Leonard Grey Ekins

• Born  :  Oct-Dec 1877 at Wisbech, Cambridgeshire
• Marriage  :  Eme Bertha Hope Whyte July-Sept 1905 at Chorlton, Manchester
• Died  :  25 July 1948 at Sand Dunes Nursing Home Hunstanton, Norfolk

Leonard Gray Ekins was born in 1877 at Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, the son of Alfred Ekins, timber merchant and his wife Elizabeth. Ekins worked in Manchester and Newcastle for the Co-operative Wholesale Society before establishing the London branch CWS architects' department in 1916. He was elected a Fellow of the RIBA in 1921. His earlier work can be seen in Stowell Street and the Dunston Soap Works. In 1930 he travelled to study German and Dutch architecture with CWS architects WG Townsend-Gray and W A Johnson. L G Ekin retired in 1945 and died in 1948.

Contrary to popular misconception, particularly south of Watford, L G Ekins was the head of the London branch office of the CWS Architects Department only. The head office of CWS Architects Department, founded in 1896, remained at Balloon Street, Manchester, where W A Johnson succeeded F E L Harris as chief architect in 1918. Johnson retired in 1950.

Address
1901-1907    CWS Architects Department, Balloon Street Manchester
1907-1916    CWS Newcastle
1926            CWS 99 Leman Street London E1
1933            CWS London Branch Administrative Offices, 1 Prescot St, London E1

Residence
1881        4 North Terrace, Wisbech St Peter, Cambridgeshire,
1891        Clarkson Road, Wisbech
1901        Keppel Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester
1911        Gosforth, Northumberland (census)
1916-1945    London
1948        Ellerslie, Hamilton Road, Old Hunstanton, Norfolk

Obituaries     Builder v175, 13 Aug 1948, p183