Alfred Herbert

Career Born in Leicester and educated at Stoneygate House School in Leicester, Alfred Herbert became an apprentice at Joseph Jessop & Sons, crane builders in 1884.

In 1887 he moved to Coventry to become manager of Coles & Matthews, a small engineering business in the Butts where his brother, William, was director. and an Officer in the French Légion d'honneur in 1919.

He retired to Dunley Manor in Whitchurch, Hampshire and died at King's Somborne in 1957.

Philanthropy As well as being an industrialist, Herbert was a philanthropist within Coventry, building almshouses, supporting wounded servicemen through donations, establishing a camp for the city's poor children, and funding the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral. After the Coventry Blitz he donated £20,000 for reconstruction work at the Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital, in 1940.

Herbert's legacy also lives on in the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, of which he was a major benefactor. In 1938 he donated £100,000 to Coventry City Council to erect a Gallery and Museum on a town centre site owned by the council. The city's destruction during the Second World War meant that construction was suspended. New plans were drawn up in 1952, and in May 1954 the foundation stone was laid by Herbert, who also donated a further £100,000 to the project. Lady Herbert's Garden off Hales Street is named in honour of his second wife.

Family He was married three times; he married Ellen Adela Ryley (1864 -1918) on 17 September 1889, with whom he had four daughters, Gladys (1890–1962), Beatrice (1892 -1969), Doris (1894–1969) and Phyllis (1896–1972). They separated and then divorced in 1913.

He married Florence Lucas (née Pepper) in 1913, widow of Lieutenant-Colonel H. E. E. Lucas. She was a matron at the Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital where Alfred was chairman of the board. She died in 1930 and he paid for decoration of the lady chapel of St Barbara's Church in her memory and Lady Herbert's Garden, where her initials feature on all the original railings, bronze gates, and the weathervane on top of Swanswell Gate.

In 1933, he married Marian Pugh, (née Arundel) (1881–1969), widow of Lieutenant-Colonel Pugh.