Charles Edward Bainbridge Brett

Charles Edward Bainbridge Brett was a Northern Irish solicitor, architectural historian, writer and public administrator. He was one of the founding partners of L'Estrange & Brett solicitors, vice-chairman of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Chairman of Hearth Housing Association, of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive and a member of the Northern Ireland Labour Party. He was also the chairman of the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society from 1968 to 1978 and president of the same organisation from 1979 until his death in 2005.

Early Life
Brett was born in Holywood, County Down, on the 30th of October 1928. He spent much of his early life in England where he attended schools in Rugby and Oxford. While at Oxford's New College he acted as president of the Poetry Society. After his education ended he moved to Paris where he worked as both a broadcaster and a journalist. His memories of Belfast at this time were said to be "lumbered in his mind with a dismal backwaterish quality."

Return to Belfast
However, upon his return in 1950, he was surprised to find Belfast a much more vibrant city than he had remembered. The artistic and political life of Belfast was perfect for his strong creativity and love of culture. He quickly became enamored with Trade Unionism but said of Northern Ireland's own style of Unionists that he wished only to "stand outside and bung bricks at them: a duty that I performed to the best of my ability, and with relish, for the next 20 years."

National Trust
In 1956 Brett was invited to join the Northern Ireland committee of the National Trust. He worried he would be unfit for the task and so he made an enquiry as to what books he might study to help him. The reply was that there simply was no such books and he later agreed that this statement was "substantially true." To rectify this situation he decided that he himself should gather as much information about Northern Ireland's heritage as he could and write such books as would have helped him had they already been written.