Thomas Pilkington

1799 -1889

A grand tombstone in the South Street cemetery marks the last resting place of Thomas Pilkington, an architect who made his name in Bourne during the 19th century through the design and construction of many public buildings as well as diverse domestic and commercial properties.

He was also an entrepreneur, investing in his own brick making business which not only pioneered many new techniques for the industry but also provided employment for local people and so became a valuable input into the local economy.

Pilkington was born at Stamford in 1799, son of a local clergyman, the Rev Jonathan Pilkington, and after training as an architect opened his own practice in the town and married Jane Butterwortth who came from a staunch Methodist family. But after his office was wrecked in a disastrous fire, he moved to Bourne where his future became more promising and within a short time he had established a reputation as one of the leading architects in the locality.

His most important project was the Methodist Church in Abbey Road with its façade of huge Doric pilasters which opened in 1842. He was also responsible for extensions to the House of Correction at Folkingham, a building that still exists as a tourist attraction, the rectory at Market Deeping (1832), St Michael’s Church at Stamford (1834), the Town Hall at Market Deeping (1838), the cemetery chapel at Spalding (1854), and the village hall at Billingborough (1865). Other notable achievements were the provision of housing for the working classes, notably Pilkington’s Yard, a row of Victorian cottages off North Street that have since been demolished during redevelopment.

He lived in North Road with his wife, Jane, and the census of 1851 describes him as an architect and surveyor and owner of 37 acres of land devoted to brick and tile making and employing eighteen men and boys. Also living with him were various in-laws, a girl servant, Mary Tebbutt, aged 24, and a 15-year-old pupil, James Freeman, presumably an apprentice.

The brick and tile works, also known as North Field, situated on land to the west of North Road, was a profitable adjunct to his work as an architect with a prolific output that provided the materials for many of his building projects. By 1844, he had begun to mechanise production with the latest technology available and a newspaper advertisement from Friday 19th April that year illustrated the wide range of products he had on offer and the speed and efficiency with which he could produce them:

"Thomas Pilkington, having accepted the agency for Etheredge's Patent machine for making drain tiles, pipes, etc., begs to acquaint the public that one may be seen in work at his brickyard in Bourne. Price and terms of royalty may be obtained by applying to Mr Pilkington, North Street, Bourne. The above machines are very much improved. The patentee is now having 13 of them fixed upon the Duke of Northumberland's estates. Ten thousand tiles may be made in one day by this machine. The price of making, burning etc., is not one half the cost of the common mode.

"T P also takes this opportunity of thanking his friends for the liberal support he has already experienced and begs to state that he proposes making a very large quantity of goods this season: and that for ready money, he will offer them at exceedingly low prices. The following, among other kinds, will be found worthy of particular attention: - patent pressed bricks for house fronts and floors, patent pressed squares, patent circular chimney bricks (now so much in use for safety from smoky chimneys), gutter bricks, wedge bricks for tunnels, fire bricks, pantiles, improved grey pantiles, ornamental cottage tiles, blue glazed tiles, ridge and hip tiles, garden edge tiles, drain and gateway tiles, flower pots, chimney pots, piping, sea-kale pots, etc etc. N B: T P grinds his clay by iron cylinder rollers, thereby much improving it and consequently making better materials than can be made without it. The material is chiefly clay (not sand), absorbing but little moisture, very sound, and will be found superior in quality in every respect."

Pilkington also had extensive property interests in the High Street at Billingborough including the Old Hall, a large mansion built in the Tudor style and then divided into two properties.

His life was a success but for some reason, perhaps as the result of a distressing lawsuit, in 1854 the family moved to Scotland where Thomas continued to work from a practice he set up in Edinburgh. This also appears to have been unsatisfactory because in 1863 Thomas and his wife moved again, this time to Kelso, a market town in the Scottish borders, where they remained for eleven years but in 1878, they gave up that practice and returned to Bourne, the place they had come to regard as home.

Throughout his life, Thomas Pilkington was a particularly industrious man who continued working well into old age and he died on Sunday 27th October 1889, aged 89, after a short illness. "Although he was nearly ninety years old", reported a local newspaper, “he managed his own business affairs with much aptitude until his recent illness."

He is buried at the town cemetery in South Road with his wife, Jane, who had died on 14th May 1881, aged 80. Wind and weather have caused the tombstone to deteriorate but the buildings for which he was responsible in the town and surrounding area remain his lasting legacy.

Their eldest son, Frederick Thomas Pilkington, who was born at Stamford in 1832, trained with his father and subsequently moved to Edinburgh with the family where he practised from 1860, specialising in ecclesiastical architecture such as churches and developing a new style which accorded with the fashionable Gothic revival that was adapted for the worship needs of the Free Church of Scotland. He designed an impressive number of churches and public buildings throughout Scotland but in later life, returned to England to continue working on several prestige commercial projects in London and died at Pinner, Middlesex, in 1898, aged 66.