The Dixon family's nursery, 1916. For a while, it occupied land on both sides of North Side, including a plot on the one side of Spencer Park that had been intended for a house.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Curiously, there are a number of connections of Anguloa clowesii with Wandsworth Common.

A common cultivated hybrid is Anguloa clowesii var. ruckeri (Lindl.), named after the orchid-obsessed Sigismund Rucker (1810-75). Rucker lived on West Hill and corresponded with Charles Darwin. Melrose Hall, the Rucker mansion, has become the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability, on West Hill.

Note also the abbreviated term "Lindl." — which shows that the plant had been named after Rucker by the botanist John Lindley. It was Lindley who put Darwin in touch with Rucker — who sent specimens when Darwin was writing his classic On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects, and on the good effects of intercrossing (1862).

Rucker, Sigismund (1810–75):

Merchant and orchid grower. East and West India broker with premises in Great Tower Street, City of London. Cultivated a major orchid collection at his residence at West Hill, Wandsworth, and frequently exhibited at Chiswick. Member of the council of the Royal Horticultural Society.

[Darwin Correspondence Project: Orchids.]

I know very little about the Rucker family on West Hill. A place to start might be the profiles on the website of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery at University College London. See e.g. John Anthony Rucker of West Hill. It was JAR who built Melrose House, West Hill. He "left it together with his West Indian property — including enslaved people — to his nephew Daniel Henry Rucker". Sigismund was, I think, another nephew.]

Lindley, John (1799–1865).

Botanist and horticulturist. Assistant in Joseph Banks’s library and herbarium, 1819. Garden assistant secretary, Horticultural Society of London, 1822–6; assistant secretary, 1826–41; vice-secretary, 1841–58; honorary secretary, 1858–62. Lecturer on botany, Apothecaries’ Company, from 1836. Professor of botany, London University (later University College, London), 1829–60. Horticultural editor of the Gardeners’ Chronicle from 1841. FRS 1828.

[Darwin Correspondence Project: Orchids.]

John Buckmaster notes that Lindley was active in the preservation of London's open spaces — it is largely down to him that Kew Gardens was saved from the speculative builder. (See e.g. The Norfolk man who helped save Kew Gardens.).

In a newspaper article at the height of the battle to save Wandsworth Common in 1870, Buckmaster recalls botanising here with the inspirational Dr Lindley in the 1840s. It is is almost ecstatic:

It is now nearly 30 years since I first saw Wandsworth Common. The late Dr. Lindley used to assemble his students, at 7 o'clock, at the Falcon [pub at the crossroads opposite where Arding and Hobbs now stands], and after a very plain breakfast, which cost ninepence each, we used to proceed to the common in search of plants.

It was a lovely spring morning. The cows and sheep were feeding among the yellow gorse, the linnets were singing, and nightingales could be heard in the evening.

Under the shade of the furze bushes the violet and heath blossomed, the air was soft and balmy, and here and there the majestic elm and chesnut reared their lofty heads. An avenue of trees, nearly three-quarters of a mile long, lined the main road [Bolingbroke Grove], and from the eastern sky, pure from the throne of God, the sun streamed in all its golden splendour, as the lark ascended at the sound of our footsteps.

Undisturbed by lords of manors, or speculating builders, or beershop keepers, or railway companies, we could wander from the Plough to Tooting Corner.

I felt thankful that within a radius of four miles from Charing Cross, from some cause or other, such a place had been left for public enjoyment. Men may tire and grow weary over picture galleries and works of art, but Nature never wearies.

But by the time of writing, the Common appeared to be in terminal decline:

I never dreamed I should live to see the common as it now is — heaps of unsightly ashes and filth, beershops, houses neither wind-tight nor water-tight, trees cut down and injured. Railway companies, gravel diggers, schools, and private individuals have scrambled for the common, and we are told by Lord Spencer that the common belongs absolutely to him.

Now, on this we join issue."

[South London Press — Saturday 19 March 1870.]

