George Grenfell Baines

Both George and his younger brother, Richard (Dick), were gifted mathematicians and draughtsmen. Grenfell-Baines left a secure, but limiting, job in the Lancashire County Architect's Office to work for the prestigious private firm of Bradshaw Gass & Hope in Bolton in 1930.

During the 1930s, Grenfell-Baines became aware of Modernism, particularly the work of Le Corbusier and Gropius, through the architectural press and was determined to practise it himself. He studied at Manchester University for two years from 1934. It was at this time he adopted the name George Grenfell Baines at the suggestion of fellow student Gerald Hayforthwaite. Later this was hyphenated as Grenfell-Baines: Grenfell being his mother's maiden name. He was known to friends and colleagues as "GG".

In 1935, he was awarded the Heywood prize for the design of reinforced concrete flats. The following year he was awarded the third prize in a competition for a new Rhodesian Parliament; the prize money, £250, was enough to enable him to start his own practice, which later became Grenfell Baines Group (laterly called Grenfell-Baines Hargreaves).

Grenfell-Baines's work for the Air Ministry during World War II brought him to the attention of Anthony Chitty and the London Modernists. Although Grenfell-Baines always chose to be based in Preston, he cultivated friendships in national and international circles. In 1951, he was invited to design a pavilion for the Festival of Britain. Grenfell-Baines's post-war work included the New Towns of Newton Aycliffe (planned 1947) and Peterlee (planned 1948). His design for HJ Heinz offices in Cardiff in 1960 won him the National Eisteddfod Gold Medal for Architecture.