Robert Edward Fawcett

Robert Edward Fawcett was born in Hampton, Middlesex on the 20th of September 1931 to parents William and Lucilla. The family was quite established by the time Bob came along as he joined big sister Eileen, some ten years his senior and John, eight years older. Their father William, who hailed from Westmoreland as it was then (the Southern Lake District region), had numerous jobs and at various times was a miner, a parson, an officer, a political candidate - standing for parliament in Kingston

In 1962 Bob qualified as an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects and took a job for the Architects Department of British Rail. But we must back track for a moment. Bob was working for Willoughby Richardson, commuting from Clacton to Colchester, when he met Mary Ruth Hurren, also from Clacton-on-sea, and the young woman who, in 1959 became his wife.  The pair set up home in London at Princess Road in Primrose Hill when Bob joined an architectural practice, at Compton Terrace in Islington. In the mid-1960s, with two children, the family moved to a new development in The Ryde, Hatfield where Bob designed and built the award-winning family home and two more children were born.

Holidays to the Lake District, the land of his father and the family’s second home were huge affairs with cousins and aunts and uncles. Bob had eight aunties on his father’s side and more on his mother’s.