John Tertius Southall, 1822–1916
Alderman, Town Councillor, Mayor
John Tertius Southall was a draper by profession, who devoted himself to public works within the town.
He oversaw the development of a new drainage scheme, and then pressed for the building of a new waterworks to bring clean water to the town. To many he was simply known as “Waterworks Southall”.
He served on town and county Councils, and held offices in a range of public and charitable bodies.
John Tertius was the youngest son of John Southall and Hannah (nee Burlington). After leaving school he worked for a drapers in Dewsbury before returning to Leominster to take over the drapery business established by his father in Number 1 Corn Square.
John Tertius entered municipal life as a member of the Leominster Town Commissioners. He continued to serve when this work was taken over the Town Council in 1866.
At that time the sanitary condition of the town was deplorable, and serious outbreaks of smallpox and typhoid fever had occurred. The national Government required the borough to abide by the Hygiene Acts and provide the citizens with a piped supply of potable water, and Southall led a committee who carried through a new drainage scheme, which was followed by a water scheme. Southall organised the raising of the necessary moneys for these schemes, and despite making a significant contribution himself, the large expenditure involved and the closing of private wells in the town aroused vigorous opposition. For a time he was probably the most unpopular man in the town.
For his work on the water supply he became universally known as ‘Waterworks Southall’.
In 1870 he became Mayor of Leominster, and in 1877 was made an Alderman, which latter position he retained for thirty years. He was a decided teetotaller, and as Mayor succeeded in closing two public houses.
From the early days of the County Council he sat as a representative of Leominster, and until 1906 as an Alderman. He was a Justice of the Peace both for the borough and the county.
For fifty-three years he was a director of the local Gas Company, and for the last thirteen years was its Chairman. At various times he was treasurer of the Leominster Savings Bank and also the Leominster Working Mens Club. At the age of seventy he unsuccessfully contested North Herefordshire in the Liberal interest against Mr. (afterwards Sir James) Rankin.
He was a long standing member of the Woolhope Club to which he contributed papers on meteorology and botany.
For thirty-eight years he served as a member of the Board of Guardians, of which he was Chairman for twenty-one years. Many local charities, clubs and societies looked to him as president, trustee, or governor, including the Orphans Home and Almshouse charities which he served as a Governor.
J. T. Southall was a committed Quaker and attended an almost unbroken succession of meetings at Pales Meeting-house in Radnorshire for nearly eighty years.
He was active to the end, and barely a week before his death he attended the annual meeting of the Herefordshire Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Hereford, speaking of the part his father had played in the suppression of using dogs as draught animals.
John Tertius was brother of Hannah Southall, and father of John Edward Southall.
