One of a number of streets in Southway named after Mayors of Plymouth, Alger Walk commemorates William Henry Alger, who, sometime around 1870 became a partner in a major business at Cattedown.
The business had been started by Charles Burnard – who was also to serve the town as mayor and who is similarly remembered on this estate–in a small way on the family farm in Millbrook in 1840 and stepped up a gear in 1854 when he went into partnership with a Mr Lackand started a fertilizer manufactory at Lambhay Hill. Later moving to Sutton Road, Lack was bought out for £44,000 – a huge sum then – when Alger came into the business and it move again to Cattedown. Thereafter, for the greater part of the next hundred years there were members of the Burnard and Alger families involved in business on the banks of the Plym (the fertilizer business was sold to the Anglo Continental Guano Works in 1920, but their new enterprise – Cattedown Wharfs Ltd. was in operation until it was sold to Everard and Sons in 1957.
William Henry Alger, who was born just before Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, was Mayor of Plymouth twice, enjoying concurrent terms in office in 1885-6 and 1886-7.
