William Ledsham Dolman

• Birth Date           1876 at Repton, Derbyshire
• Marriage              Jan-March 1898 to Bertha Philips at Burton on Trent
• Death date          April-June 1939 at Northumberland

The son of Joseph Dolman, builder of Repton, Derbyshire and his wife Martha, William Ledham Dolman was born in Repton, Derbyshire and initially worked as a carpenter and joiner in his father’s building firm from 1892 to 1902. In 1902 he moved to the Lake District with his young family to become assistant to Dan Gibson at Windermere. Archive records suggest that he commenced independent practice on his own account in 1905

When Dan Gibson died on 19 June 1907, his architectural practice was continued by W L. Dolman who agreed to pay Gibson’s wife one tenth of his income for 10 years and to give their elder son the opportunity to be articled to him. It is not clear if this was taken up but Gibson’s younger son, William, qualified as an architect and practised in Windermere.*

Dolman continued Gibson’s Lakeland vernacular style although by 1914 the age of the large Arts and Crafts house had ended. After 1919 his practice was almost exclusively domestic. Building regulations applications to Windermere UDC were mostly for much smaller houses, most of which it has been impossible to identify. He was elected LRIBA in 1910 and FRIBA in 1921

In later years W L Dolman was one of Windermere representatives of the Lake District Advisory Architectural Panel to help the public to create a ‘subtle’ and ‘inconspicuous’ architecture. Set up in 1936 it published ‘An Appeal to Those Intending to Build’ on behalf of the Lake District Safeguarding Society. The other Windermere representative was A. N. W. Hodgson, who had provided a perspective drawing of Shrublands, the Windermere house Mawson designed in 1902 for one of his brothers.

* Dan Gibson was survived by his wife, Mary (1870-1916) and his two sons, Guy Wordsworth Gibson and William Garnet Gibson.

Address
1910-1930    Crescent Road, Windermere (RIBA Directory
1923             Crescent Road, Windermere, (Who’s Who in Architecture 1923)   
1933-1936    William Ledsham Dolman, Crag Brow, Bowness-on-Windermere

Residence   
1881-1891    Long Street, Repton
1901            Penfold Lane, Repton, Derbyshire
1910            Olive Mount (Sunny Bank Road?) Windermere

1910        LRIBA proposed by T E Mawson L v5 no 280
1921        FRIBA