Builders and developers

Builders and developers may sometimes be indistinguishable. Someone from the building trade – Thomas Gratton, or David Chilton for example – might buy land and develop it themselves, as a speculation. But it was just as likely that someone with another business entirely – for example Allen Kaye, who was a draper, George Plant, who made and operated machines, or Edward Fox Leek, who had had a shoe business in Newcastle – would take on the developer’s role, and contract out the actual construction. It is often easier to identify developers than builders; and though Samuel Davies and Henry Watson – both in the building trade – are likely to have constructed much of 19th century Alsager themselves, and to have acted as speculative developers as well, they operated during a period when official records are poor. The building trade’s own are notoriously bad.

An existing landowner or plot-buyer might confine themselves to a house for their own occupation, but development could be on any scale. The long leases granted on the south of Crewe Road – on the frontage between the Lodge Inn and Farfield – seem mainly to coincide with Robert Mellor’s acquisition of the large estate to the south. Joseph Latham, an engraver, bought several plots in Fields Road from the Freehold Land Society who laid it out for building, then apparently building a house, living in it, then selling it and building another. He was probably also what we would now call an estate agent. Landowners themselves might be involved – Henry Ford at Heathfields, for example, advertised building land at Sunnyside, and Plant and Leek both came to live nearby. Some of the earliest names in building (such as William Rawlinson and George Yates in the 1850s) were primarily farmers, who might also supply the clay from which bricks were made. There was a ‘brickmaker’s hut’ south of the railway, and a brickmaker’s yard at Oak Farm, on the Audley Road. The group who bought land round the Mere, including the eventual trustees of the Mere itself, were developers; Gratton, who developed 1-15 Church Road, described himself as a builder.

There is nothing to indicate that the locality diverged significantly from trends in the building industry elsewhere; though the building trade may have been slower to form small businesses into limited liability companies than in metropolitan areas.

It should not be forgotten that until after WW2 most people did not own the houses they lived in. Nor was it uncommon for someone to build a pair or two of semi-detacheds, live in one and rent out the rest.

Barker

James Barker (1843-1913), farmer at the Town House and owner of land north of the railway, was also an entrepreneur, exploiting sand deposits on ‘the Brunds’. He developed the eastern end of Talke Road.

Booth

Born in Church Lawton, Samuel Booth (1820s-1895) was a joiner and a joiner’s son who became a prominent builder in Kidsgrove with about 10 on his staff. Though amongst much else he frequently contracted with the local authority there, and built new offices for Thomas Sherratt, little of his identifiable building there is left. In 1884 he built Northolme, 44 Crewe Road, which bears his initials, for his own retirement.

Byron

Leonard Byron (b. 1899), after other partnerships, became part of the firm Byron and Bradshaw, who built a large estate on the north-east end of Lawton Road, as well as at Audley Road and elsewhere in Church Lawton and Scholar Green. They built speculatively according to pattern books and also took commissions. His own home was at Hillcrest, near Lawton gate.

Cooke

William Cooke (1840-1926) was a builder in Burslem, where he lived in Newcastle Street. He built 2-6 Chancery Lane, the first for his own eventual retirement, and 143-145 Crewe Road on the same plot.

John Smallwood Cooke (b. 1867) was a cabinet-maker (and undertaker) who had business premises at 55 Crewe Road, where he was the developer of nos. 37 and 43-45 and probably others.

Chilton

David George Chilton (1861-1907) was born in Wolverhampton and trained as a joiner, becoming a builder while at Fenton. He was probably already building in Alsager when the UDC came into being in 1894. He built most of the houses in Station Road (where he lived with his mother and sister for a time), 2-8 Church Road, at the west end of Talke Road from no. 9 eastward, and probably on the Crewe Road as well. At his early death at his home, Hillcote in Porthill, where he had moved by 1904, he left over £21,000, partly from a brick- and tile-making business.

Dain

Ralph Dain (1829-1915) of Burslem was architect of – at least – the Primitive Methodist Chapel, Betley Place shops, and the Gables. Each of these was built in a different decade, between 1862 and the late 1880s. Dain lived throughout at 54 Liverpool Road, Burslem, where he died.

