43 Dyke Road: Norman Villa
- Ninka Willcock
- Dec 1, 2024
- 3 min read
Updated: May 14, 2025
Marriage Wallis (1821 - 1897)
This splendid detached and recently Locally Listed Italianate villa on the corner of Dyke Road and Clifton Terrace sits directly above St Nicholas Rest Garden. Built c1847, the villa has been associated with education for much of its existence.
After WWII until the mid-1970s, it served as a fee-paying school - Clarks College.
Now known as St George's House, it is council-owned and, having most recently housed a Pupil Referral Unit, has since been extensively refurbished as a secondary education facility for children with social, emotional and mental health needs.
Initially, though, it was known as Norman Villa where, for fourteen years, it was home to Marriage Wallis and family, who had moved here from nearby 3 Powis Villas.
By trade, Wallis was a wholesale provisions merchant while, as a committed Quaker, he was equally active in a range of voluntary enterprises. In fact, when he died in 1897, it was said that “to enumerate the number of philanthropic, municipal, religious, and political undertakings to which large portions of his time were devoted would be impossible”. Here, therefore, I will just focus on the substantial contribution he made to the education and wellbeing of a number of Brighton’s young people.
Board schools
One significant endeavour in this respect was working alongside fellow Quaker and business partner, Daniel Hack, to launch, and subsequently oversee, Brighton’s Board Schools under the 1870 Education Act. These schools were - at least initially - for families unable to afford private education and who also did not necessarily concur with the exclusively Anglican religion promoted in the pre-existing local Anglican schools (National Schools).
From 1877 to 1884, Wallis was Vice Chair and then Chair of the Brighton and Preston School Board.
He also oversaw the town’s pioneering Higher Grade Schools, which opened in 1884 at York Place (and were shamefully demolished in 2021). Higher Grade Schools were designed for brighter children who had whizzed through the earlier grades – that is to say tests – so extending their education beyond the bare minimum. Essentially York Place was Brighton’s first secondary school.
Board schools – and in particular York Place Higher Grade Schools - were established despite considerable opposition in the town. The main bone of contention was that they were part-funded by ratepayers, many of whom also feared that they would undermine the local Anglican schools already in existence.
YMCA
Wallis was intimately associated with the Brighton branch of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), one of the many organisations he chaired for a period. The aim of the YMCA was to help young male shop workers, some only in their teens, who were migrating to towns and cities from rural areas in search of higher wages. With the indentured apprenticeship system breaking down, young workers were vulnerable to being exploited by unscrupulous employers and were also prey to various less than wholesome temptations such as alcohol.
Wallis oversaw the purchase of Maria Fitzherbert’s former home, Steine House, in 1883. In fact, he started the ball rolling by donating £500 himself – a sum equivalent to about £50,000 today. By 1884, under his auspices, it had been fitted out with an abundance of facilities for keeping its members healthy in both body and mind, including an assembly hall, where edifying lectures were regularly held, a reading room and a gymnasium. The building was the base for clubs organised by its members – from cycling to chess. Bible classes were mainly run by Wallis, who by this time was a Quaker minister.
Steine House remains a YMCA hostel today.
Despite periods of illness intermittently curtailing his activities as time went on, you name it Marriage Wallis did it during his 63 years in Brighton! Fortunately, two of his adult children were also involved in these educational enterprises, notably William Clarkson Wallis, the eldest son. Gulielma, his daughter, took an active interest and went on to become an active reformer in her own right as well as the author of at least two children's books.
Marriage Wallis retired to the Withdean estate in 1879, renaming his villa “Springfield” after the village near Chelmsford where he was born. In 1897 he died aged 78.
