Mary Dormer Harris was a remarkable woman. Multi-talented, hard-working, an enthusiastic party-giver with a great zest for life, she had a wide circle of friends young and old. She wrote and published books and plays, lectured in local history at the University of Birmingham and was Vice-President of the Workers’ Education Association and an associate of the Dugdale … Read more
Part One, 1777 to about 1875 [Note – A version of these articles in a different format is available HERE] This follows the firm from some early members of the Flavel family to the time when Sidney Flavel junior took the reins from Sidney senior. The history of the Flavel family in manufacturing has been … Read more
Part Two, about 1875 to 2015. [Note – A version of these articles in a different format is available HERE] This follows the firm from the moment when Sidney Flavel junior took the reins to the present day. Sidney Flavel junior (1847 to 1931) was educated at Warwick School and was later a governor of … Read more
The twins Ernest (1861 – 1899) and William Renshaw (1861 – 1904) were the tennis players of their age. They were born at Brandon Lodge, Brandon Parade, Leamington, and baptised at Saint Mary’s Church. When the twins were only a few months old, the family moved to Cheltenham, where eventually they built their own tennis … Read more
In 1856, Mr JH Hawley of the Castle School Kenilworth, announced in the Leamington Courier his intention to set up a ‘Classical and Commercial School’ in Brunswick Place, Leamington. An advertisement in the Courier in November of that year referred to ‘Brunswick House School, most healthily situated outside the town’, where a first class education … Read more
Beatrice Janie Whitby was born in Ottery Saint Mary, Devon where her father Charles was in medical practice. The family numbered three daughters and five sons, the oldest of whom, a professional soldier, was killed in the Afghan war of 1880, almost at the same time as Dr Whitby moved to Leamington Spa, where he … Read more
Elizabeth Anne Galton was a Victorian gentlewoman, the eldest of six daughters and three sons born to a wealthy Quaker banking family and related through her mother to the Darwin family. She was not a feisty high-achiever, explorer or philanthropist, but she played a significant role for future historians at least in recording her memories … Read more
Beech Lawn, “Dr Jephson’s splendid mansion” once stood at the corner of Warwick Street and Dale Street. Designed by a local architect, William Startin, it was built by a workforce of 140 in 1830-31 for the Leamington doctor, whose advocacy of a plain diet, exercise and the taking of the Leamington waters made the Spa … Read more
The photograph to the right, taken in Leamington in 1865, is of former crewmen of the Confederate naval ship, the Shenandoah. What circumstances brought these sailors to Leamington at a time when fellow Americans were celebrating the ending of the Civil War? Four years earlier, the Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, sent his representative, James M … Read more
James Brown, (1804-1854) Parish Clerk and Builder James Brown was one of the group of builders active in the first half of the nineteenth century who together developed the rapidly growing town of Leamington, shaping the town we know today. Alongside contemporaries in the trade Brown benefitted greatly from the sheer scale of the population … Read more
Contact the Secretary, Margaret Rushton: secretary@leamingtonhistory.co.uk
June 9, 2026
May 26, 2026