Arthur Beresford Pite

[3] Pite worked in the Belcher office until he won the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Soane Medallion for his design for a West End Club House in 1882.

[4] In 1906, Pite began his commission to build the headquarters of the London, Edinburgh and Glasgow Assurance Company at 30 Euston Square.

The main entrance hall was decorated with yellow and sage green Doulton Parian ware, tiled arches and a curious ceiling of dentils.

The basement housed the records for the Assurance Company; the walls are three feet thick in places and further protected by steel "bomb blast" doors.

With the widening of Euston Road in the late 1920s the final expansion took place; the architect this time was not Pite but one of his contemporaries, Josiah Gunton.

The sculptures flanking the 2nd floor, seated male and female figures, were not by Pite but produced by the firm of Farmer & Brindley, architectural sculptors.

[5] Pite regularly attended the Nash-built All Souls Church in Langham Place, where he was invited to design the Peace Memorial floor of 1918/19.

Its Byzantine mosaic style is reminiscent of his floor in the London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow Assurance Company's entrance hall.

His daughter Grace who suffered ill health spent most of her time at Earlywood with Sadler, the family's old nanny as she felt the coastal air more beneficial.

[6] In 1930, Pite moved to Beckenham, Kent to live near his brother William and this is where on 27 November 1934 he died from exhaustion and skin cancer.