So Who Was Edward Thomas Allcock

An A-Z of Architects of Loughborough

For a complete list of the A-Z posts please head over to the bloglist.

Short biography of Edward Thomas Allcock

Edward Thomas Allcock was born in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, on 1 July 1871, to parents Thomas, a joiner, and his wife Martha (Nee Reeve). The couple were married in 1868, and Edward Thomas was their second child, and first son. Sometime between 1871 and 1881, Thomas changed occupation and moved house, so in 1881 he was a coal merchant employing four men and two boys, and was now living at 1-2 Green Close Lane in Loughborough.

Between 1885 and 1888, Edward Thomas attended the Loughborough Grammar School. Also during this time the family moved to No.1 Broad Street, another child was born, but Thomas was still a coal merchant at Regent Wharf. In 1889, Edward Thomas went into partnership with George Henry Barrowcliff, although was listed on the 1891 census as Barrowcliff’s assistant, along with Charles Frederick Grundy. Edward Thomas was also registered as an architecture student with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), at the time the family were living at the Elms in Hathern. By 1896, Edward Thomas was elected an associate of RIBA, and the following year, Barrowcliff and Allcock designed the Rosebery Board School, now the Rosebery Medical Centre.

Together, in 1898, Barrowcliff and Allcock won the competition to design the King James Grammar School in Knaresborough, and installed a heating system by the Loughborough firm, Messengers. Also in this year, they designed a belltower for the bellfoundry, to replace a clock tower that had been damaged in a fire in 1892. They were also responsible for the design of the town swimming baths in Queen’s Park, Loughborough, now the Charnwood Museum.

Also in 1898, Edward Thomas married Mary Sampson Handley, the daughter of Thomas Handley, in Loughborough, and their first child, Annie, was born in 1899, the same year that Barrowcliff and Allcock designed the manse for the recently constructed Wesleyan Schoolroom on the corner of Ashby and Radmoor roads.

On the 1901 census return, Edward Thomas, wife Mary, and children Annie, and baby Gerard Thomas aged month one, along with one servant, were living at 11 Burton Street, while Edward Thomas’s father, Thomas, and his family were still at the Elms in Hathern. Also in 1901, Barrowcliff and Allcock worked with architect Alfred William Newson Burder, on the design for the children’s convalescent home in Woodhouse Eaves for Rev. Cooper of Burleigh Hall. Also this year, the foundation stone for the Ashby-de-la-Zouch Girls’ Grammar School was laid in June. The architects were Barrowcliff and Allcock, and the Loughborough construction firm of Moss were the builders.

In between design work, Edward Thomas and Mary welcomed another son in 1903 – Richard Percival.  This event was followed in 1904 by Barrowcliff and Allcock winning the competition to design the Carnegie Public Library for the town of Loughborough, which would be built in 1905. One of the advisers on the committee was Mr George Hodson M.I.C.E., F.G.S. Later that same year, the Cobden Street Board School was damaged by fire, and Barrowcliff and Allcock were the architects behind the new school building, and Loughborough’s Corah and Son were the builders. Also in 1904 Barrowcliff and Allcock designed the Dudley Upper Standards School, a building of red brick, with buff terracotta detailing, in a Jacobean style, and in 1905 designed the open carillon tower at the Taylor Bellfoundry, which was the first carillon to be built by an English bellfounder.

With the birth of Margaret Mary in 1905, the family was growing, so by 1908 they had moved to 55 Park Road, a larger house with 10 rooms. Also that year, Barrowcliff and Allcock designed the United Reformed Church on Frederick Street, which originally opened as a Congregational Chapel, to replace the one on Orchard Street. This was followed in 1909 by an extension to Emmanuel Church.

In 1911, Edward Thomas’s father, Thomas had moved to 145 London Road, Coalville with his wife and two daughters, while Edward Thomas, Mary, and their four children continued to live at 55 Park Road. On the night of the 1911 census, Mary’s father, Thomas Handley aged 69 and widowed, a retired chemist, and her sister Edith Handley, single and aged 36, were also listed at the property, along with servant, Hannah Mary Abell.

Barrowcliff and Allcock were appointed to be architects to the Loughborough Education Committee for a period of 3 years from 1 January 1912, terms being a fixed payment of £7 7s. per annum, with a commission of 5% on all works of repairs amounting to £20 and upwards, although the erections of new schools, or structural alterations to existing ones would not be included in the arrangement. On completion of his studies at Loughborough Grammar School, in 1914 Willliam Frederick Cartwright, who would later go on to design the War Memorial for the Grammar School, was articled to their practice. A couple of years later, on 25 March 1919, the Partnership of Barrowcliff and Allcock, civil engineers, architects, and surveyors at the Town Hall Chambers, was dissolved by mutual consent, and they went their separate ways. Barrowcliff would practice on his own account from Town Hall Chambers, and Allcock will work on his account from 12 Baxter Gate.

