IN Worcester’s long and sometimes colourful history there have been few figures more eccentric than William Laslett.
He is best remembered today – if remembered he is at all by most people, as he was no Woodbine Willie or Edward Elgar – for a group of alms houses in Friar Street which bear his name.
But they only scratch the surface of the Laslett legend.
For this man, who dressed like a tramp and didn’t wash much, was the city’s MP for more than 20 years and the greatest benefactor it has ever known. The son of a local banker, he was a solicitor in the early 19th century, which proved to be a golden age for lawyers, as several other local families made fair sized fortunes at the same time.