See also John Lindley (1799-1865). The Royal Horticultural Society's Lindley Library is named in his honour.

A fellow committee-member of the [Royal] Horticultural Society was George Fergusson Wilson, one of the owners of Price's Candle Works. Wilson grew up in Black Sea House (North Side) — on part of whose land the Dixon nursery was situated. Wilson's great experimental garden at Wisley is now owned by the RHS.

So now back to our North Side orchids . . . 

Orchids For Export (1949)

[Oh, the diction — and the background music!]

(Click on image to view the video)

"Orchids like these are the proud achievement of the nurseries near Wandsworth Common, London.

The quest for new and more beautiful specimens is endless, and highly skilled cross-breeding plus infinite care are needed to produce blooms of quality. Brothers John and Cyril Dixon are the experts responsible.

The delicate plants are carefully packed in rubber tubes filled with moist cotton wool, for this ensures that they will arrive at their destination with their freshness unimpaired.

These are very special blooms, the result of patient research and experiment on the part of the two brothers.

They're off to the United States, destined for display to America's Orchid Society in Washington, where orders it is anticipated will follow.

A consignment like this should help soften the impression that Britain is a land of grey austerity.

Anguloa clowesii var. ruckeri (Lindl.)

(Click on image to enlarge)

The "Tulip Orchid", Anguloa clowesii (Lindl. 1844), a native of Colombia and Venezuela.

There's a nice gallery of images on Wikipedia Commons: Anguloa clowesii.

(Click on image to enlarge)

I recall reading about a "Samuel Dixon" among the first residents of the new Spencer Park estate, which was built partly on land reclaimed when the Black Sea was filled in after 1871. The new Conservators, charged with maintaining and enhancing the Common, were keen to create a new lake to compensate, but faced local opposition.

Here Dixon is railing against the lake. Was he a relation — father? grandfather? — of John and Cyril, the orchid specialists?

Samuel Dixon's fellow critics of the new pond, Frederick Beeston (Spencer Park) and Peter Le Neve Foster (Lake Terrace, North Side), lived only a short distance away. Why were they all so critical of a pond intended to be dug half a mile or so away, on the other side a railway line? Or was there talk of a pond to be dug nearer to them?]

I wonder if Keith Thomas's superb study (as yet unpublished) of the building of Spencer Park discusses the Dixons?]

(Click on image to enlarge)

(Click on image to enlarge)

I don't know when exactly the nursery closed. I (think I) have a distinct memory of a plant nursery there in the early 1960s, but when I went looking for it in the late-1960s (I was hoping to buy a plant for my mother's birthday), it had gone.

House erected (in the 1960s?) on the site of the Dixons' nursery on North Side. For many years, there was a world-famous orchid nursery here. Its beautiful postwar babies were said to "soften the impression that Britain is a land of grey austerity". Who would have known?

(Click on image to enlarge)

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While we're on the subject of ponds, here's the great "war poet" Edward Thomas, recalling his childhood in the 1880s:

"The gravelly shore of the Long Pond on Wandsworth Common was confused in my mind with the sea sand where Robinson Crusoe saw the cannibals' footprints."

(Click on image to enlarge)

Edward Thomas's "Long Pond" is our Lake, created around 1872 and enlarged in stages. Here it is about 1893. Notice today's island in the northern lobe is a wooded peninsula; a channel has not yet been dug yet to separate it off.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Thirty or so years earlier, Robinson Crusoe had a similarly profound effect on the great naturalist Henry Nottidge Moseley (1844—1891), who was born and grew up in a house where Heathfield Road meets West Side and Allfarthing Lane.

21 December 1872, the Wandsworth born-and-bred naturalist Henry Nottidge Mosely set sail on the HMS Challenger for a 5-year circumnavigation of the globe.

This voyage of exploration will lay the foundations of oceanography and lead to what John Murray called "the greatest advance in the knowledge of our planet since the celebrated discoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries".

