Charles Brett

Sir Charles Edward Bainbridge Brett CBE
Born	30 October 1928 Holywood, County Down, Northern Ireland
Died	19 December 2005 Northern Ireland
Nationality	UK
Other names	C.E.B. Brett; Charles E.B. Brett; Charlie Brett
Occupation	Solicitor
Known for	Irish historic building publications, heritage activism, politics; first chairman of the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society; Awarded CBE and KBE

Sir Charles Edward Bainbridge Brett CBE (30 October 1928 - 19 December 2005). Born in Holywood, County Down, was a Northern Irish solicitor, journalist, author and founding member, and first chairman, of the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society (UAHS). He was known to many simply as Charlie Brett.

Sir Charles was born into a long line of solicitors, the family firm being L'Estrange and Brett, based in Belfast, he was a partner there from 1954 until 1994. He was educated at Rugby School and New College, Oxford; where he was President of the Poetry Society and a friend of Dylan Thomas and attended lectures by Lord Clark.

Between 1949 and 1950 he worked in France as a journalist with the Continental Daily Mail, where he is said to have mixed in anarchist and Trotskyite circles.

In 1956, the Earl of Antrim invited Charlie Brett to join the Northern Ireland Committee of the National Trust, on finding there were no books written to prepare himself for this to this Sir Charles resolved to write the necessary volumes. In 1957 he became the first chairman of the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, founded alongside, amongst others Lady Dunleath. Brett served as chairman for ten years and then as President from 1979 until his death.

With the National Trust he put his legal skill to use in order to establish a public footpath along the cliffs of the North Coast of Ulster.

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Wikipedia