Our post-war demolition correspondent Angus Young writes about a fella you may not have heard of but who the whole city owes a debt of gratitude.
A young Army colonel carefully picks his way through the debris of bomb-damaged buildings in Hull’s Old Town. He’s on leave from active wartime service with the Green Howards in Cyprus and he’s on a mission. In 1936 at the age of just 23, Rupert Alec-Smith took the first steps to form the Georgian Society for East Yorkshire. Distressed by the demolition of the early 18th century Winestead Hall and already a keen scholar of local history, the grandson of the founder of a prominent local timber importing firm used his family’s business contacts to recruit a formidable committee to spearhead the new society.Among them were East Riding Council chairman John Dunnington-Jefferson, Basil Reckitt of Reckitt & Colman, two local MPs and two architects – Hull City Hall designer Joseph Hirst and Francis Johnson from Bridlington.
The society’s initial focus was on trying to curb the increasing conversion or loss of Georgian era country houses and mansions like Winestead Hall. However, the issue accelerated dramatically in Hull during the Second World War when bomb damage typically resulted in demolition rather than restoration of grand Georgian houses in the Old Town. While on leave, Alec-Smith returned to Hull and would spend several hours rescuing fittings from damaged Georgian residences lining High Street
After the war, the city council showed little appetite to restore what was left. Instead, it commissioned a new masterplan for Hull proposing the demolition of many properties in High Street. Alec-Smith continued to salvage what he could from the buildings before they were bulldozed while turning his attention to saving and restoring two of the most prominent remaining Georgian landmarks in High Street. Under his leadership, the society acquired both Maister House and Blaydes House.
He then persuaded the National Trust to take on Maister House while the society itself funded the restoration of Blaydes House, damaged by a bomb blast which completely destroyed a neighbouring building in 1941. Blaydes House was later sold to the University of Hull for just £1 and now hosts the university’s Maritime Historical Studies Centre. Once home to a family of wealthy merchants, Grade I listed Maister House is now the National Trust’s only property in the whole of East Yorkshire and is leased by a music company.
Alec-Smith’s eye for architectural detail also resulted in a Georgian chimney piece retrieved from one High Street building earmarked for demolition ending up being installed in his own home – a Georgian era rectory – in Winestead after the war. In a later account of the rectory and its many sympathetic period additions from elsewhere, he wrote: “Lovers of houses so often seek permanence in the things they love.”
His passion for local and family history included everything from furniture to artworks. A 3,000-strong collection of his papers now held in Hull History Centre include documents on the medieval church and civic history of Hedon, maps and plans for numerous places across East Yorkshire, ancient manorial records for the village of Elstronwick, copies of enclosure acts and volumes of records about the Maister family. The collection also features nearly 20 years of correspondence with the poet John Betjeman, who became a good friend through a shared love of historical architecture.
Alec-Smith later became a Conservative councillor in Hull and served as Lord Mayor in 1970. He died in 1983 but his name lives on in a charitable fund he set up as a bequest which is now administered by the city council. It provides funding to buy objects of artistic or historic interest relating to Hull which can be added to the council’s own public collections.