Articles from the Thoroton Society Newsletter
Watson Fothergill’s Right-Hand Man: Lawrence G Summers, A Man of Unsung Talent
By Andrew Paris
The name Watson Fothergill is familiar to many people from the Nottingham area; the name Lawrence George Summers, however, is virtually unknown. Summers’ contribution to the architecture of Victorian Nottingham has been generally overlooked.
Lawrence Summers was born in New Basford, Nottingham on 19 July 1854 into a lace manufacturing family. Like his brothers, young Lawrence was destined to join the family lace manufacturing business but, fortunately, his father realised that his talents lay elsewhere, and aged 15 years old, Summers was apprenticed to established Nottingham architect, I C Gilbert. He also enrolled in the Nottingham School of Art on Waverley Street. In 1873, while still a student, he demonstrated his architectural skills by obtaining the highest award - the Silver Medal - in the national competition for students organised by South Kensington College. His entry was a design of a church. The following year he again won the Silver Medal for the design of a Town Hall for the Market Square, Nottingham. He later passed the Royal Institute of British Architects proficiency examination in 1880, allowing him to proudly advertise as ‘L G Summers ARIBA, architect’. He set up his office at 11 Pelham Chambers, Angel Row, Nottingham. Between 1880 and 1882 only three commissions are recorded, and one of those was for his father, George Lawrence — a greenhouse extension to the Summers’ family factory in Basford.
Watson Fothergill knew of Summers’ talents (Fothergill and I C Gilbert had shared offices on Clinton Street in Nottingham) and from 1880, Lawrence Summers started to work with Fothergill. Between 1880 and 1882 it is recorded that Summers worked on at least four projects for Fothergill, while having only three commissions in his own name. By the start of 1883, Summers had given up his own architect’s office on Angel Row and was now working for Fothergill in the Clinton Street office. Working quietly and unassumingly in the office for decades, he became Fothergill’s right-hand man, but he was never made a partner; he was always just an employee. Summers’ initials appear on building applications or plans for at least 33 designs that came out of Fothergill’s office between 1880 and 1912, when Fothergill retired. Summers’ signature appears on the building application forms for such important works as the six houses and shops on Castle Road, and St Nicholas’ rectory on Castle Gate (now demolished). He designed a villa on Herbert Road and also produced a joint design with Fothergill for a villa at 30A Mapperley Road.
Even while employed by Fothergill, he was given the freedom to take on personal commissions. From 1883 to 1912 he took on at least 16 different architectural projects solely in his own name. Notably, 17 new houses in Radford, additions and alterations to a villa on Elm Bank, and two cottages on Duke Street, New Basford. During this time he also designed five dwelling houses and shops on the corner of Berridge Road and Cedar Road. When Fothergill retired around 1912, Summers continued to practice from the George Street offices, which Fothergill had built in 1895, until he himself retired in about 1935. From 1912 to 1935 his output was not prolific; he produced only nine known designs. These included a house on Central Avenue, off Sherwood Rise, for his nephew, Gilbert Summers, and a house on Bingham Road. His last known commission was to design a house on Thorncliffe Road for Fothergill’s fourth daughter, Mrs Eleanor Ellenberger, in 1929. By then he was in his mid-70s, and there are no records of any further projects.
He died in a Forest Road nursing home in 1940, leaving behind his widow Louise Martha (nee Byng) at their family home in Sherwood, Nottingham. Louise died in 1955 and was buried with Lawrence in an unmarked grave. Unrecognised in life, it seemed that Lawrence George Summers was destined to be unrecognised in death. I have been studying the life and works of Watson Fothergill for many years and had become well aware of Summers and the significant part he played in the architectural output from Fothergill’s office. When I discovered that his grave had no headstone or marker, I set about organising a suitable grave marker to identify where this talented but virtually unknown man lay. This involved tracing relatives and obtaining permission to erect a headstone, and eventually on 21st March 2025 in the presence of a great-nephew of Louise and a great-great-niece of Lawrence a grave marker was placed on Lawrence and Louise Summers’ resting place. Overlooked in life maybe, their grave is now properly marked for posterity.
< Previous