Thomas Wilde Powell

Thomas Wilde Powell (1818–1897) was an English solicitor and stockbroker, now remembered as a patron of architects and artists. Early life He was the son of James Powell, a bank clerk living in 1830 in Briggate, Leeds in Yorkshire, and his wife Christiana Wilde, daughter of Theophilus Wilde, He entered Leeds Grammar School in early 1833, where the headmaster was Joseph Holmes, and his rival Edwin Gilpin, who became Archdeacon of Nova Scotia. He left in autumn 1833, and was articled to the Leeds solicitors Atkinson, Dibb, and Bolland, working for five years under Thomas Townend Dibb. At this period he became a Sunday school teacher for William Sinclair at St George's Church, Leeds. After his five years working for his articles were up, Powell stayed at Atkinson, Dibb, and Bolland for two further years, on a salary. In early 1842 he passed his qualification examination, and set up on his own in Albion Street, Leeds, as a solicitor. Shortly, in partnership with Frederick Heycock, he used a back room there to deal in railway shares. At the height of the Railway Mania, in 1845, on Powell's own account, Heycock found the stress too much. Powell successfully saw through the dealings on his own, and bought Heycock out. He is recorded in 1846 as a solicitor living in Headingley Terrace, Leeds. In 1847 he was still in practice at Albion Court. Closing down his stockbroking business, Powell spent some time in 1849 with family at Holme Lodge in Swaledale, a few miles from Thirsk. He started to be approached by activist investors. A group from Leeds asked him to implement change in a London gas company. Charles Swainson wanted him to restrain his son-in-law Ralph Ward Jackson in the development of West Hartlepool: but from a base at Seaton Carew he concluded that Jackson was "beyond my control (or anyone else's)."