William de Lacy Aherne FRIBA (17 April 1867 – 4 December 1945) was an English architect, notable for designing many Arts and Crafts houses in the Moseley area of Birmingham.
Contents
Family
Born in Cheam, Surrey to William Aherne (b. 1841) and Emma Paterson (b. 1842), de Lacy Aherne came from a family of devout Plymouth Brethren, a faith that he ceased to share in early adulthood.
He married Annie Louise Thomas (1872 – 1942), daughter of William Thomas (1841 - 1911) and Mary Louise Wright (1847 - 1912) in 1898 and they had two sons- the actors Pat Aherne and *Brian Aherne- and a daughter, Elana Aherne. When he died on 4 December 1945 he was living at 25 Ladbrooke Road, London.
Career
In 1886 or 1887 he took a job as an architect's apprentice in Birmingham, where he worked for the King's Norton and Northfield Sanitary Authority. His earliest recorded private commissions were in the King's Norton area and date from 1889, and in 1890 he was elected to the Birmingham Architectural Association.
In 1898 de Lacy Aherne was commissioned to build a series of houses by his father-in-law, whose local contacts in the Moseley area were helpful to the rising young architect; his work quickly became fashionable among the rapidly growing and wealthy professional middle class of the area. From 1903 onwards he designed a large number of speculative houses in high-status Moseley roads such as Russell Road, Salisbury Road, Amesbury Road, Reddings Road and Oxford Road, financed either by himself or in conjunction with local building firms. Several of these houses, including 9 St Agnes Road and 110 and 112 Oxford Road are now listed buildings. He was probably also the architect of Blackhill, the home of Birmingham Repertory Theatre founder Barry Jackson in the Malvern Hills.
He was elected a Licentiate of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1926 and became a Fellow in 1931.
