Although his working life began with the lowly position of office boy, William Henry Hemsell rose to become one of Bourne's leading businessmen and a director of two of the town's most important firms.

He was born in 1898, only son of Mr and Mrs W J Hemsell, of Coggles Causeway, Bourne, his father being a carpenter whose work appeared in the organ screen and the communion rails at the Congregational [now the United Reformed] Church in Eastgate to which two generations of the family were devoted. After attending the Council School, he won a scholarship to Stamford School, leaving at 14 to join the staff of T W Mays and Son Limited and gradually moving up the seniority ladder until appointed manager of their Peterborough operations.

He returned to Bourne as chief clerk and manager and in 1926 was appointed secretary and made a director in 1937, subsequently becoming managing director and then joint managing director of the company's subsidiary firm, Mays Chemical Manure Co Ltd. He served as a committee member and chairman of the National Fellmongers Association and in 1959 was chairman of the organisation's Midlands area. He was also a committee member and one-time chairman of the United Kingdom Horse Slaughterer's Association.

In 1934, he was elected to Bourne Urban District Council and at the age of 42, became its youngest ever chairman, serving for the year 1940-41. During his time as a councillor, he was also chairman of the gas and water committee at a time when the authority still owned these utilities and within two years the town had turned their past losses of the undertakings into a profit. For several years, Mr Hemsell was also the urban council's representative on Bourne United Charities and the Butterfield Hospital Management Committee. He retired from council work in 1948 but remained in public life as a governor of Bourne Grammar School and a deacon of the Congregational Church where he also served as secretary for 28 years.

Mr Hemsell, who lived at 111 North Road, Bourne, died in the Butterfield Hospital on Friday 7th March 1959, aged 61. The funeral service was held at the Congregational Church the following Tuesday, conducted by a former minister, the Rev L S Carter, assisted by the Methodist minister, the Rev Irving Scott, with Mr T W Bradley, the organist.

In a moving tribute, Mr Carter said that during his life, Mr Hemsell was a gifted businessman who had established himself in many spheres in the town. He went on: "This church held his loyalty for the whole of his life. He had a personal reason for coming here for a large part of the furnishings were made by the skill and craft of his father."

Mr Hemsell left a widow but there were no children. The church was packed with mourners, including family and friends, representatives from his business and from the many organisations with which he had been connected while scores of wreaths were carried to the church in one of his firm's lorries for the funeral service which was followed by cremation at Peterborough.

See also The United Reformed Church