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William Henry
had family links to both North and South Wales - his
father Richard Matthias Preece was born around 1797 in
Cowbridge, Glamorgan, and was the son of a school teacher.
Richard Moved to Caernarvon when he was about 20, and
started a school. Quite how he came to make this move at
such a young age, and quite a distance from his home town,
has been lost to history. In 1817, Richard Matthias married Jane Hughes, the daughter of a local shipbuilder, at Llanbeblig, and they went on to have 12 children, though 4 sadly died in infancy. He was a Wesleyan Methodist, and in 1823, having been elected as a Burgess of the Borough, raised funds to build a Wesleyan Church. In 1825 he secured a post in the Caernarvon branch of the Chester and North Wales Bank. He was elected to the Harbour Trustees in 1831, and subsequently became their chairman and held that post from 1839 to 1843. A portrait of him hangs today in the Harbour Trust offices on the Slate Quay. Richard was then elected Mayor of the town in both 1843 and 1844, and was also the Town Bailiff. During this time, the children were growing - William Henry had begun school in a room below the Ebenezer Chapel, and went on to attend Bransby's School. Richard was a politician, and ultimately hoped to enter Parliament, and moved his whole family down to London in 1845. He rented 24 Park Square, near Regents Park, and entered William Henry into Kings College School. The plan set out at that time was for Richard to then purchase a Commission in the Army for William, but fate had other ideas - Richard lost heavily in the crashes of 1848 and 1851, which had three effects - he did not have sufficient wealth to enter Parliament (vital at that time), he could not purchase a Commission, and he had to move the family to a smaller property (2 Southampton Street, Fitzroy Square), which he did in late 1851. In the following few years, Richard saw 4 of his daughters - Mary Catherine, Margaret Helen, Eliza Ann and Gwen Ellen - married, and William took his first steps on an unexpected journey into electrical engineering, having lost his chance of a military life. |
William attended lectures at
the Royal Institution by Faraday in the early 1850's, and
in January 1853 he met with Josiah Latimer Clark - soon to
become his brother-in-law - to discuss working at the
Electric Telegraph Company. Josiah's brother Edwin was
Chief Engineer at the company at this time. He gained a
position of clerk at the company's offices at 448 West
Street. However, he only stayed in this position for a few
weeks, and on 14 May was appointed an Assistant to the
Engineers staff, going on to work with the Astronomer
Royal GB Airey, and Faraday. Amongst his excitement though, William and his family had been facing their father battling a long illness, and sadly in 1854 he lost his fight. He was only 56. In 1855 William rented his first house, in Bernard Street, off Regents Park Road. His sister and brother-in-law (Eliza Ann and Frederick Webb) lived opposite. He was continuing to develop telegraphy ideas, and in the same year took out the first of many patents, this one being for duplex telegraph systems, which doubled current capacity on wires. He was promoted to Superintendent of the Southern Division in 1856, beginning on 15 March, and moved to Southampton, which would have a major influence on his future. |
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For the first time he joined
the Institute of Civil Engineers in 1859 as an Associate,
and the following year he was awarded the Telford Gold
Medal for a paper regarding submarine telegraph cables. In
the same year, his increasing interest in the use of
telegraphy for railway signalling was rewarded with
appointment as Superintendent for the London and South
Western Railway. Around 1861 William met Agnes Pocock, the daughter of Southampton solicitor George Pocock, and they eventually married towards the end of 1863. They went to Paris on honeymoon, and typically of William he brought back with him news of the new electric bells the Hotel were using! They returned to a new address in the town, 15 Park Terrace. Over the next seven years, 7 children came along - Agnes, William, Arthur, Mary, Percy, Frank, and finally in 1874, Amy. Sadly Amy's birth came at the cost of Agnes' own life - she was just 31. In his grief, William went back to Caernarvon for a spell, leaving his children in the care of his eldest sister Jane Elizabeth. Once he returned south, he decided to move back to London. He rented a terraced house at 10, Queens Road, on the edge of Primrose Hill, and not too far from his mother and sisters. However, having moved in, he quickly realised it was too inconvenient for him - it was quite a distance from his work with the London and South West Railway, and he began to look for an alternative. By October he had found and moved into Gothic Lodge, on Wimbledon Common, along with his sister Jane and his seven children. He took the property on a 12 year lease, but eventually purchased it outright. |
William was a leading figure
in the formation of the Society of Telegraph Engineers,
which held it's inaugural meeting on 28 February 1874, and
he was subsequently elected President for 1880. Further
honour followed in 1881, when he was elected a Fellow of
