Ernest Leonard Leeming

• Birth date            5 July 1889
• Baptism              11 September 1889 at St Matthews Church, Ardwick
• Marriage             July-Sept 1914 to Julia Lillian Cotton (1891-1925) at Chorlton
• Death date         26 December 1964
• Probate              1965

Ernest Leonard Leeming was born on 5 July 1889, one of three sons of Frederick Leeming, a shipper’s clerk, and his wife, Margaret nee Rennie. At the time of his baptism the family were living at 9 Lamb Street, Richmond Grove. He was educated at Manchester Secondary School, and studied engineering at the College of Technology, Manchester, from 1904 graduating in 1907. His early experience was with the Fylde Water Board, Blackpool, on the construction of Grizedale Lea Reservoir (1909-1910), followed by time as assistant engineer in the Highways Department of the City Engineer’s Office, Manchester. Here he worked for a decade engaged on sewerage, roads, and housing estates under T. de Courcy and J. B. L. Meek. In 1922 he was appointed Engineer and Surveyor to the Barton-upon-Irwell District Council, a post he held until 1933. His work there centred on the reconstruction and widening of roads, housing schemes, Trafford Park main drainage scheme, and sewerage works extensions at Clifton and Flixton.

During the course of his professional career E L Lemming put forward various schemes mostly for improvements to the transport system. A boom in car ownership in the 1920’s changed the road system. Rapidly increasing numbers of cars and commercial vehicles brought about a corresponding increase in injuries and deaths in road accidents. Leeming had a keen interest in improving road safety through better design as demonstrated at Davyhulme. Many of his inspirational ideas were far ahead of their time although they could on occasion be decidedly odd. The idea of creating overspill towns in Southern Rhodesia to accommodate the excess populations of Britain’s large cities came to nought while his proposal for a new super highway from London to Glasgow was rejected by the Ministry of Transport. Although not progressed at the time, the M1-M6 motorways of the 1960s and 1970s. bear a remarkable similarity to this latter proposal.

In 1924 Leeming’s proposed the building of a half-mile culvert diverting the river Irwell from the Crescent in Salford to a point near Regent Bridge, a revival of an idea previously suggested in the Victorian period intended to reduce the risk of flooding. However, Leeming proposed to use the dry river-bed thus created (about 150 feet wide) as a transport link through Manchester city centre, including tram tracks and roadway. Alongside the new Irwell thoroughfare Leeming proposed links to a series of underground tram lines. These would take all the major routes and bury the track 20ft down under the streets freeing up space and allowing unencumbered operation for the trams. Leeming’s plans for tram tunnels and draining a part of the river Irwell never came to anything, but he was still looking to improve transport routes.

Mr Leeming was appointed Resident Engineer on the sewerage scheme for the Hayes and Harlington Urban District Council in 1955-difficult work in a heavily industrialized area for which his experience and co-operative manner were to prove invaluable. He resigned from this position in 1959 to become Resident Engineer on the widening of the Sale-Stretford trunk road. From 1960-1963, still Again with the Hayes and Harlington U.D.C. he was engaged on a sewage works reconstruction scheme 1960-1963 and later was associated with a firm of consulting engineers in Sale, Messrs C. S . Allott & Partners.

He married Julia Lillian Cotton. She died in 1925 leaving him to raise four daughters. Ernest Leonard Leeming died on 26 December 1964, At the time of his death he was working on the Morecambe Bay barrage. The barrage would have run from Hest Bank near Morecambe  to Bardsea near Ulverston, providing a more direct road link with the Furness district of Lancashire and created a vast fresh water lake and possibly provided hydro-electric power.

Address
Manchester City Engineers
Barton-on-Irwell UDC Council Offices, Patricroft
Urmston

Residence
1923        Langdale Road, Victoria Park
1928        ‘Kelmscott’, Cornhill Road, Davyhulme

Obituary    Institute of Civil Engineers 1964 page 315-316