On his return, HNM will soon be made a Fellow of the Royal Society and Linacre Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at Oxford University.

Here is a section of a short memoir by G.C. Bourne:

Brought up in the country [!], young Moseley had ample opportunities for indulging his inherent taste for natural history and field sports, and he did not fail to take advantage of them; but in other respects he does not appear to have shown any promise of future intellectual eminence, and was certainly not a bookish boy in any sense of the word.

He has said that his favourite reading was Robinson Crusoe, and that he first acquired from Defoe's story the desire to see foreign countries and study their inhabitants and productions; a desire which was much strengthened when he subsequently read Darwin's Voyage of a Naturalist on the 'Beagle.'

[From a new introduction to Moseley's Notes by a Naturalist, second edition 1892.]

Chart of HMS Challengers route, 1872-1876, by John James Wild, 1878. I have superimposed some dates, and the position of Tristan da Cunha (TdC) in the South Atlantic.

(Click on image to enlarge)

This not the time to go into more detail about his five-year journey and incredible achievements, but one accolade is the naming of Tristan da Cunha's Rockhopper Penguin after him:

Moseley's Penguin (aka the Northern Rockhopper Penguin), Eudyptes chrysocome moseleyi, named after Henry Nottidge Moseley.

(Click on image to enlarge)

The people of Tristan da Cunha are understandably proud of their unique penguin.

(Click on image to enlarge)

I wonder if any other residents of Battersea and Wandsworth have had species named after them, or feature on stamps? Any ideas, anybody?

For more on HNM and the expedition, you can start with e.g.

— Henry Nottidge Moseley.

— Challenger Expedition.

— HMS Challenger (1858).

One day I'll get round to adding a link to HNM's wonderful description of his encounters with this penguin from his Notes by a Naturalist on the "Challenger" (1879).

Henry Nottidge Moseley

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Incidentally, a young Henry Nottidge Moseley was for a while tutored by John Buckmaster, as JCB records in his splendid autobiography, A Village Politician (1st edition 1897).

Even as a student teacher in Battersea in the 1840s, JCB found himself in demand as a lecturer and tutor. (And he was so impecunious that he had to take every opportunity to earn money.) One of his informal classes was with a group of children on the edge of the Common, at the home of the first School Inspector of Science, Henry Moseley.

The Government Inspector, who resided not far off, made arrangements for me to attend his house twice a week and give lessons to his two boys with half a dozen others. I took this class for twelve months, when a piece of Church patronage removed him.

More than 30 years after I met one of his sons at the Society of Arts. He was then Linacre professor at Oxford. When my name was mentioned he looked at me. I hesitated as to who ought to speak first, as our positions in life we are now very different; but I resolved on making myself known.

He took me warmly by the hand, and said, "I should never have been where I am but for your teaching, which gave me a love for science I have ever since cultivated." [p.247].

HNM is not named, but it was he who became the Linacre professor.

Children by the Long Pond (which we generally call the Lake), c.1910. "Long" because there was still no island. To get your bearings, notice the Cat's Back Bridge in the distance. A marvellous image by Bellevue-based photographers Dorrett and Martin

Note the sailor-suits and mortar-boards. I wond how many children were inspired to travel the world after gazing out from its sand and gravel banks?

(Click on image to enlarge)

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Another water-related story, though closer to home again  . . . 

The death of a seal in the Thames, 1857

This poor "beautiful specimen" managed to swim upstream against a flow of filth, only to be shot near the Feathers pub at the mouth of the River Wandle:

"The Seal Shot in The Thames", Illustrated Times, 17 January 1857 (p.13 and p.14).

The man holding the gun is likely to be the waterman Ben Dukes, standing with the owner of "The Feathers", H. [Harry?] Salter.