Davies

Samuel Davies (c 1840-c 1883) had a business model more flexible than his contemporary speculative builder Henry Watson. Whereas Watson offered to sell what he built, Davies was prepared to let or to sell. He was also prepared to supply building materials to others. He may have been responsible for a builders’ yard on Lawton Road (where he lived) subsequently occupied by Thomas Gratton. A joiner who had also worked as a bricklayer, he was born in Church Lawton; his younger brothers Joseph and Thomas worked as wheelwright and bricklayer. He built the Congregational chapel in Brookhouse Road and extended the churchyard at Christ Church. By 1881 he was the employer of 6 men and 2 boys. The 1891 census finds his widow keeping a lodging house near the railway in Southport.

Edwards

From the 1880s, George Edwards (1852-1924) and his brother Joseph Edwards (1859-) ran separate family building businesses which built widely in Alsager. Near neighbours at the west end of town, both built in Audley Road, Crewe Road and Chancery Lane; inter alia George built houses in the Avenue and Station Road, and Joseph in Sandbach Road North, Dunnocksfold Road and Hassall Road. George had premises on the north side of Crewe Road; Joseph retired to no. 33 Chancery Lane. Both acted as undertakers, and in later years the latter’s firm, which still exists, gave up the building side of their business. The Edwards development on the east side of Sandbach Road North took place on land which had been part of the farm of Joseph Edwards (d.1839).

Ford

An architect, George Beardmore Ford (1834-1902) of Burslem, acted as agent for landowners advertising building land in Alsager in the 1860s, as well as building villas and designing the new Wesleyan chapel. Having control of the development of the Meakin estate at Cobridge, he is allegedly the original model (or one of them) for Arnold Bennett’s character Osmond Orgreave, the architect in Clayhanger.

Gratton

Thomas Gratton (1840-1924) was a builder in Burslem who came to Alsager in the 1880s where he probably took over Samuel Davies’s premises in Lawton Road; he may already have acquired land on the west side of the Mere, where he subsequently owned 1-15 Church Road. He was a member of the UDC on its formation, tried to promote the town for visitors, and waged a constant war with council colleagues (who probably found him difficult in the extreme) in favour of permanent development of the site at the north-east corner of Crewe Road with Church Road. He married his cook Agnes as his second wife, her daughter Dorothy probably being his own daughter as well.

Harding

Samuel Harding was a builder expanding his established workforce in 1858 and still in the ‘building and joining business’ in 1860. Beyond his building/owning of ‘cottage houses’ in 1856-8 little more is known of him.

Hook

Walter Hook (1838-1887) had grocery shops at Kidsgrove and Alsager. After buying land in the Alsager estate sale in 1876, he developed Cranberry Moss farm. He seems there to have acted as developer to George Palin as builder. Frequent reports in the local press suggest he was quick-tempered as well as being energetic and entrepreneurial.

Kaye

Allen Kaye (c 1842-1922) was a tailor and draper, originally from Yorkshire, who was in Alsager by 1871. He lived with his wife Mary on Lawton Road for at least 40 years until his death. He owned a number of houses on both sides of Lawton Road and the row of cottages at the top of Fields Road near his own home; he may have built some of them. He was associated with the bowling green opened nearby in 1905. At his death he was worth over £6,000.

Latham

Joseph Latham (1822-1897) was the main original developer in Fields Road, where he acquired several plots from the Burslem and Tunstall Freehold Land Society, and where he subsequently lived. He was by profession an engraver, at Bleak Hill, Burslem, though he had several sidelines, from potato supplier to rate collector, and undertook other local duties whose performance was sometimes questioned. He divided opinion: he clearly spent some time in the Alsager Arms, but might well appear in court afterwards. His son Thomas (1863-1935), a resident in Station Road, also became rate collector for the UDC.

