William Charles Tuke

• Born : 12 January 1843
• Died : 28 March 1893 at St Anne's-on-the-Sea
• Burial : Parish Church, St Anne’s-on-the-Sea

William Charles Tuke, of the firm Maxwell and Tuke, architects, of Manchester, was born on 12 January 1843 at Bolton, near Bradford, the fourth son and fifth child of William Tuke (qv), land agent, surveyor and architect and his wife Emma (nee Lawton). He was articled to his father in Bradford 1857-1861 before working in a builder's office in Chester to learn practical building construction. He was then employed as assistant to architects George Bidlake of Wolverhampton and to Mills and Murgatroyd of Manchester before joining James Maxwell  of Bury in 1865. In 1868 he joined James Maxwell in partnership, a partnership which continued until his death in 1893. A member of the Manchester Society of Architects, Charles Tule was elected a Fellow of the RIBA on 17 December 1888: proposed by L Booth, J Holden, and C Clegg.

On 13 September 1877 he married Mary Eleanor Johnson, the daughter of John Johnson, at the Congregational Church, Pendleton. The couple had three daughters. In later years, W C Tuke moved to St Anne’s-on the Sea, the new town on the Lancashire coast designed by the firm. Here he died on 28 March 1893, aged 50, after a brief illness.

It was soon after attending a meeting of the Tower Company in Blackpool (or the effects of cold while returning from Ireland) that Tuke, who had been unwell for some time, became seriously ill and died from nephritis on 28 March 1893 at his residence, The Hydro, St Anne's on the Sea. Although born into a strong Quaker family, Tuke had become a firm adherent of the Church of England; buried at St Anne's on the Sea parish church in Church Road, he was survived by his wife and daughters.