PMP2000 > Places > Charnwood History

FAMOUS PEOPLE

SIR JONATHAN NORTH (1855-1939)
JONATHAN NORTH, Mayor of Leicester during the First World War, was born into a farming family in ROTHLEY in 1855. He was privately educated and later became a partner of JAMES LEAVESLEY in his new boot and shoe factory in Leicester. His success here brought him to the attention of SIR EDWARD WOOD, who appointed NORTH as his successor to the post of Chairman and managing director of the prestigious firm of Freeman, Hardy and Willis. NORTH married KATE ELIZA TROTT in 1878 and the couple had two sons and two daughters.

JONATHAN NORTH became a member of the Belgrave School Board and the Leicester Board of Guardians, where he was twice the Chairman. He was first elected as a councillor in 1898, becoming a magistrate in 1907 and an alderman in 1909. He was a member of the new education committee from it's beginnings in 1903 and was education Chair from 1905 to 1935, proving a progressive and determined leader during these years of change.

NORTH was offered the Mayoralty of Leicester several times but had always refused until 1914. Three months into the First World War, however, he accepted the post and remained Mayor all through the conflict, resigning a few days before then Armistice in 1918. As a reward for this, he was made an Honorary Freeman of the City of Leicester and Knighted by KING GEORGE V when he and QUEEN MARY visited LEICESTER in 1919.

Several buildings and memorials in Leicester owe their existence to JONATHAN NORTH. the DE MONTFORT HALL was built in 1913 largely on his insistence and he was a major financial contributor to the cost of the LUTYENS WAR MEMORIAL, erected on VICTORIA PARK in 1925. In 1931, he also presented two pairs of iron gates and the buildings at the London Road entrance in memory of his wife, who had died in 1930. He died on November 12th, 1939 at the age of 84 and is also, remembered in the name of Leicester's SIR JONATHAN NORTH COLLEGE.