Grantham Civic Society writes about former accountancy firm Cole, Dickin and Hills in Westgate

In the 1980s Cole, Dickin and Hills, an accountancy firm, were based at 39 Westgate.

In 1881 the building was a house occupied by Sarah Harriott Hames, the head of the house, who was a dressmaker. She lived with her assistant, a servant, and a lodger named Morton Thomas Wilson, aged 34, a railway manager at Grantham Station.

Morton had been born in 1846 at Kirklington in Yorkshire to Rev Morton Eden Wilson and his wife Julia. In 1843, after attending Durham University, Rev Wilson was appointed chaplain to the Earl of Auckland.

The following year, their first child Julia, died as an infant. When Morton was born, his father was rector of Kirk Sandall, also in Yorkshire. His grandfather, Thomas Fourness Wilson, had also been a vicar. Morton grew up with two younger siblings and the family had five servants.

By the time of the 1871 census, Morton was a railway clerk in Finsbury, London, lodging in a local house. In 1891, aged 44, and after moving from Grantham, he was a manager in Wakefield, living in his own house with a housekeeper and her husband, who was a railway mechanic.

Morton died in April 1901 and was buried in Kirby Knowle, Yorkshire.