Ernest Leonard Leeming (1889-1964)

Ernest Leonard Leeming (1889-1964)

Engineer, Surveyor and Architect to Urmston Urban District Council 1933-1954. Responsible for the design and layout of Davyhulme Park.

Ernest Leonard Leeming MSc (Tech.), Assoc. M.Inst.C.E.,M.I.Mun.E., was born in Chorlton in 1889. He was the son of Frederick Leeming, a merchant’s clerk, and Margaret (née Rennie).

On the 1911 census form, Leeming’s occupation is shown as a civil engineer. In 1914, he married Julia Cotton of Garstang at Chorlton Register Office and the couple went on to have four children.

In a 1914 proposal for election as a Member of the Institute of Civil Engineers, Leeming is listed as living at Victoria Park, Manchester. The 1921 census shows the family residing at 22, Agnew Street, Lytham. Julia sadly died in 1925.

In a 1926 Civil Engineer listing, Leeming was living at ‘Kelmscott’, Cornhill Road, Davyhulme. He remained there until his death in 1964, in the house he had designed himself. It was the first prefabricated house in the district. Made of concrete, it was cast and erected on site. This was 20 years before the ‘prefab’ was a familiar site in post-war Britain.

Leeming was Engineer and Surveyor to the former Barton Rural District Council from 1922 -1933. He then worked in the same capacity for Urmston UDC until his retirement in 1954. Leeming’s arrival coincided with an ambitious re-planning of the Urmston area. A large part of the pre-war housing and road development owes much to Leeming’s vision. He was intimately involved with the planning and substantial growth of the district during the 1930s and he was particularly interested in the preservation of trees, aiming to retain as many green spaces as possible. Leeming was a particular fan of concrete and devoted parts of his book, ‘Road Engineering’, published in 1923, to the material. Concrete was used throughout the area in many imaginative ways. Examples can still be seen today at Davyhulme Circle and nearby Davyhulme Park.

Leeming was involved in many projects, including road systems and housing patterns. Notably, the authorities adopted his designs for Urmston Baths. Leeming also played a leading role in the planning of the Woodsend Estate and its revolutionary District Heating System.

He retired from the Council in 1954, but remained active in his retirement. In 1963-64, he proposed a barrage across Morecambe Bay. The scheme, first proposed in 1936, planned an eleven mile dam across the bay, with a road to run along the top. The lake formed, would also have served as freshwater storage for supply to the Northwest. He became nationally well-known because of these
ideas.

In his free time, Leeming was a keen aviator and a member of the Northern Aviation Club.

1889-1964