A plaque dedicated to Beverley Victorian industrialist William Crosskill was unveiled on the front wall of 71 Walkergate, now the Grosvenor Club, by the Beverley Civic Society and the Georgian Society for East Yorkshire.
It was in this house that William Crosskill lived from 1853 to 1886.
As both Walkergate houses were called Walkergate at different times, the earlier plaque on Walkergate house was misplaced.
Based on recent research, it has been found that the correct address is 71 Walkergate.
Stuart Crosskill, a descendant of William Crosskill, conducted the unveiling of the monument on behalf of the family.
The birth of William Crosskill took place in 1799 at Butcher Row in Beverley, Yorkshire. In the aftermath of his father’s death, William, aged 12, the eldest of the seven children in the family, apprenticed himself to his mother to carry on the whitesmith’s trade.
As the business prospered, he decided to establish his own iron works on a seven-acre plot of land in Mill Lane known as the Beverley Iron Works in 1825. In North Bar Within, Coronation Gardens are a good example of one of the early works of the company, which included the railings and gates of the gardens.
The ‘Council Great Medal’ was awarded to him in 1851 for his invention and design of a famous piece of agricultural machinery, the clod crusher, which won the ‘Council Great Medal’ at the Great Exhibition in 1851.
William Crosskill Work Can Still Be Seen In Beverley
A portable farm railway was produced as part of the company’s expansion to make field work in wet weather easier, heavy castings for bridges, as well as lamp standards for the City of Hamburg, among other things.
In the mid-1850s, when the company was involved in the Crimean War, he became the largest employer in Beverley employing over 800 people and supplying 3,000 carts to the government for use in the war.
In addition, you may also find his name on the base of many of Beverley’s original gas lamp standards that have been recently repainted and bear his name.
It was in 1848 that he was elected Mayor of Beverley, and it was in 1888 that he died in Kingston-upon-Thames, London.
