Meeting Reflections

John Usher – Pamela Birch

February’s guest speaker was Pamela Birch, Bedfordshire’s County Archivist, who gave an interesting talk about John Usher. It was pleasing to see approximately two thirds of our membership present. The talk was from her perspective as she stated that she was neither an architect nor historian!

Usher lived and worked in Bedford during the second half of the 19^th Century, having been born in Blunham in 1822, where previous generations of his family had lived.His father, grandfather and great grandfather had all been carpenters.

The archives hold a great deal of sketches, plans, invoices and correspondence relating to his business activities, which includes building, architecture, auctioneering and estate agency. He was variously described as the most prolific and original of 19^th century Bedford, but also a “rogue” one who strayed from what was considered the norm and had no followers of his designs.

The Ushers owned a fair amount of land and property, and by 1844 John was taken into the family business, then known as W.B.Usher & Son. They carried out repairs to many local properties including various bridges in the area, usually involving the Ivel, advertising their services including the fact that they supplied ornamental chimney pots.

The firm was contracted to work on Great Barford parish church, although not as architects on this occasion, working at the behest of another, a man named John Tacy Wing. Although the work was completed to schedule and the satisfaction of the churchwardens, they were, for some reason, unwilling to pay up by the prescribed time and it was over two years later until most of the bill was settled, and this after several reminders! It was thought that payment was withheld due to the fact that John Usher was a non- conformist being a member of, and virtually running, Blunham Baptist Chapel!

In later years Usher branched out on his own, increasingly separating his architectural activities from building, due in part to the fledgling Royal Institute of British Architects (R.I.B.A.) whose rules stated that the two aspects should not be under the control of the same firm.

In 1848 John Usher married and eventually moved to Bedford where he apparently found it difficult to survive financially on architecture alone, so increasingly diversified, as previously mentioned, also advertising for building firms to work on various projects.

In 1866 it seems that he offered to the Borough of Bedford a complete map of all roads, drains and water pipes, on which had been spared no expense – this was to be in a “handy” size of 4 feet by 3 feet, but no record exists if such an item having been produced – the only evidence is of a larger 5 feet 8 inches by 7 feet version! It was described by an official as “very useful, but too large and unwieldy to refer to on ordinary occasions”.

Between 1852 and 1856 John Usher made alterations to Great Barford House for a Mr Arnold who was well known to him, including as a friend. It would appear that costs went out of control, mainly due to the client insisting on many extras not included in the original estimates. As a result, the two men fell out.

In later years Usher moved to new premises in Mill Street, Bedford, adjacent to The Oddfellows Arms, and increasingly tended to include striped and other patterns in his designs in his buildings, which included grand houses, factories, mills and barns.

He also was involved in an elaborate fountain in the centre of Bedford, supposedly to provide water for horses and cattle, but this was a complete disaster and was demolished only 10 years later.

Overall, John Usher seems to have held his own against local and national competitors and towards the end of his career became less active in business, holding few public posts and rarely appearing in the news, and strangely there are no known photographs of him.

He remarried in 1859 and died in 1904.

Pamela Birch seemed to disagree with the aforesaid descriptions of Usher’s talents, but this is, if course, a personal opinion, but she agreed that he did indeed leave some kind of legacy.

Brian Miller