Members will be very sad to hear of the death of Bob Tyrrell at the age of 88. Bob was a huge contributor to the life and work of Leeds Civic Trust for almost three decades, only fading into the background with the Covid pandemic in 2020. He was an ever cheerful, enthusiastic and uplifting presence at Wharf Street having joined the Trust in 1990. He became a member of the House Committee in 1993 shortly after we acquired the building and chaired the committee from 2000 to 2011. He spent countless hours helping to maintain and improve not only our offices but also helping Roger Garnett keep the grounds of the Bear Pit in good order.
But it was the Trust Blue Plaques Scheme which became his great passion. He joined the Plaques Group in the late 1990s which then consisted of Valerie Ives, Steven Burt, Michael Pemberton and myself. He soon took on the responsibility for both cleaning all the blue plaques at least once a year and, where necessary, touching up their paintwork – there were 60 plaques when he started, 160 by the time his close involvement drew to an end! As the demands on my time as Director increased exponentially, Bob offered to help me undertake the research required for writing the plaque texts. From about plaque number 70 onwards Bob undertook the initial research for each plaque, and after more checking was done, we spent many happy hours on the intriguing task of distilling the essence of the subject celebrated and condensing it into two sentences of pithy but stimulating text. Fortunately, we both had been good at precis at school. Bob then took over the additional task of writing the handouts for plaque unveilings, which at the suggestion of Deborah Hill our new Office Administrator. in 2010 became the now familiar booklets which appear at each plaque unveiling. Bob was a true ambassador for the scheme leading guided tours of the city centre plaques and frequently going out to give lectures about them to groups in Leeds. The pinnacle of his achievement, in Bob’s view, was his co-authoring with me of our book Blue Plaques of Leeds: The Next Collection published in 2020 which surveyed the development of the Trust plaques scheme and devoted a page each to plaques numbers 67 to 164.
But what of Bob’s own story? John Robert Tyrrell was a Londoner who became a naturalised Yorkshire man. Born in 1938, he went to primary school in Chingford and then on to Walthamstow Grammar School. He might have gone on to higher education, but his father withdrew him from school to start an engineering apprenticeship, subsequently working as a draughtsman/designer at Belling’s the cooker manufacturers. He enjoyed travel and during this period he volunteered at summer work camps in Austria building houses for post-Second World War refugees.
Really wanting a career in which felt he was helping people, he then signed up for the Probation Service during a government recruitment drive. He met his wife Desirée during that process. They married in 1969 and lived in Colchester. In 1976, now with children Heather and John, they moved to Leeds when Bob got a senior probation officer post covering Otley, Morley and Farsley. He later covered Seacroft and then had a senior post in central Leeds at Waterloo House, the Leeds HQ where he also ran the homeless shelter in the basement. For a while he then had a post at Armley Gaol before returning to the probation service.#
He took early retirement in the late 1990s. But being a man of energy, he filled his retirement with a host of volunteering activities – delivering Meals on Wheels, using his practical skills at the Middleton Railway, and leading specialist heraldry tours at Temple Newsam House — all this as well as volunteering for the Civic Trust. He was also a very keen gardener, and an accomplished watercolour painter, who loved music and singing. In a sense he was self-educated in history, art and literature; I enjoyed many happy hours in wide-ranging discussion with him on these themes.
As old age took its toll, in spring 2023, to be close to his daughter Heather, he moved to a lovely retirement bungalow full of his paintings and mementos in Oakham, the historic county town of Rutland. It was a delightful place where he continued to live a very fulfilling life. There Blue Plaques of Leeds: The Next Collection always took pride of place on his coffee table. Both Martin Hamilton and I attended his funeral near Melton Mowbray in early June. The text of the mocked-up Leeds Civic Trust blue plaque on the attractive booklet produced for Bob’s funeral concluded with the line: ‘A witty, charming, curious, compassionate, inspiringly positive, and all-round lovely man.’ I couldn’t have agreed more.