the Royal Society. In 1878 there were staff cuts within the Post Office, and William's brother George was one of those who lost his post. He then moved into cable design, eventually becoming a technical adviser to W.T.Glover's cable manufacturing company in Manchester. Around the same time, the private telegraph companies were taken over by the Government, and because he was a civil servant William Henry was required to relinquish his post with the railway, much to his displeasure. After some discussion, his departure was allowed to be delayed until October 1879, and the railway directors then appointed him as an Honorary Consulting Telegraph Engineer. In 1884 the Company then appointed him as a Consulting Engineer, for which he received the salary of 50 guineas per annum. The Crown Agents for the Colonies consulted with William on various schemes in the 1870's and 1880's, for example he recommended which type of cable to be used for a submarine line between Hong Kong and Luzon in 1879. William Henry was elected a Fellow of his former college in 1885. In 1886, Llewellyn, son of William Henry, had been given a post on the Midland Railway. He was due to be schooled in Dresden, along with his brother Arthur, but poor health had stopped that plan, and he completed his studies at an Electrical College in Hanover Square. Arthur had attended Kings College School, before attending Dresden and was then enrolled at Kings College. |
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By 1894, his son Arthur Henry was a consulting electrician, and became involved in a scheme to provide street lighting in Wimbledon. He followed his father by winning the Institution of Civil Engineers Telford gold medal for a paper on electricity supply. In 1896 a young Italian walked into Preece's office - he was Guglielmo Marconi, 22 years old, and was working on wireless telegraphy but failing to find backers (including his own Government). William was impressed with him, and over the course of the next three years he supported him, providing assistants and equipment, and arranged meetings for him to demonstrate his ideas. Marconi found financial support to launch the Wireless Telegraphy Company, later to become 'Marconi'. Sadly, relations between the two became strained - Marconi had taken advantage of Preece's generosity too much, he felt, and indeed had poached some of Williams best staff. Eventually, Marconi opened his first wireless station in Chelmsford in 1899, and retirement approached for William, which meant he became more involved with his sons. |
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In view of the immense calls on his time, William Henry decided to set up as a full-time consulting engineer around 1898, his two eldest sons Llewellyn and Arthur joining him, and his friend Major Philip Cardew would be his senior partner. William Henry finally
retired from the Post Office on 15 February 1899, and
was subsequently made the first Freeman of Caernarvon,
which he was presented with on 21 September that same
year. He was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the
Bath (KCB) in the Queen's Birthday Honours list, an
award that his son Arthur Henry also received in the
1932 Honours List. His third son Frank was reported as working as an electrical engineer but no longer lived in the Home Counties. He was at Caernarvon with Arthur and Llewellyn when his father was inaugurated as a Freeman, having travelled from Liverpool. Percy, the youngest son, followed his maternal Grandfather's profession and became a solicitor. Messrs Preece and
Cardew leased offices in 1899 at 8 Queen Anne's Gate,
overlooking St James Park. William Henry became a member
of the Board at the London Electricity Supply Company,
and chairman of the British Coalite Company. He also served as President of the Institution of
Civil Engineers 1898-9. In 1901, he was elected Chair of the Society
of Arts, having been a member for over 20 years, and
was re-elected in 1902. |
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Some twenty years after being appointed an
Honorary Consulting Engineer, his 48 years with the
railway came to an abrupt end. In November 1904 he met
General Manager Sir Charles Owen at Waterloo Station,
who informed him his role would disappear under a
series of economies. His reaction to this was not a
good one, and provoked a rethink. He was told they
would retain him on an Honorary basis, and he would
also still; receive his free first-class travel pass! His sister continued to live with
the children at Wimbledon, although his two
unmarried daughters , Mary ("Prissie") and
Amy, preferred Penrhos, they were joined there
by their now-widowed sister Agnes (wife of
David Moseley) within a few years. By 1909 William Henry was devoting less time
to Preece & Cardew, and the business took on a new
partner. His sons Llewellyn and Arthur continued to
work for the firm, Llewellyn specialising in wireless,
and Arthur with electricity undertakings, covering as
far afield as the Empire, China and South America. The winter of 1912/13 was spent in Egypt,
with a trip to Bombay for good measure, despite his
declining health. In mid-July he sent a donation to
the Times for purchasing for the public the Sydenham
Parkland on which the Crystal Palace had been
re-erected, his covering letter mentioning being
present at the original building's opening ceremony on
1 May 1851. However, his health continued to worsen,
and by August he was back at Penrhos and confined to
his room. Sadly this meant he was unable to move to
sunnier climes as in the past, and he passed away on 6
November 1913. |