Spotlight on Glebe House Part 2

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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Dyer, Lynne (2020). Spotlight on Glebe House Part 2. Available from:https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2020/12/spotlight-on-glebe-house-part-2.html [Accessed 20 December 2020]

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