IN a city where many of the road names are self-explanatory – Bridge Street, Broad Street, Deansway, London Road etc etc – who or what was Pierpoint, after which Pierpoint Street was named? After all, it’s a long walk from Worcester to the seaside.

The answer goes back to the 1830s and a man called Matthew Pierpoint, who was a hospital surgeon and a bit of a lad.

As well as being accused of financial impropriety over a £70,000 bond, he  was also knocked out in a fist fight with a solicitor at Diglis Bowing Green and the fact the two events were not connected shows the breadth of Pierpoint’s life experiences. 

Described as “a strange, turbulent character and a Tory of the Old School”, the street was named after him when the land on which his house and garden stood were used for a new road linking Foregate Street and Sansome Walk. 

Pierpoint had been appointed to Worcester Infirmary in 1819 and as well as being a medical man he was also keenly involved in politics.

The kiosk beneath Foregate Street railway bridge, a popular stop for a newspaper and packet of cigarettes morning and evening

The kiosk beneath Foregate Street railway bridge, a popular stop for a newspaper and packet of cigarettes morning and evening

The kiosk beneath Foregate Street railway bridge

He took a leading role in the hard fighting which restored the Tory party to power under the leadership of Sir Robert Peel in 1841 and had fingers in several business pies.

He was the first chairman of Worcester Gas Company in 1818 and involved in various squabbles concerning proposed railway projects around Worcester in the 1830s and 40s.

Notable among them was the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway Company’s proposal to build a new line which would bypass the city. Pierpoint led the pressure which led to the Government imposing a £70,000 bond on  the company to ensure a loop line to Worcester.

Pierpoint Street nostalgia

Pierpoint Street nostalgia

The former public and medical library

The problem was that Pierpoint got his hands on the bond and treated it as his own personal money, leading to a “violent altercation” with Thomas Walters, the local clerk of the peace, who accused Pierpoint of deception.

But if that was a public fracas, it was nothing compared to what was coming. In a large property called The Shrubberies, the gardens of which stretched from Barbourne Road to Flagge Meadow, lived Charles Bedford, a solicitor and typical Regency buck.

Read more: Burning down the house – the end of Barbourne Lodge

Tall, well built and handsome, he was a jovial and popular local figure, but a bit too fond of a physical fight. He was a renowned amateur boxer who had once beaten a champion prize fighter and was only too ready to settle an argument with his fists.

There was some inevitability in a city like Worcester that at some point two headstrong characters like Bedford and Pierpoint would cross paths, which they did. Their confrontation, the subject of which has been lost in the mists of time, resulted in the pair engaging in a pre-arranged fight at Diglis Bowling Green.

It ended in Pierpoint, who was half Bedford’s size, being knocked flat and with commentators describing the battle as “ill-matched and without justification”.

Bedford’s social reputation never recovered and he met a premature death after a life of pleasure and hard drinking.

Pierpoint, meanwhile, married an heiress from Crow’s Nest (now Crown East) and for a while lived in splendour. However he soon ran through the money and died “in embarrassed circumstances”.

The street that bore his name became a centre for libraries. It housed Worcester’s public library, which moved there from Angel Street in 1831 and this was soon joined by the libraries of the Medical Society and the Law Society.

However, financial difficulties led to the libraries moving out in 1877 and in 1960 the building was demolished.