Henry Duke, the local MP, aided the expansion of St James’ Park in 1911 just as the ground’s inadequacies threatened to stymie the club’s progress. 

When Exeter City turned professional in 1908 a rather rough piece of ground, which had served as the parish field, needed to be turned into an enclosed facility with stands, terraces, changing rooms and offices. Great progress was made with the exception of the playing pitch being too short to stage potentially lucrative FA Cup ties. These would need to be staged at the rugby ground in St Thomas with City having to give up some of the proceeds.

At this stage the club, which had a number of influential members of local civic and buiness society on its board of directors, turned to Henry Duke, Exeter’s MP, for practical support. Mr Duke was able to approach a nearby landowner with a view to personally buying land at the north-east end of the existing layout. Approached from Old Tiverton Road this effectively represented the area now covered by Stadium Way and the Big Bank.

To much fanfare, and to the design of local architect Archibald Lucas, the new configuration was inaugurated at a game against West Ham United in 1911. Not only did the Grecians now have a longer pitch, but they also had larger standing accommodation behind one of the goals which was soon to become known as the ‘Duke Bank' in honour of City’s parliamentary benefactor.

Henry Duke was born in 1855, the son of a granite merchant involved in Merrivale quarry near Princetown. A journalist, and later a barrister, he had been MP for Plymouth before serving as member for Exeter through the Great War until 1918. Created Baron Merrivale of Walkhampton in 1925, he died at the age of eighty-three in May 1939.