogues, shops and offices.
Arthur held many important positions including Mayor of Leicester. He chaired Leicester’s first Housing and Town Planning Committee, was a Wesleyan preacher, and served as President of the Leicester Society of Architects.
Crown Hills and Highcross House
Crown Hills on Gwendolen Road was the home Arthur designed for himself. It was based on Gedding Hall in Suffolk. Arthur filled the house with beautiful furniture and antiques. He lived there from 1915 until his death in 1931.
In 1923, in the grounds of Crown Hills, Arthur built a house for his daughter Gwendolen and her husband. It was called Highcross House because it included the half-timbered front of a property that was demolished in Highcross Street.
A Vision for North Evington
From the beginning of the 1900s Arthur saw the need for good quality, affordable housing in Leicester. He created a suburb in the North Evington area with housing, factories, shops and a market hall. By the outbreak of the First World War, North Evington had 28 factories employing over 5,000 people.
Arthur Wakerley died in 1931 and was buried in Welford Road cemetery.
This panel is on Crown Hills Avenue and is part of the Story of Leicester. It is colour coded orange for ‘Changing Pasts’.
This is a photo of the house on Crown Hills Avenue, which is now a Care Home. (Photo: April 2024)
