Noteworthy naturalist
Alfred Philip Wire (1839-1914) teacher, photographer and EFC Librarian
Alfred Philip Wire was born in Colchester on 15th October 1839 and died in Leytonstone on 12th June 1914.
He was the fifth of ten children, 2 girls and 8 boys, of William Wire (1804-1857) a watchmaker, antiquary, Nonconformist radical, diarist and postman and Mary Stevens, both Colchester residents, who were married at St. Peter's church, Colchester in 1829. Alfred's mother was recorded as a dressmaker in 1871. Alfred married Susan Horth (1842-1911) of Norwich on 11th August 1863 at Little Baddow, Essex. They had 9 children between 1864 and 1883, including 4 boys and 4 girls, 6 were still living in 1911.
Alfred was a scholar in Colchester in 1851 and a student at the National Society's Training College, Battersea in 1861. He qualified as a teacher with a first-class certificate. His first post was in 1863 as headmaster in Little Baddow, Essex. Following promotion in October 1864 he moved to Macclesfield and by 1868 he was in Radwinter. The 1871 census lists him living in Parsonage Road, Newmarket with 2 pupil teachers, as a teacher at All Saints School but by 1872 he was at Chobham, Surrey. After a spell at Dunstable in 1875 and West Ham in 1879 Alfred settled in Leytonstone with his family in 1880 and Leyton in 1901. He listed himself as a certified schoolteacher on censuses. By 1877 he was a head teacher at Harrow Green elementary school, Leyton and by the time of his death he had served for a record 52 as a headmaster. In politics he was a Conservative. Wire was a polymath. In 1884 he and Professor Frederick Settle Barff (1822-1886) formed the Kreochyle Company to produce a liquid meat for infants and invalids and he joined the Chemical Industrial Society in the late 1880s. Wire also produced and sold microscope slides (Stevenson 2009). He was public spirited and campaigned to improve the Harrow Green area and was secretary of Leyton's Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee Committee in 1897. Alfred was an accomplished photographer and published books and articles on his interest.
Alfred Philip Wire and the Essex Field Club. Alfred joined the Essex Field Club in 1882, his wife, Susan enrolled in 1884. He was a librarian of the Essex Field Club from 1884 and sole Librarian from 1888. He resigned in 1895. By 1889 he had compiled 2 folio volumes of a new manuscript catalogue of books in the library. Wire submitted copy for Essex Field Club publications. As early as 1883 he published a note on the shelly fossiliferous Woolwich Beds of Leyton and gave suggestions for microscope slide mounting in 1884 while in 1887, he published brief notes in the Essex Naturalist on Epping Forest ponds, Essex alga and stone mites. Wire also contributed to meetings. He exhibited on 2nd November 1889 Palaeolithic flint spear-heads flints found six feet deep in gravel at Grove Green Lane, Leyton. He also exhibited fossil wood crowded with fossil Teredos, or ship worms from the London Clay of the Theydon Bois railway cutting. Alfred also displayed photographs of places visited by the Club taken by himself. He contributed a major biography of the Essex geologist, John Brown of Stanway to the Essex Naturalist in 1890. As a child, Wire had personally known Brown and visited his collection of fossils. Wire kept abreast of technology and it is recorded that on 11th January 1890 'Mr. A.P. Wire threw upon the screen, by means of his oxy-hydrogen lantern, several photographs taken during the excursions of the Club last year, and also some views of Essex reproduced from old engravings'. Again, on 21st March 1891 'Some photographs were thrown upon the screen by Mr. Wire, consisting principally of views taken by himself during the last year's field meetings, views of Highams Park from drawings by Mr. H. A. Cole, and some copies of old prints of Essex localities, &c.' He contributed a note on parasitic Vorticllae in 1891. He greatly assisted in getting Miller Christy's 1890 Birds of Essex through the press. Mr. and Mrs. Wire were both subscribers to this publication. As early as 1894 he suggested the Field Club compiled a photographic collection of natural phenomena and old buildings etc of Essex. In 1909 he gave the Club details of how he taught nature study in his school.
Alfred suffered prostate problems in 1913 and died peacefully at home, 168 Birkbeck Road, Leytonstone, in June 1914. His funeral service was attended by 180 schoolboys and the entire school staff. The boys marched behind the funeral carriages to the cemetery and the choir sang hymns. He was buried on Thursday 18th June 1914 in plot I 22 S.E. at West Ham Cemetery, Forest Gate in the same grave in which rested two of his children and his wife. The grave is marked with a white marble cross. Probate of his £604 estate was granted to two of his sons who were schoolmasters.
Alfred's large collection of books and images was mainly divided between two of his sons. Some of this, including over 1,233 negatives mainly relating to Essex, was eventually donated to Leyton Library and is currently in Vestry House Museum, Walthamstow (Mander, 1995).
Sources
Mander, D. 1995. Images of Essex: The photographs of Alfred Wire 1875-1913. Vestry House Museum. ISBN 0-7509-1004-6. 154 pages.
Stevenson, B. 2009. Alfred P. Wire (1839-1914), Victorian/Edwardian microscopist, entrepreneur, photographer and educator. http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/artfeb09/bs-wire.html
Image of A.P.Wire by courtesy of Vestry House Museum.