by Hugh Jones
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11/09/26
Higher education postcard: The Wills Tower, Bristol
This week’s card from Hugh Jones’ postbag brings you a very modern medieval tower
by Hugh Jones
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11/09/26
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Hugh Jones is a freelance HE consultant. You’ll find a daily #HigherEducationPostcard if you follow him on Bluesky
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Hugh Jones Hugh Jones is a freelance HE consultant. You’ll find a daily #HigherEducationPostcard if you follow him on Bluesky
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In 1915 the University of Bristol was six years old (although the University College on which it was founded had been around since 1876).
Henry Overton Wills III – who had provided much of the funding for the new institution, and had been its first chancellor, had died in 1911, and his sons wanted to provide a memorial.
The answer was what became the Wills Memorial Building. The architect chosen by the sons was George Oatley , and his brief was “build to last.” The Wills Memorial Building comprises a great hall, library, council chamber, teaching and seminar rooms, and the tower – which is what is shown on the three cards in this week’s postcard(s).
Construction started in 1915, but in 1916 had to be halted because the first world war wasn’t stopping any time soon and resources were being prioritised elsewhere. Construction resumed in 1919, and the building was completed in 1925. Although it looks properly medieval , it is a very twentieth century building: steel reinforced concrete faced with cut stone. The link above showcases some really good photographs inside and outside of the building.
Amongst the builders was Harry Patch , who later found fame as the longest-lived British former world war one soldier. After the war ended he returned to his plumbing trade and worked on the Wills Memorial Building for four years, later becoming a manager for the plumbing firm. I’ve a soft spot for Harry for reasons this quotation from a 2004 Sunday Times interview make clear:
“Passchendaele was a disastrous battle—thousands and thousands of young lives were lost. It makes me angry.
Earlier this year, I went back to Ypres to shake the hand of Charles Kuentz, Germany’s only surviving veteran from the war. It was emotional.
He is 107. We’ve had 87 years to think what war is.
To me, it’s a licence to go out and murder. Why should the British government call me up and take me out to a battlefield to shoot a man I never knew, whose language I couldn’t speak?
All those lives lost for a war finished over a table. Now what is the sense in that?
The memorial building, but not the tower itself, was damaged by bombing in world war two, but restored, and more recently extended in the same style. Here’s the Historic England entry relating to its Grade II* listing.
The tower has a bell – Great George – weighing over 9.5 tonnes. It is, apparently, England’s ninth largest bell, and certainly a lot heavier than the bell in Old Joe at the University of Birmingham .
The building cost about £500,000, which is about £27 million in today’s money. The financing came from the Wills family, who owned Wills tobacco. This brings a degree of controversiality, linked not only to tobacco but also to the slave trade. In 2017 the university decided not to rename the building .
Here’s a jigsaw of the triptych , which I hope you enjoy. None of the cards have been posted but the middle one obviously dates from between 1919 and 1925, and the outer two from the years immediately following 1925.
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Rose Green
10 days ago
What wise words from Harry.
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