Coltman Drive

Many years ago, if you were walking up Great Central Road, from King Street, just over the brow of the hill you would see the large sign for Herbert Morris at the end of the road. Before reaching this, you would pass the Great Central Railway and Coltman’s boiler works on your left, and the Shepshed Lace Manufacturing Co. on the right.

Although some of the Herbert Morris works is still standing, this is much further down Empress Road, accessed by continuing along Great Central Road to the point where it joins Empress Way, first passing a right turn into Windmill Road, along which there are lots of new houses.

Part of the Herbert Morris works on Empress Road

Turning into Windmill Road, off Great Central Way, the first turning on the left leads to more new houses on Purnell Walk and Webster Road. But it is the name of the short street which leads to these that is interesting: Coltman Drive. Presumably this is named after the man behind the Coltman boiler works, which as we saw, was adjacent to the GCR?

In truth, the creator of the Coltman boiler works, Walter William Coltman, came from a family of engineers and boilermakers, and you can find out more about his father, Huram, and two of his brothers, John Charles, and Ernest Edwin, over on the blog lynneaboutloughborough.

Walter was the youngest son of Huram Coltman and his wife, Eliza, and was born in 1869, at a time when Huram was probably in partnership with Henry Hughes of the Falcon Works. Once that partnership was dissolved on 1877, Huram went into partnership with his son, John Charles, and later, with Edwin and Walter, the latter having attended the Hickling School before serving a five-year apprenticeship (1885-1890) with the firm, known as H. Coltman and Sons. The company had an iron foundry close to the Midland Railway, and Walter went through practical training in the firm’s drawing office.

While still living at home with his parents, Walter seems to be making a name for himself, and throwing himself into the life of the community. December 1891 sees him being the Master of Ceremonies at a ball be Mis Wass at the Philharmonic Hall on Wood Gate, and in April 1894 Walter passes the third exam of the St John’s Ambulance, gaining a medal. Father, Huram, retired in 1894, and on 20th September 1895 in Loughborough, Walter married Florence Moss.

Florence was born in Loughborough in 1873, to parents John Moss, a butcher and famer, and Elizabeth. Florence had an older sister, Ann Jane, and an older brother, Percy John, and in 1881 the family were living at 16 High Street. By 1891 the family, which now included a younger brother, Archibald, were living at Moss’s Farm, Quorn Fields, which is at the end of Flesh Hovel Lane, and John’s occupations now included that of cab proprietor.

Following their marriage, Walter and Florence continue to participate in local society, attending meetings of groups like the Loughborough Auxiliary of the British and Foreign Bible Society. In 1899, the couple welcomed the birth of their daughter, Phyllis May Coltman, and that same year left the partnership of his brothers to become a manufacturing engineer on his own account, thus becoming proprietor of the Central Boiler and Engineering Works, perhaps better known as Walter Coltman and Co.. Alongside being a new father, the proprietor of a young company and putting out a catalogue of cross-tube boilers, and advertising for new staff, Walter managed to find time to play football for Loughborough Athletic and Football Club!

In April 1901, the family are living at 24 Great Central Road, and in May 1902, he applied with John William Branston for a patent for a ‘vertical cross water-tube steam boiler’. Later, in September 1902, Walter applied to become a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. His application was initially deferred for enquiry, then rejected, then accepted, and in October 1902, Walter William Coltman of the Liberal party, was elected to the town council for the Hastings Ward, and served until 1921. His expenses for the election campaign amounted to £9 7s. 11d..

Following the death of his father on 8th June 1904, in 1906 Walter was a founder member of the Longcliffe Golf Club, and also became a Justice of the Peace (and, it is thought, he became the longest serving magistrate in the county).

Lest we have identified the wrong member of the Coltman family after whom Coltman Drive is named, suffice to say, that Walter continued to serve on the town council and went on to become  Loughborough’s youngest mayor when taking up the position in 1911, and went on to be mayor of Loughborough no less than seven times! He also continued to be interested in a wide variety of social activities, including the early days of the motor car, the photographic society, the chrysanthemum shows, was on all sorts of committees, and highly active in the Hickling School Old Boys Association, as well as being its President, and was awarded an MBE in 1918.

Walter survived his wife, Florence who died in 1945, and lived out his days at Aingarth, the large redbrick property off Albert Promenade, which is now a home for the elderly. The small lodge house which fronts onto Leicester Road is called the Lodge to Aingarth, but was once actually a lodge to the larger property off nearby Elms Grove, called The Elms which once been home to the Warner family, hosiery manufacturers. In the last few days of his life, Walter was admitted to the Loughborough Nursing Home on Radmoor Road, where he died on 9 August 1958. This nursing home was once the family home of Walter’s brother Ernest, but had become a nursing home after the death of Ernest’s wife in 1936, and the place where their youngest sibling, Clara, died in 1940.  

Aingarth in 2015, showing rear extension

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Streets: Coltman Drive. 

Category: J Names of personal origin (local)

Map co-ordinates: H6

Posted by lynneaboutloughborough,  3 July 2023

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Dyer, Lynne (2023). Coltman Drive. Available from: https://lynneaboutthestreetsofloughborough.blogspot.com/2023/07/coltman-drive.html [Accessed 3 July 2023]

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