Victor Blease funeral details - Professor from prominent NI family steered Housing Executive through much of the Troubles

William Victor Blease – a member of a prominent Northern Irish family – died in hospital on July 27.

His father had been trade unionist and Labour Party peer Billy Blease (died 2008), a justice-of-the-peace and a co-creator of the NI Labour Party alongside SDLP founder Paddy Devlin.

News Letter political editory Henry McDonald, who died earlier this year, was the partner of his daughter Charlotte (who is a research affiliate in digital psychiatry at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at Harvard Medical School, and Sweden’s Uppsala University).

Known by his middle name, Victor was a teacher by trade and had been the head of history at Friends' School in Lisburn before going on to lecture for a year at Ulster University.

He had an economics degree from Queen's University Belfast.

He joined the Housing Executive in 1972, and ultimately rose to become its chief executive, serving in the role from 1985 to 1998, when he retired due to a diagnosis of bowel cancer.

Jim Kilfedder, former unionist MP for North Down, described him in parliament as “a totally dedicated man, leading an enormous organisation, and dealing with a gigantic task in Northern Ireland”, whilst Labour peer Lord Graham of Edmonton said he led the body “with distinction and flair”.

The current chief executive Grainia Long described him as “a driving force for social change throughout his time at the Housing Executive, overseeing the large-scale redevelopment of many neighbourhoods”.

Victor’s daughter Charlotte said: "The organization was set up to cope with the housing crisis at the height of the Troubles in NI, and the biggest forced movement of people since the Second World War.

"Hundreds of homes were destroyed, and thousands of people moved following the burning of homes and intimidation.

"At its inception, NI had the worst housing in Western Europe: 20% of homes in NI were unfit for habitation – 25% in Belfast. The NI Housing Executive was occasionally attacked by terrorist organizations.

"As director and chief executive, he oversaw massive building programmes, acknowledged as transforming the social housing landscape into one of the best in western Europe, making it a housing and planning case study for other regions…

"Uniquely in the UK, he kept NI Housing Executive building houses for years after councils in Great Britain had stopped construction."

After his retirement, he was appointed Professor of Housing at Ulster University.

He also served as director of the NI Chest, Heart and Stroke charity from 1998 to 2001.

His hobbies were travelling, walking, and learning Italian (a country he visited extensively when he retired).

He is survived by his wife Rosemary, and his four children, Stephen, Nicholas, Charlotte and Catherine, and by his siblings Maurice, Gillian, and Paul.

A service will be held in Kirkwoods Funeral Home, 150a Kings Road, Belfast, on Thursday at 11.30am after a private family committal.

The family have requested no flowers, and ask that any donations in lieu go to the Alzheimer’s Society, c/o Kirkwoods.