Harrogate Heritage: Looking back at history of Raworth and when it celebrated 125 years

Tomorrow, Friday, will see the celebration of an important anniversary for one of the Harrogate district’s most successful and prestigious firms: the solicitors Raworth and Company, whose story is inextricably tied in with the development of Harrogate over the last 125 years.

The Raworth family appear to have arrived in Harrogate by about 1830, when they lived in the vicinity of Bilton, and it was Richard Raworth who went into the building trade.

By 1863, Richard was living at 23 York Place, which then, as now, was a substantial property in a highly favoured position overlooking a Stray that barely two years earlier had suffered the violation of its sanctity when a railway cutting was driven across its surface.

1863 also saw the birth of Richard's son, Edwin, who grew up to found the solicitor’s firm of Raworth. Richard Raworth seems to have been most active as a builder in Harrogate during the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s, and after his death in 1888 the Advertiser obituary described him as a joiner, builder, undertaker, cabinet maker and owner of the Regent Saw Mills behind Regent Parade.

He had done the joinery at the New Victoria Baths of 1871 [now the council offices] and the first Harrogate market of 1874, and worked with Richard Ellis on the development of the Victoria Park company's lands in central Harrogate, including Magdala House, the large detached villa at the south eastern corner of the junction of Victoria Avenue and Station Parade, that today is known as Eton House, the home of Raworths.

Richard Raworth also worked on the Victoria Park Methodist Church, built by Richard Ellis on the site that is today occupied by Beale's department store.

Another chapter opened in the life of the future firm of Raworth in 1883, when Constable William Butterworth was transferred from the Morley Constably to Harrogate.

The new central Harrogate Police Station had been built in1865-6 by Ellis in Raglan Street, just behind the Methodist Church, and this was where Constable Butterworth – who was promoted to Sergeant in 1885 and Inspector in 1894 – was baptised.

Richard Raworth died in 1888 at his East Parade home, Epperston Villa, by which time his son Edwin was working as a solicitor, having been admitted in June 1885.

Edwin also became clerk to the newly established Claro Magistrates, and would thereby have had regular meetings with Sergeant Butterworth, with whom he appears to have developed a good working relationship.

Meanwhile, Edwin Raworth's two uncles, William and Henry had gone into business with a Mr James Allen, to form a building partnership very much in the same style as that of the late Richard Raworth. Their building work included the Cold Bath Road Board School, the Knaresborough Laundry, Bartram's Villa at Harlow Carr and houses in Dragon Road,

A feeling for the law appears to have run strongly through the Butterworth family. As the census records that of the sons, Jabez was a “law clerk to a solicitor”, Willie was a “law clerk”, and James a “solicitor’s clerk”.

Jabez Butterworth, who had been articled to solicitor Edwin Raworth in the 1890s, himself became a solicitor in November 1905, no doubt to the delight of his father, who on January 1 had retired from the police force after 25 years of service.

Jabez Butterworth joined with a very influential Harrogate family in 1902, when he married Edith Alice Chippindale.

The Chippindale brothers were highly successful builders, on a scale far greater than anything done by the Raworths and Allen. Amos Chippindale, a councillor from 1897 to 1906, built up the land between Devonshire Place and the railway line, crowding on to it some 425 cottages, all built in modest scale and terrace form.

The great difference between the Chippindale brothers and such as George Dawson, Richard Ellis, and David Simpson was that the brothers specialised in modest sized houses, whereas the others built magnificent mansions.

The Chippindale’s building concerns meant that Edwin Raworth had joined with a family that had regular need of a good solicitor, as had his uncles William and Henry, who became involved with the development of the Whitehouse estate on Leeds Road, including Carlton and Norfolk Roads.

William Raworth served as a councillor, and was Mayor of Harrogate from 1921-2. His nephew, Jabez Butterworth was admitted as a solicitor in November 1905, and after the death of Edwin Raworth in 1925 it was he who carried on the business so successfully.

It was probably a mixture of reticence and pride at the fame of the Raworth name that made the firm continue it, rather than switching to that of Butterworth, despite the fact that the Butterworths were to have a far longer association with the firm.

Within months of Edwin Raworth's death, his business partner Jabez Butterworth joined the practice of Lomas-Walker and Wilkinson, whose office was round the corner from Station Bridge, in Westminster Chambers, located at the north-eastern corner of Victoria Avenue and Staion Parade.

The practice was known as Raworth, Lomas-Walker, Butterworth and Wilkinson, but by the Second World War it was generally known as “Raworth”.

The firm undertook an important move in 1933 when they moved their office across Victoria Avenue from Westminster Chambers into Eton House, a splendid detached mansion that had been built by Richard Ellis by 1871. Fears were expressed that the business was moving too far from the town centre!

I am grateful to Raworths for supplying much of the above information, and for the portrait of Edwin Raworth.

This article was originally published on June 14, 2012.