Charles James Homer (b.1837-d.1893), mining engineer, Hanley.

In 1864 Charles Homer inherited 35 properties in Hanley. He speculated successfully and amassed considerable wealth, owning houses, shops, a limekiln and wharf, beer houses and Northwood colliery, together with about 60 acres of land in Hanley.

In 1864 he became managing director and mining engineer of the Chatterley Ironstone Company, founded on land leased from Ralph Sneyd of Keele Hall. This company bought the Whitfield colliery estate in 1871 in order to improve its coal supplies.
With the Duke of Sutherland, John Render, M.P. and John Bourne, in 1874 he launched the Stafford Colliery and Ironworks at Great Fenton. He owned Hanley Colliery Company and Northwood Colliery.

In 1875, however, Homer had left his family and was living at Caverswall Castle with his mistress, Mary Ann Rixon, by whom he had four children, two sons and two daughters.

Charles Homer's public office holding was concentrated into the mid 1870s; he was a member of the Tunstall Local Board of Health in 1873-4 and chief bailiff in 1874-5. He was a freemason, a founder member of the North Staffordshire Institute of Mining Engineers and its president from 1874 to 1876. He was a director of the Staffordshire Potteries Water Board and of the North Staffordshire Newspaper Company. Conservative in politics he became president of the Hanley Conservative Association.

He died at Ivy House, Hanley, on 4 November 1893.

From: 'People of the Potteries'

Born in Soho, London, about 1828. He was the son of Antonio Bernardo Carlo Alfieri, a major in the Italian army, of Salerno, who later earned a living as a linguist.

Charles Alfieri founded a boarding school in Hanley about 1852, known as Northwood Academy. In 1871 the school was in Birch Street, Northwood. The school continued for about 35 years until he retired in 1894 to the south of England. Many prominent Potteries people attended Alfieri's academy.

He was interested in the Potteries Mechanics' Institute and for many years was president of the North Staffordshire Photographic Society. He was a churchwarden of Holy Trinity church, Northwood. He died on 30 June 1894 and was buried in Hanley cemetery.