William de Lacy Aherne was born in Cheam, Surrey, England on 17 April 1867. By 1886 he had moved to Birmingham where initially he was employed as an architect's assistant. He received his training as an architect under a Mr Godfrey, surveyor to the King's Norton and Northfield Sanitary Authority.
By the the late 1880s he was in private practice in Birmingham and over the next two decades designed numerous properties mainly in the Birmingham suburbs of Moseley and Sutton Coldfield.
Drawings and plans of a house designed by him are illustrated in Designs for One Hundred Ideal £1,000 Houses. Being copies of the hundred best designs entered in the 1912 Daily Mail Architects' Competition (1912 p.9).
Aherne was a Member of the Society of Architects (MSA). He was admitted a Licentiate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (LRIBA) in 1925 and a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA) in 1930.
His address was given as 5, Waterloo Street, Birmingham in 1912 and 1927; and 55 Newhall Street, Birmingham in 1931 and 1939. He died in Stoke Newington, London on 4 December 1945
A house and post office for Josiah Hands, 100, The Green, King's Norton (1889); Lecture Hall for the Committee Moseley Presbyterian Church of England, Chantry Road, Moseley (1897); Court Hey, 25 Chantry Road, Moseley (c.1901); Neeting Room for the Christadelphian Synod, Institute Road, King's Heath (1902); 9 St Agnes Road, Moseley (1906-07); 37 and 39 Poplar Avenue, Bearwood, Birmingham; Birmingham (1908); 40 Reddings Road, Moseley (1908); 42-50 Reddings Road, Moseley (1908); The Grey House, 28 Amesbury Road, Moseley (1908); 30-34 Amesbury Road, Moseley (1908); 40 Sommerville Road, Sutton Coldfield (1910); Richmond, 50 Sommerville Road, Sutton Coldfield (1911); 189-193 Russell Road, Moseley (1911); 42-46 Wake Green Road, Moseley (1911); Inverblair, 52 Sommerville Road, Sutton Coldfield (1911); Siviter House, 17 Ludgate Hill, Birmingham (1912); 187 Russel Road, Moseley (1914); 78-86 Eastern Road, Wylde Green, Birmingham (1914); and 55 and 179 Russell Road, Moseley (1915).
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See also: List of Architectural Works of William de Lacy Aherne in Wood, Christine. 'William de Lacy Aherne’ pp. 578-582 [Bibliography below]
Wood, Christine. 'William de Lacy Aherne’ in Birmingham's Victorian and Edwardian Architects, edited by Phillada Ballard. Wetherby: Oblong Creative Ltd. for the Birmingham and West Midlands Group of the Victorian Society, 2009, pp. 567-583