THE LOCKWOODS OF DONCASTER
Saltaire, is a pioneer example of a planned industrial community, the architects of which were Lockwood & Mawson.
H.F. Lockwood, of that firm, was a member of a well-known Doncaster family.
His grandfather, Joseph Lockwood, was a stone mason, He came to Doncaster in
1780, aged 21, with his 18 years old wife, Elizabeth. They lived in a house at the corner of Baxter Gate and French Gate for which they paid the Corporation £7 a year in rent; the house was taken down in the 19th century for road widening. It is possible that he came to Doncaster seeking work and found employment on the rebuilding of the Mill Bridge, the contract for which was left to Mr.
Jackson in 1780.
It seems it was not long before the young Lockwood commenced business on his own account. The following entries appear in the Corporation records:
3 March 1785 “Both streets called Spooker Gates be flagged”
13 March 1790 “Paid Joseph Lockwood for paving St, Sepulchre• s Gate £99 6 l½”
On 14 May 1788, the Corporation ordered that the Friar Bridge over the Cheswold
be widened and an arch added at each side. The local journal of 9 August 1788
records that the arch on one side was already turned and the piles for a foundation on the other side were being driven; the battlements were to be topped
with iron palisadoes and the road beyond considerably widened which would make “a handsome termination to the completest street on the great north road between London and Edinburgh,” Messrs. Jackson & Lister were paid £919 6 O for the Friar Bridge and the wall on the west side of Marsh Gate and Joseph Lockwood was paid £135 for the Friar Wall on the east side of Marsh Gate.
In 1790 Lockwood moved to a house in Scot Lane and opened a stone yard on Silver Street, In 1793 Lockwood built the Hall Cross on Hob Cross Hill for which he received £105, He was now sufficiently prosperous to purchase his freedom of the town, which he received on 20 November 1794 for 20 gns.
In November 1791 severe floods damaged Lady Pitt Bridge. In 1795 Lockwood obtrained the contract for rebuilding the bridge and two others on the road north of Doncaster. In 1798 he moved into a more substantial house in the Corn Market, previously occupied by Mr Edward Teare, a surgeon, noted for his treatise
“On the Use and Abuse of Tobacco, Tending to show why this Plant is harmful to the
Nervous System in particular and the whole Human Frame in general,”
Lockwood extended his business activities. He took the brick and tile yard at
Sandall had a sand hole nearby, He ventured into the world of house agency and valuation. In 1805 the Corporation agreed to pay Joseph Lockwood 50 gns, for attending, surveying, directing and overlooking all their buildings and repair as superintendent for the ensuing year.
He was appointed Clerk of the course at Doncaster in 1830 and he held the position of keeper of the matchbook at York Races. He held these posts until 1830 when he was succeeded by his son, Joseph Lockwood, the younger.
In 1807 Joseph Lockwood was elected a councillor and he went on to become Mayor in 1823 and 1832, His house-building work is not well documented but it is known that he built Belle Vue House in 1811 for J. H. Maw. The materials from the ancient college of priests which stood on the southwest margin of the parish churchyard and was demolished to allow the churchyard to be extended were bought for £500 by Mr Maw for incorporation into his new house.
In 1814 William Wrightson leased Levitt Hagg to Joseph Lockwood, Robert Kemp and William Blagden. The Lockwoods were connected with the Levitt Hagg quarries where the stone was obtained for building purposes and lime burning for four generations.
Joseph Lockwood established a wharf at Dockin Hill with a stone yard, warehouses and six cottages. When the gas works were established in 1827 Lockwood sold part of his land for an access road to them, on part of the remaining land he built the 12 cottages known as St. Leger Place with the Stag Inn at the south end.
In 1821 Loclwood was elected alderman and he moved to 13 Hall Gate. The three-storied, balconied house remained his home until he died in 1837. After his death the house was lived in by members of the medical profession for nearly 80 years, Dr Halcomb being the last occupant, it is now used, in part, as a fish and chip shop!
Joseph Lockwood, the younger, was born in 1785 and was apprenticed to his father.
He was taken into the business and carried it on after his father’s retirement.
He built the Betting Rooms, High Street, in 1826 and the new gaol in West Laithe
Gate in 1829. He was also a sculptor and a number of local churches contain Neo-Hellenic memorial tablets by him. In 1827 the Levitt Hagg quarries were leased to Joseph Lockwood, the younger, Robert Kemp and William Blagden.
Joseph Lockwood, the younger, lived at 50 Hall Gate in a house he built for himself. For a long time, it was known as Lockwood House but the name disappeared when the property was bought by the York County Bank in 1931, Stailands n Estate Agenet and now it is now a Public House called the Lockwood.
Joseph Lockwood, the younger died in 1842, aged 56. There was a. memorial to father and son, and Mrs, Elizabeth Lockwood in the old St. George•’s church. The Silver Street and Dockin Hill stone yards were later taken by Anelays, the well-known builders.
Henry Francis Lockwood was born in 1811, the eldest of the younger Joseph’s la;ge family. He was an articled to P. Robinson, architect, of London and set up in practice a.t. Kingston upon Hull in 1834, He moved to Bradford in 1849 and in partnership with William and Richard Mawson was responsible for many buildings in that city. In 1874 he moved to London where he built the City Temple, He died in 1878. His only known work·in the Doncaster area is Sprotbrough Rectory, built in the l840s.
Charles Day Lockwood was IO years younger than Henry Francis and also had artistic abilities, The two brothers produced drawings of the ruins of the church of st. Mary Magdalen in the Market Place which was used for the illustrations in Jackson’s volume on that church.
C. D. Lockwood was involved in the running of the Levitt Hagg quarries. In November 1842 he married Jane Haimes Mitchell from Leicester; she was a young governess with the family of Robert Storrs, surgeon, of 9 Hall Gate. C. D. Lockwood lived at. the Pillar House, South Parade, He used his artistic talents to entertain his seven children and make amusing toys for them, In 1855 he was one of the purchasers of Hall Cress Close which lay opposite his home and was subsequently developed as Regent Square.
Much of the output from the Levitt Hagg quarries had been transported by water but the completion of the South Yorkshire Railway in 1849 opened up new markets, especially in Lancashire, It was claimed the magnesian lime had been used in many large buildings in Yorkshire and Lancashire, including Doncaster Church and Saltaire Mill. In 1860 a lime depot was opened at Ardwick, near Manchester, and C. D. Lockwood left Doncaster to take charge of it.
Frank, his second son, was being educated at Edenfield Academy, Thorne Road, and stayed on until 1863, After two years at Manchester Grammar School he went to Cambridge. He was called to the Bar in 1873 and became one of the country’s leading barristers. He was elected Liberal M.P, for York in 1885 and became H.M. Solicitor General in 1894, He died, aged 52, in 1897, His genial disposition, his sporting instincts, his love of justice and his satirical sketches made him one of the most popular men of his day, Someone who, as schoolboy in Hall Gate, remembered Joseph Lockwood as a genial old gentleman said Frank was not like his father or grandfather but took after his great grandfather, There is a portrait of Sir Frank Lockwood QC. at the Mansion House. Frank’s younger brother, Alfred, carried on the family business at Levitt Hagg in the fourth generation.
Doncaster Civic Trust Newsletter Issue No 46
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