ChatterBank1 min ago
Curious About Grand House Occupants Historically .....
10 Answers
Can anyone help with the history of 15 Westbourne Rd, Edgbaston B15 3TR? It's a stunning house just beside the Botanical Gardens ......... can anyone check the census and tell me who lived there please? TIA
Answers
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I looked in the 1901 Census and found 'The Dell' next to No 17. Can't tell if it's the property you're interested in because the enumerator seemed to go off down another road after that. At 'The Dell' was Frank Holliday, born 1850 B'hm, draper & manufacturer
13:17 Sat 04th Jun 2016
I have looked in the 1911 Census and most of the properties had names rather than numbers. One address was that of the Botanical Gardens - the Curator lived there. Looks like it was a well-to-do area, a merchant, a police officer, for example, and several households had more than one servant. In fact, one household listed two children of toddler age and three servants - parents must have been elsewhere on Census night. Sorry can't be more help than this.
I looked in the 1901 Census and found 'The Dell' next to No 17. Can't tell if it's the property you're interested in because the enumerator seemed to go off down another road after that. At 'The Dell' was Frank Holliday, born 1850 B'hm, draper & manufacturer, employer; his American-born wife Clementina, born 1859, and two servants. They had moved by 1911, and in 'The Dell' was Albert Maschwitz, born 1861 B'hm, the general merchant I mentioned earlier, his Australian-born wife Leontine born 1880, daughter Edith born 1905, plus four servants. Hope this is the one! The property could have had several changes of name since.
I've spent a bit of time looking through various records for this 'bijou' property, consisting of 9 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms and 7 reception rooms.
In the 1939 registration, carried out prior to WW11, the occupiers are shown as Harry Green, born 1880, and Katie Green - further details are available on Find My Past, but on a pay per view basis, although from personal knowledge some of the records show details of events that occurred after the war finished.
Harry Green appears in the Telephone Books at this address during the years 1949 to 1963 (although shown as B21) NORthern 1918.
From 1924 to 1942 the Telephone Books show this address as B15, the number EDGbaston 0338, belonging to Oliver Lucas. The Electoral Roll for 1925 also shows this address as being Oliver Lucas.
Oliver Lucas was the son of Harry Lucas, who in turn was the son of Joseph Lucas, who, although only educated one day a week at a church Sunday school, founded the company that eventually became Lucas Industries, which brought employment to many people in Birmingham and through expansion a lot of England.
Without the name of the house, the censuses cannot confirm the occupants as street numbers are not shown, as mentioned by Rose Maybud, but the Lucas family did not live at this address until it was purchased after 1911.
1950 Obituary
"OLIVER LUCAS, whose untimely death occurred in the Bahamas on 20th March 1948, at the age of fifty-six, was an outstanding figure in the automobile industry and a well-known authority on all forms of road transport, his advice on this subject and particularly on the design of motor vehicles being extensively sought by manufacturers, not only in this country but also in America where he was well-known in wide circles.
On leaving school he joined the firm of Joseph Lucas, Ltd., of Birmingham, which had been founded by his grandfather, and for the last twenty-five years of his life was joint managing director of the Lucas Group.
During the war of 1914-18 he served at first with the Armoured Car Brigade in France, but was withdrawn later from combatant service in order to develop a portable infantry signalling lamp which became the standard equipment for the British and French armies in both world wars. During his directorship he was in charge of the technical and engineering policy of the Lucas Group and was personally responsible for many of the inventions embodied in the Lucas products.
His analytical and logical mind and quick brain enabled him successfully to direct the activities of the Lucas organization in many new directions, such as the development and manufacture of fuel-injection equipment for Diesel engines and, at a later stage, the design and manufacture of combustion and control equipment for gas turbines which the firm undertook during the second world war. At the same time his natural flair for production and the close study which he gave to manufacturing operations were of inestimable service in building up an organization which was able to meet all the needs of the rapidly expanding automobile industry.
In 1942 Mr. Lucas was appointed Director of Research and Development at the Ministry of Supply, and in the following year he led a special mission to the United States to correlate information on the design development and production of armoured vehicles in that country and the United Kingdom. He became a member of the Institution of Automobile Engineers in 1930 and, although his duties in his own firm and at the Ministry precluded his taking an active part in its proceedings, there can have been few men who were better known by the engineers and higher executives in all branches of the industry.
In his own firm he was universally respected not only for his keen personal interest in his staff and workpeople, but also for his insistence on sound engineering and design as the first requirement in all equipment produced by the organization."
I hope this helps your curiosity.
In the 1939 registration, carried out prior to WW11, the occupiers are shown as Harry Green, born 1880, and Katie Green - further details are available on Find My Past, but on a pay per view basis, although from personal knowledge some of the records show details of events that occurred after the war finished.
Harry Green appears in the Telephone Books at this address during the years 1949 to 1963 (although shown as B21) NORthern 1918.
From 1924 to 1942 the Telephone Books show this address as B15, the number EDGbaston 0338, belonging to Oliver Lucas. The Electoral Roll for 1925 also shows this address as being Oliver Lucas.
Oliver Lucas was the son of Harry Lucas, who in turn was the son of Joseph Lucas, who, although only educated one day a week at a church Sunday school, founded the company that eventually became Lucas Industries, which brought employment to many people in Birmingham and through expansion a lot of England.
Without the name of the house, the censuses cannot confirm the occupants as street numbers are not shown, as mentioned by Rose Maybud, but the Lucas family did not live at this address until it was purchased after 1911.
1950 Obituary
"OLIVER LUCAS, whose untimely death occurred in the Bahamas on 20th March 1948, at the age of fifty-six, was an outstanding figure in the automobile industry and a well-known authority on all forms of road transport, his advice on this subject and particularly on the design of motor vehicles being extensively sought by manufacturers, not only in this country but also in America where he was well-known in wide circles.
On leaving school he joined the firm of Joseph Lucas, Ltd., of Birmingham, which had been founded by his grandfather, and for the last twenty-five years of his life was joint managing director of the Lucas Group.
During the war of 1914-18 he served at first with the Armoured Car Brigade in France, but was withdrawn later from combatant service in order to develop a portable infantry signalling lamp which became the standard equipment for the British and French armies in both world wars. During his directorship he was in charge of the technical and engineering policy of the Lucas Group and was personally responsible for many of the inventions embodied in the Lucas products.
His analytical and logical mind and quick brain enabled him successfully to direct the activities of the Lucas organization in many new directions, such as the development and manufacture of fuel-injection equipment for Diesel engines and, at a later stage, the design and manufacture of combustion and control equipment for gas turbines which the firm undertook during the second world war. At the same time his natural flair for production and the close study which he gave to manufacturing operations were of inestimable service in building up an organization which was able to meet all the needs of the rapidly expanding automobile industry.
In 1942 Mr. Lucas was appointed Director of Research and Development at the Ministry of Supply, and in the following year he led a special mission to the United States to correlate information on the design development and production of armoured vehicles in that country and the United Kingdom. He became a member of the Institution of Automobile Engineers in 1930 and, although his duties in his own firm and at the Ministry precluded his taking an active part in its proceedings, there can have been few men who were better known by the engineers and higher executives in all branches of the industry.
In his own firm he was universally respected not only for his keen personal interest in his staff and workpeople, but also for his insistence on sound engineering and design as the first requirement in all equipment produced by the organization."
I hope this helps your curiosity.
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