11 Facts About Harry Weedon

Harold William "Harry" Weedon was an English architect.

Harry Weedon studied architecture at the Birmingham School of Art from 1904, before being articled to the architectural practice of Robert Atkinson.

Harry Weedon returned to Birmingham and to architecture in 1925, quickly building up his practice designing housing estates and commercial and industrial premises.

Harry Weedon was approached by Deutsch to complete the design, but at the time his office numbered only six staff and had nobody other than Harry Weedon himself with any cinema experience, so the young Cecil Clavering was recruited to complete the work.

The cinema was quickly bought for the Odeon group and Harry Weedon was appointed to oversee all of the group's designs.

Later in 1935 however Clavering stunned Harry Weedon by resigning to take up a job with the Office of Works.

Harry Weedon approached Clavering's former tutor who recommended Robert Bullivant as Clavering's replacement.

In March 1939, Harry Weedon brought four of his senior staff into partnership to form the Harry Weedon Partnership.

The outbreak of World War II later that year, and the take-over of the Odeon group by J Arthur Rank on the death of Deutsch in 1942, saw cinema design work evaporate, and Weedon spent most of the war overseeing the dispersal of Birmingham's wartime industries to protect them during the Birmingham Blitz.

Harry Weedon had a love of shooting and was involved in the Solihull Home Guard Rifle Club after the war.

The club was formed in 1944 and Harry Weedon donated a three-quarter acre disused sand pit to the club in 1952.