William MacGregor 1848 - 1937

The People’s Champion

  

One of Tamworth’s greatest benefactors and a real man of the people.  William Macgregor was a campaigner for the rights of the poor, a generous man to a fault who gave thousands of pounds to good causes in Tamworth.  But he had to suffer scorn and malice.

 

MacGregor came to Tamworth in 1878 to take up the position of Vicar at St. Editha’s Church. A Fabian and a socialist, he believed that his mission from God was to do practical good as well as preach from the pulpit.  MacGregor did not follow the grand socialising expected of a person of his position, but would rather go uninvited into the squalid cottages around Tamworth where Typhoid was rampant.  He would regularly lock horns with the landlords of the town because of their open drains and dreadful condition of their properties.  He campaigned for clean water in every home in the borough.  The landlords and property owners did not take kindly to him poking his nose into other peoples business and impugning the honour of those most gracious in support of the church.  They threatened to withdraw their financial support to the church, but such threats did not deter MacGregor, nor did his rebuke that arranging the alter flowers was not as important as practical Christianity.  The fiery, practical preacher achieved many amazing triumphs in the nine years of his ministry.  The church bells were re-cast, and two new ones added.  St. Editha’s was restored and two new churches were opened in Glascote and Hopwas.  

 

William MacGregor initiated the purchase of the castle with a donation of £300.  He also collected pennies each week from children to start them off in the Tamworth Savings Bank.  He was instrumental in starting a free library, a coffee house for teetotallers, and a working men’s club where a man could take his wife for a social night out.  When he arrived in Tamworth fresh from his work in the slums of Liverpool he brought two curates with him, paying the cost of their wages from his own pocket.   He was a very wealthy man, but he spent his fortune on this town, and challenged locals who had made or inherited money to match his giving.  He promised the town a free hospital, but when the £300 he had given was exhausted, he told the builders “Go ahead, go ahead, I promised a hospital, not £300.”  The final figure was well over £1000 when completed.  But so great was the need, that every bed was filled within a week and the waiting list of the poor and sick grew every week.  So he therefore started a Provident Fund where medical care would be available for every member of the family, and paid for a nurse to go and teach first aid and hygiene to the poor residents of Tamworth.

 

Although a bachelor, William MacGregor loved children and started a scheme to bring children from a crowded work-house into cottage homes where they could have a steady family upbringing, and even brought orphans from the slums to holiday at his home at Bolehall Manor.  Being a man of vision he also shortened the Sunday school hours, because in his words, “You can’t expect children to sit that long.”  He used his fortune wisely to start new initiatives and back reforms.  He gave the town Bolehall Park as a playground for the children, near his home at Bolehall Manor.  He obtained the first free scholarships to the Grammar School and started night classes so that bright boys could continue their education after school. He started a Mother’s Union and found a parish visitor to help poor mothers at home, then started a girls’ club with not only religion and needlework, but also a room for reading and chatting.

 

In 1885 William MacGregor was struck down with a serious long illness and was sent abroad to the dry climate of Egypt for reasons of health.   The land of the Pharaohs had enchanted him, it was just when the old tombs were being discovered.  He studied their art and collected many artefacts, which he brought back home to Tamworth.  He was made a fellow of the Antuaries Society for his study of Greek pottery and his collection of Egyptology grew to become one of the finest private collections in the land.   He endowed Tamworth Castle and the school, which bore his name in Glascote with collections of interesting pieces, but over the years, these have mostly vanished.  His own collection, he sold privately, but the very next year the MacGregor collection was sold by Sotherby’s in London for huge amounts and bought by galleries and museums all over the world.  Even today, his name is still remembered, and if you visit the British Museum, they will show you some of his scarabs and the catalogue, which describes him as one of the most important collectors of Egyptology.   At least two of the mummies he brought back from Egypt are buried in local soil.

 

photo - The baths & Institute, home of St. George’s Boys Club

 

After a few months, he was able to return to Tamworth, and although he thought of giving up the parish, he was persuaded to stay, thereby completing two of his greatest works for the town; the founding of the Co-operative Society, and the St. George’s Club with its baths and institute.  Two previous attempts to start a Co-operative Society in Tamworth had failed, mainly due to the lack of a backer, but when MacGregor became involved, he immediately found premises for their first shop and became the treasurer.  The Society was established and went from strength to strength, and of course is still fully operational today.

 

Many of the town’s wealthy business owners objected strongly to the Co-operative, he was abused in the press by letter and in person and made the subject of satire and scorn.  Many people stopped attending church and even wrote to the Bishop to express their disapproval.  But in spite of all this resistance and intimidation, the Co-op flourished and so did St. George’s Club.

