History of Glebe House part 2
In the previous post about Glebe House, we looked at the period during which it acted as the
rectory associated with the Emmanuel Church, before moving on to look at who
the rectors of Emmanuel were. In this post, let’s look at how Glebe House was
used after the rector from 1904-1923, Richard H. Fuller, completed his
incumbency.
In 1923 Rev.
Douglas R. Robson accepted the position of Rector of Loughborough, and came
from the small parish of Par, in Cornwall, but rather than coming to live at the
impressive Glebe House, Rev. Robson moved into no.57 Forest Road, where in June
1923 Mrs Robson was advertising for the services of a cook / general servant.
So, who was now living at the beautiful Glebe House, in its lovely setting?
Prior to
moving to Glebe House, William Shirley Northcote Toller, known to his family as
Shirley lived in Stafford Lodge, Quorn. Toller had taken part in the First World
War, and in March 1918, at the age of 40, he was taken prisoner of war: shortly
after the Armistice was declared, he returned to England. From 1921 to 1926, he
was Lt. Colonel of the 1/5th Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment and it
was during this period that he moved from Quorn to Glebe House, where he continued
to live until around 1930, when he moved to Quorn Court.
The family that moved into Glebe House following Toller, were the Barthels. Albert Gustave Vincent Barthel was born the year before Toller, in 1887, to parents Louis and Edla [sic], in London. Barthel started his career as a bank clerk, but at the time of his marriage in 1917 to Eva Bigwood, he was an export manager. The couple continued to live in London, sharing the home of Eva’s parents in Battersea. However, in 1920 they registered the birth of their daughter, Joan, in Chepstow. By 1925, the family had moved to 31 Park Road, in Loughborough for a few years, before taking up residence in Glebe House.
On the 1939
register, Barthel is described as the managing director of a public limited
company. A newspaper report from June 1940 describes the plight of the couple’s
twin sons, Paul and Peter, the outcome of which was that Peter Vincent died in
1942. At the time, father Gilbert was the managing director of Genatosan, a
firm which was begun in 1906 in London, as part of Sanatogen, and which in 1937
was taken over by Fisons.
Although
there is no information on when Barthel retired, he and his family continued to
live at Glebe House until about 1952, after which they moved to Storrington
near Horsham in West Sussex, where Albert died in 1982.
Meanwhile,
back in Loughborough, William Davis moved into Glebe House in around 1962. Prior
to this, he and his wife Kathleen had been living at 24 William Street since at
least as early as 1939. In 1935, William Davis had established his
house-building company, who built their first houses on Edelin Road, the year
the couple’s first child, Edelin was born. By the time of the move to Glebe
House, the company was extremely successful.
Sadly, resources
beyond 1962 are not available to me at the moment, so I am not sure when the Leicestershire
County Council bought Glebe House, but I do know that the project known as
Glebe House rented Glebe House from the council in
1982, and opened the building in 1983, offering a pre-school playgroup, and a
holiday playscheme, amongst other things. In 1992, the project became a charity
in its own right.
In 2004 Glebe House was added to Charnwood Borough Council’s register of locally listed buildings. The Glebe House charity continued to operate from Glebe House until 2010, when it moved to the former Magistrate’s Court on Wood Gate. In 2013 the Hardwick House School moved into Glebe House, and opened in 2014, and remains there to this day. Hardwick House School offers a curriculum that is rich and inspiring, and aims to provide an enjoyable learning experience for children and young people. It is a specialist independent school which is part of the group known as Cavendish Education.
Posted by lynneaboutloughborough 20 December 2020
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Lynne
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