Historian, author and tour guide Martyn Taylor looks into how John and Thomas Shillitoe built a fine reputation in Bury St Edmunds

Some people might wonder why a small development of properties at the far end of King’s Road, in Bury St Edmunds, is called Shillitoe Close.

The name, one of various 19th-20th century mayors of the town, is in common with many locations throughout Bury, but mainly on the council-built estates of the 1960s-1970s: the Westley, Nowton and Howard. Thus, Shillitoe Close is named after Thomas Shillitoe, who was mayor in 1899 but was also re-elected in 1900 and 1901.

So, who was Thomas and what was his background. which enabled him to attain the highest civic office achievable in Bury?

Thomas was born in 1864 in Campsall, near Doncaster, Yorkshire, miles from Bury. It was his father John, also born in Campsall, on January 28, 1833, who would unbelievably become one of the country’s top builders during the Victorian era.

John would have been the first to admit he was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. His father, also a builder, reckoned he could trace his family – all builders – back 300 years, though this could not be substantiated.

In 1867, having more than learned his craft, John went into partnership with his wife Catherine’s brother, John Morgan, carrying out small works in the Campsall area. However, after five or six years the partnership, styled as Shillitoe and Morgan, went into liquidation, mainly because John wanted to expand by taking on larger contracts. This he achieved in 1873, when he was employed on the restoration of the Campsall parish church of St Mary Magdalene.

This was the start of a church building and restoration venture, as were other churches he worked on in Skelbrooke near Doncaster, Hornby near Northallerton, Brayton in North Yorkshire, Bolsover near Chesterfield, and Wentbridge near Pontefract, as well as several others. However, it was the large contract to build St Alban’s church, designed by John Loughborough Pearson, in Birmingham, that led him to move there for a period.

The foundation stone was laid on January 31, 1880, by Frederick Lygon, 6th Earl Beauchamp, with the church opening for worship on May 3, 1881. Costs were in the region of £20,000 (equivalent to £2,758,944 in 2023). Realising it was more convenient to ‘be on the doorstep’ of such projects, he moved once again, this time to Upper Norwood, in South London, where he was engaged in the erection of St John’s Church at Upper Norwood, a contract amounting again to about £20,000.

While working here he was amazingly given an open-ended contract to start building the cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a Church of England cathedral in Truro, Cornwall. However, it would be built between 1880 and 1910 to a gothic revival design by John Loughborough Pearson and is one of three cathedrals in the United Kingdom featuring three spires.

He must have been pleased with the work John Shillitoe did on St Alban’s church in Birmingham. In 1884, while residing at Norwood, John took his only son, Thomas, into partnership, the firm being styled as Messrs Shillitoe & Son. John’s part in the cathedral was completed in 1887-88, though it would not be completed until 1910, long after the death of John; the cost, an enormous £100,000-plus.

Whether John had followed his doctrine in moving to Truro is unclear, but he and Thomas moved to Bury in 1885, a far-cry from where they had been living before. Why they moved is not known.

On September 4, 1888, Trinity House appointed Shillitoe & Son as contractors for a new lighthouse at Southwold, with Eustace Grubb, Southwold town mayor, laying the first brick on May 28, 1889. The lighthouse is still there today, having stood the test of time.

Other major works undertaken during their partnership were the erection of a town hall at Sutton in Ashfield in 1888, the building of a number of cottages at Elstree in 1889 and the new technical institute at West Ham in 1896. Was the continuance of carrying out building work afar detrimental to the partnership’s existence, with labour thinly spread?!

With the old Bury Workhouse closing in College Street, it was sold off by the Bury Corporation in 1884. Part of it was taken over as the Shillitoe’s builders yard.

John moved round the corner into College Lane, while his father lived at Lawn Cottage, in Out Westgate. It was here, on December 16, 1891, John died, his death reported in the Bury & Norwich Post of December 22: “It is our mournful duty to chronicle the demise of Mr John Shillitoe, contractor, of this town, an event which took place at his residence, Lawn Cottage, Westgate Road, (Out-Westgate), on Wednesday last.

“The deceased gentleman was much esteemed by his fellow townsmen as an upright and genial man of strict integrity and thoroughly business-like habits, possessing at the same time a simplicity of character and honesty of purpose which won for him the friendship of a very large circle of acquaintances, not only in Bury St Edmunds but throughout the Kingdom, where his extensive business caused his name to be a household word among builders and contractors.”

With the death of his father, Thomas set up on his own in 1891 and during this time his headquarters were still in Bury, with various contracts carried out, concentrating on church work but also jobs nearer to home. A noble edifice built was for the Alliance Assurance Company at 59 Abbeygate Street in 1891 to designs by John Shewell Corder of Tower Street, Ipswich. This highly detailed build, with its neo-Jacobean features, includes Dutch gables and a fine rubbed terracotta frieze of mythical creatures (in recent years it was a Café Rouge restaurant).

Again a shortage of labour was a major concern to Thomas and adverts were continually placed throughout 1895-98 in the East Anglian Daily Times, Bury & Norwich Post and Bury Free Press for bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers and plasterers etc at good rates of pay.

In 1898, Thomas was one of four local businessmen each having shares of £350 in the Bury St Edmunds Brick Company, in Nowton Road. Unfortunately the number and quality of bricks could not be sustained, the company folding in 1905. This same year, Thomas decided to sell off the former Bury Workhouse properties he had acquired and eventually moved to London, living at 8 Dacres Road, Forest Hill.

A lack of reliable, good tradesmen may then have contributed to the decision made by Thomas to finish his business after 10 years in 1901. Another reason may well have been his busy involvement as a councillor in the Bury Corporation because, on November 8, 1899, he was unanimously invited to become mayor of the borough, a position he would hold until November 10, 1902.

Evidently he was a good mayor, supporting good causes such as fund-raising for the Martyrs Memorial in the Great Churchyard (carried out by Arthur Hanchet in 1903) and also being chairman for Bury Alexandra FC, formed for working-class players.

He also was involved in presenting Edward VII coronation medals on November 9, 1901, in the Guildhall Council Chamber to members of the Suffolk Yeomanry. Embarrassingly there was a problem with the medal dates as the King’s coronation had to be delayed until August 9 instead of its original date of June 26 because the king was ill with appendicitis!

It was also in the Guildhall, in 1902, that Sarah née Stilwell, Thomas’ wife, was presented with an ornate silver cradle inscribed on its base with the name of her son, Beoderic Harold, born in 1901, one of the 10 children of Thomas and Sarah. The son’s name was remarkable as Beoderic was part of Beodericsworth, the original name of Bury St Edmunds. Sadly, another son, Lancelot, had died in 1918 during World War One.

Thomas continued to work in the London area, but still quoted for work further afield, such as the contract he was awarded, as reported in the Lincolnshire Standard, in 1919, to build a wall to protect the river bank in Boston. His tender, one of eight, was for £4,700. Nearer to home, he built 20 flats in Diss Street, Bethnall Green, London, in 1922 as part of a re-housing programme.

Thomas Shillitoe died aged 70 on September 6, 1934, and is remembered on a plaque in Diss Street.