Leek

Edward Fox Leek (1829-1898) was a boot- and shoe-maker from the Ironmarket in Newcastle under Lyme. He moved from there to Sunnyside, probably after acquiring land following the Alsager estate sale of 1876, and became one of the trustees of the Mere. He may well have taken the lead in dividing up and selling the surrounding land for building. His initials are on Coniston Lodge in the Avenue and on Norbreck adjoining and facing Sandbach Road North, though there is no evidence that he lived there.

Millward

William Edward Millward (1873-1954), the son of a bricklayer, built up a building business, and constructed houses at Greenbank in Church Lawton as well as building in Lawton Road and Ashmore’s lane. He married, as his second wife, Mary Weatherby, who like him was associated with the new Wesleyan chapel, and for a time lived with her and her sister Jane at Parkholme.

Palin

George Palin incurred the censure of the council in 1880 for not laying on a proper water supply to (unidentified) newly-built houses. He was a carpenter and builder in Kidsgrove, and probably built 29, 31 and 247 (Cranberry Moss farmhouse) in Crewe Road. He is associated with Walter Hook as a developer.

Perry

Albert Perry of the Grove Works, Etruria, dated his building and contracting business to Burslem in 1926. By the early 1930s he was advertising houses for sale or rent all over the Potteries. In Alsager, he built at Linley, bought and re-sold the Cedars, and (having bought land from the financially ailing Huntley Goss) envisaged a housing estate on the grounds of Westmere Lodge, which he also divided into two houses. Despite innovative sales methods, like many another builder he appears to have over-extended operations, building semi-detached and detached houses and bungalows on over a dozen sites at once. The Westmere development was only partially realised, and he made an arrangement with his creditors in 1936.

Plant

George Plant (1820-1890) is described variously as a ‘machinist’, a ‘mechanician’, and an ‘ornamental lathe maker’. His parents, John and Amy, lived at 1 Hassall Road, and Plants were associated with the first Wesleyan chapel. He was like his daughter Rosa a noted organist. He is likely to have had a hand in the development of villas at Sunnyside, off Dunnocksfold Road, and lived at Sunnyside Cottage in the 1860s and at several other places in the locality. In 1870 he was advertising ‘several plots of freehold land near the station’. He bought land from the Alsager estate following its sale in 1876 and became one of the trustees of the Mere. He created Mayfield and neighbouring houses in Station Road in the late 1870s, and also laid out the Avenue, though it is not certain how much more than nos. 2 to 8 been built or was in hand by the time of his death.

Tomkinson

There is nothing to suggest Arthur Tomkinson (1820-1886), a printer/stationer in Wolstanton, and later co-owner of an ironstone mining firm, was any more active than as an investor, post-1876, in land adjoining the Mere (including the site subsequently sold to and developed by J S Cooke). However he moved from Stoke to Alsager, where after a spell at the Lodge, he moved to Clover Bank, where he died.

Watson

Henry Watson was born about 1853 in Tunstall, and was apprenticed to a joiner. By the 1870s there was so much new building that as one of a handful of identified local builders he was able to advertise for a number of ‘steady men’. The advertisement gives a clue as to how some of the local builders worked, as recruitment was in concert with another contractor who was building houses in Burslem. Between them they had the capacity to take on ten joiners. Watson, who appears to have been an associate of developer George Plant, was based in Crewe Road, probably near Mayfield. His elder brother John was a painter and plumber by trade and is associated with the area opposite the new Wesleyan chapel, where he and their mother occupied houses with shops. His business, including property on Crewe Road and Station Road, ended in the hands of a liquidator.

Yates, Rawlinson

The only identifiable builder resident in Alsager in 1850 was George Yates, who lived the latter part of his life on the northern fringes of the town. Born about 1807, he came originally from Astbury via Sandbach, and lived at Day Green with his wife Lois. A carpenter, he grew a small workforce, to have a staff of four as well as farming some 70 acres. In the 1880s he lived with his son Abraham, who farmed at Foundry Farm on the east side of Sandbach Road North. Less is known about William Rawlinson, who farmed about 30 acres, and was in his early 60s in 1851. He regarded himself as a brickmaker as well as a farmer, and probably supplied bricks for early post-railway building.