1925 must have been a difficult year for Edward Thomas, as on 7 November Mary, his wife died, and on 21 November his father died. This was followed by the death of his mother on 14 September 1927, although sandwiched between these sad occasions, Edward Thomas was elected as a Fellow of RIBA, in 1926. A happy celebration in 1929 when son, Richard Percival was married to Sophie Richardson, some beautiful designs for the new Loughborough Echo Press offices on Swan Street in 1931, and the dedication of the Burton Chapel in November that year.  In February 1934, Edward Thomas designed an oak chair which was dedicated to the memory of John Brise Colgrove, headmaster of the Loughborough Grammar School (1875-1893).

It was around this time that Edward Thomas went into partnership with Robert Malcolm Hayes Grieves, who had been elected a licentiate of RIBA in 1931, and they were members of the Leicester and Leicestershire Society of Architects. Their offices were at 11 Leicester Road, and are still there today, the practice now called A + G Architects.

It is unclear when Edward Thomas moved to 12 Burton Street, but he was certainly there in 1939. It is also unclear when he retired from the architectural practice. At the time of his death, on 6 February 1958, he was living at 13 Park Road, Beckenham, Kent.

____________________________________      

What follows is a selection of buildings designed by Allcock, either alone or with partners. 

Note: this is a selective, not a comprehensive listing.

____________________________________

Sole designs

*Pooh Bah Lodge (campus) (1936)

*Echo Offices (1930s)

*Shelthorpe School (1931, opened 1933)

____________________________________      

With Grieves 

(partnered with Robert Malcolm Hayes Grieves from 1935, now A+G Architectural Practice)

*Trinity Methodist church 1968

____________________________________      

With George Harry Barrowcliff as Barrowcliff & Allcock 

(partnership begun 1889, dissolved 1918)

*Bellfoundry additions & carillon 1905

*Charnwood Museum (1899)

*Public Library (1903-5)

*Additions to manor house Normanton on Soar

*Emmanuel Church chancel lengthening (by 13ft) & choir and clergy vestries re-build (1909)

*St Mary’s Catholic Church new nave

*House in Gidea Park, Romford

*Sir Gilbert Claughton Centre Dudley (1904 – Dudley Upper School)

*Newbridge High School Coalville (1909)

*Grammar School Knaresborough (1897)

*Cooper Memorial Home for Children, Brand Hill, Woodhouse Eaves (with Alfred William Newsom Burder)

*Converted Hodsons’s free library on Green Close Lane to the Technical Institute (1909)

____________________________________

Basic Facts

Architect - Edward Thomas Allcock

Parents: Thomas Allcock, a joiner, and Martha Reeve

Date and place of Birth: 1871, Eastwood, Notts.

Spouse: 1898 Mary Sampson Handley

Children: Annie, Gerard Thomas, Richard Percival, Margaret Mary,

Death: 1958, Beckenham, Kent

Places lived: 1881 – Greenclose Lane, Loughborough; 1885 – Broad Street; 1891 - The Elms, Hathern; 1901 – Burton Street, Loughborough; 1908 – Park Road, Loughborough; Beckenham, Kent

Place of work/Offices: Town Hall (with Barrowcliff); Baxter Gate; 11 Leicester Road (the former manse to the Wesleyan Chapel (which used to be the Army & Navy supply store, and Fern Carpets)

Qualifications:

1896 – Associate of RIBA

1926 – Fellow of RIBA

____________________________________

I’m taking part in the April A-Z Blogging Challenge 2026! 

 ____________________________________

Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

_______________________________________________

Thank you for reading this blog.

Copyright:

The copyright © of all content on this blog rests with me, however, you are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follows:

Dyer, Lynne (2026). Edward Thomas Allcock. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2026/04/so-who-was-edward-thomas-allcock.html [Accessed 1 April 2026]

Take down policy:

I post no pictures that are not my own, unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic, unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.

External Links:

By including links to external sources I am not endorsing the websites, the authors, nor the information contained therein, and will not check back to update out-of-date links. Using these links to access external information is entirely the responsibility of the reader of the blog.

Blog archive and tags:

If you are viewing this blog in mobile format, you will not be able to easily access the blog archive, or the clickable links to various topics. These can be accessed if you scroll to the bottom of the page, and click 'View Web Version'. Alternatively, there is also a complete list of posts, which when clicked will take you to the page you are interested in.

Searching the blog:

You can search the blog using the dedicated search box that appears near the top of the blog when viewed in the web version. Alternatively, you can search using your usual search engine (e.g. Bing, Google, DuckDuckGo etc.) by following this example:

site: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/ “Radmoor House”

NOTE – the words you’re actually looking for must be in “” and the first of these must be preceded by a space

Thank you for reading this blog.

Lynne