 

In 1887 he resigned as the vicar for Tamworth but remained here for the rest of his life, always pioneering for better conditions and giving advice and acting on the bench as a JP and many committees in the town he loved. 

 

There are no grand monuments to William MacGregor as yet in Tamworth, but no-one has done more for the town than this fine man.

 

 

MacGregor Stories

Don’t Build The Hospital,
We’ll Have to Move the Horses!

 

Like Thomas Guy before him, William MacGregor’s gifts to Tamworth were not always met with appreciation from all of Tamworth’s residents.  Tamworth’s first hospital was built through the generosity of William MacGregor who had campaigned fiercely for what he described as an essential for the health of the towns-folk.  But not everyone agreed with him.  Surely, said the objectors - If you were ill, what could be better for you than good home nursing, and if you were going to die, most people would prefer to die in the comfort of their own home, wouldn’t they?  It would be far too expensive to run and it was too near the town centre.  It would be quite easy to take people who need treatment into Birmingham by horse and dray.  And what’s more it would be inconvenient for the horses – the town’s stables were at the site of the proposed new hospital. 

 

When MacGregor first opened the cottage hospital there were frequent epidemics of typhoid and cholera, and the hospital coped with these, helping to contain them with strict rules of hygiene and another benefit for the town was that the dreadful mining injuries, which were all too frequent could now be treated nearer home and nursed with care in comfortable conditions.  MacGregor employed a home nurse to go round the poor cottages and rows of house to help mothers with infant welfare and to teach rudimentary invalid care.  These people were very grateful for the kindness and care which had been shown to them by William MacGregor.

 

ANCIENT EGYPTIANS LAID TO REST IN TAMWORTH SOIL

 

Two ancient Egyptians lie very peacefully in their grave, but not in the dry hot sand of their homeland, but in the shallow mud of the crozier bed in the crook of the River Anker, just beneath the windows of Bolehall Manor.  The Manor was the home of William MacGregor.  After becoming ill William MacGregor went to Egypt following a long illness to convalesce in a warm and dry climate.  When he arrived the first tombs of the Pharoah’s were being opened up and MacGregor took part in early explorations there.  He returned to Egypt year after year to avoid the rigours of the British climate.  Whilst wintering in Egypt he collected many artefacts and became an expert Egyptologist.   He brought many of these trasures back to his Bolehall home and set up a special museum to house his collection.  But after a few short years of display at the Manor, the mummies in his collection began to deteriorate.   Hastily he made arrangements for the re-burial of the deteriorating relics and the mummies were interred secretly at the foot of the bank below Bolehall Manor.  A third mummy lies at rest in George Street.  One day William MacGregor was walking through the town, when he noticed workmen preparing the foundations for the new purpose built cinema, The Palace, which was to replace the earlier Palace Theatre.  Mr. Macgregor asked the workmen when the foundations would be filled and when told it would be later that day, he asked if he could deposit something special there.  William MacGregor returned a few hours later with one of his mummies, which was laid to rest in the foundations of the cinema in George Street.  The site is now the home of MacDonald’s restaurant.

 

MacGregor Preserving Tamworth’s Heritage

 

For the trustees of the Tamworth Heritage Trust, it is nice to know that the Rev, William MacGregor was as concerned about preserving Tamworth’s heritage for future generations as we are today.  Printed below is a letter dated 27^th November 1913 from W.M. Morton, Hon. Curator of Tamworth Castle to the then Mayor of Tamworth Council.  We think it is a nice story.

 

Dear Mr. Mayor,

 

There was a sale by auction last week of Carlyon Britton collection coins.  The collection included a number of coins which were minted at the Tamworth Mint between 955 and 1100 AD.  The Rev. MacGregor, who spoke to me on the matter thought that the opportunity to obtain the coins for the Castle Museum ought not to be missed.  I cordially agreed with him, but as time was short and did not allow the matter to be brought before the Town Council, Mr. MacGregor very kindly undertook the purchase of the coins and was successful in obtaining them at a reasonable price, as coins of the Tamworth Mint are rare and much sought after.  I have pleasure in sending you the coins herewith for examination and hope that you will kindly bring the matter before your council.

 

I trust the Council will agree that the coins are historically invaluable to the town and should be deposited in the Castle Museum and a cheque should be drawn to repay Mr. MacGregor, who is entitled to our best thanks for the active steps he took to secure the coins for Tamworth.

 

Yours truly,

 

W.M. Morton