Businessman who campaigned to preserve the City of Bath and restored a Gothic folly castle
MICHAEL BRIGGS, who has died aged 91, was for 20 years an extremely successful chairman of the Bath Preservation Trust and owned and restored Midford Castle, a charming Strawberry Hill Gothic creation outside the city.
It is hard to exaggerate the threats which hung over the historic buildings of Bath (well described in Adam Fergusson’s book, The Sack of Bath) when Briggs became a trustee of the preservation trust in 1970. Large swathes of small Georgian artisan houses had already been bulldozed and property developers were looking forward to making further huge profits. The local planning authority of the day often seemed ignorant, indifferent or worse.
Things had begun to improve under Briggs’s predecessors, Sir Lees Mayall and Sir Christopher Chancellor. But danger still loomed. By sheer hard work, chairing most of the committees through which the trust operated, and using tact and charm to remove obstacles, Briggs greatly improved relations with the city authorities, and gradually got them to see that the prosperity of the city was not incompatible with conservation.
As well as ensuring that the trust’s voice was effective at planning inquiries, Briggs initiated a timeconsuming process of monitoring all the relevant planning applications, the brunt of the work involved being borne by his colleague Peter Greening. He also formed an Environs of Bath committee under Tom Charrington, which kept a similar watch on areas away from the centre.
He greatly extended the trust’s properties, turning the redundant Countess of Huntingdon’s Chapel into the Building of Bath Museum, which included up to date research facilities; taking on the Herschel Museum, which commemorated the astronomer, another local hero; and restoring and furnishing the Beckford Tower, with an adjoining flat operated by the Landmark Trust.
He also acquired, either by purchase or on loan, many items for the trust’s headquarters at 1 Royal Crescent, and organised the recording of many important 18th century interiors. He found time to be a trustee of the Holborne of Menstrie Museum, and was a D Litt of Bath University.
Michael Fenwick Briggs was born on July 7 1926 and educated at Gresham’s School, Holt, where his father had taught, and at Merton College, Oxford, where his degree course was interrupted by wartime training as an RAF pilot.
Back at Oxford after the war, his circle included the author and later MP Alan Clark, the future publisher Anthony Blond, and Teddy Goldsmith, later the founder-editor of The Ecologist magazine, all of whom became lifelong friends.
After working briefly in the City he joined Jeremy Fry in developing Rotork Controls, a small engineering concern which grew into a public company with worldwide offshoots. Briggs became managing director at a crucial stage in its growth, and later a director of Kode International and chairman of Powdrex Alloy Steels.
In 1953 he had married Isabel Colegate, who became a well-known novelist, and together they bought and restored Midford Castle, where their hospitality was on a generous scale.
On the surface Briggs could appear laid-back, easy-going, even casual, and he enjoyed a very active social life. But as well as being good company he had a strong sense of purpose and was able to exercise his authority when necessary.
He also had reserves of resilience which allowed him to weather the occasional setbacks that came his way, including his long final illness. His wife Isabel was an indispensable support to him and, together with another Rotork Director and close friend, Andy Garnett, they acquired for a time a house in Tuscany.
He is survived by his wife and by their two sons and a daughter.
Michael Briggs, born July 7 1926, died July 22 2017