London Weekly Investigator — Wednesday 31 December 1856

A SEAL SHOT IN THE THAMES

A few days ago, the attendant on the boats at the Feathers, Wandsworth, shot a large seal in the Thames near the above place. It is a beautiful specimen of the species, and is the only one of the kind that has been seen by any one of the Thames fishermen above bridge. It measures 4 feet in length, 2 feet 1 inch in breadth, and is 2 feet 3 inches in girth. The fish may be seen at Mr. H. Salter's, the Feathers Tavern, Wandsworth.

[BNA: Link.]

A couple of weeks later, the Illustrated Times followed up with an image, since "the fact that it ventured so far as Wandsworth, through such a villainous medium, renders him an object of curiosity, worthy to be commemorated by the graver as well as by the pen."

THE SEAL SHOT IN THE THAMES

That any free animal should consent to be found in the Thames of the present day seems absurd. Above the bridges, indeed, we must believe that there are little fishes; for do we not see them angled for every season? and Richmond dinners have acquainted us, en route, that swans do haunt the aits.

But of all animals in all places, a seal in the Thames near Wandsworth, does seem the most incongruous and impossible. Yet a seal was actually shot at Wandsworth a few days ago by a waterman, Benjamin Dukes, and a "beautiful specimen" it is described to be. It measures 4 feet in length, and two feet and one inch in breadth.

Apart, however, from any intrinsic feature of interest which the animal could possibly display, the fact that it ventured so far as Wandsworth, through such a villainous medium, renders him an object of curiosity, worthy to be commemorated by the graver as well as by the pen.

"The Feathers Tavern" and boat house, situated near the mouth of the River Wandle. Photo c.1870s.

(Click on image to enlarge)

The infamous "Great Stink" that closed down the Houses of Parliament took place just a few months later:

The Great Stink was an event in Central London during July and August 1858 in which the hot weather exacerbated the smell of untreated human waste and industrial effluent that was present on the banks of the River Thames.

The problem had been mounting for some years, with an ageing and inadequate sewer system that emptied directly into the Thames. The miasma from the effluent was thought to transmit contagious diseases, and three outbreaks of cholera before the Great Stink were blamed on the ongoing problems with the river.

[Wikipedia: Great Stink]

"Monster Soup commonly called Thames Water" (1828), by William Heath.

"A woman dropping her tea-cup in horror upon discovering the monstrous contents of a magnified drop of Thames water; revealing the impurity of London drinking water. Coloured etching by W. Heath." Courtesy Wellcome Images.

(Click on image to enlarge)

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"James Lamb . . . wearing three medal ribbons . . . drunk and incapable . . . found in a helpless condition . . . gentleman said he knew me . . . asked me to drink his health as it was his birthday . . . taken prisoner by the Russians in the Crimea . . . a drug of some sort was put into my drink . . . the man walked away with my week's wages . . . it was very unkind of him, and yet he seemed such a nice young man."

Three medals? Taken prisoner by the Russians? The tone of the article is facetious. Surely this man is telling whoppers?

But not at all, for this is the celebrated 1406 James Lamb, 13th Light Dragoons, a genuine Crimean War hero who rode in the Charge of the Light Brigade on 25 October 1854. He lived off Wandsworth Common, on Salcott Road. He was interviewed a number of times for British and US magazines, including for Strand (1891) and Harper's (1908).

Weekly Dispatch (London) — Sunday 13 December 1903

HAD A DRINK BUT TOOK HIS WAGES.

At Bow-street James Lamb, a respectably-dressed old fellow wearing three medal ribbons on his breast, was charged with being drunk and incapable.

Prisoner: I don't deny that I was found in a helpless condition, but it was all owing to a gentleman who asked me to have a drink. I did not know him, sir, but he said he knew me, and was anxious for me to drink his health as it was his birthday.

Sir Albert de Hutson: Has he been here before?

Prisoner: Lor' bless you, no. sir. I was taken prisoner by the Russians in the Crimea, but that was not Bow-street, was it now? A drug of some sort was put into my drink, and the man walked away with my week's wages. It was very unkind of him, and yet he seemed such a nice young man.

Prisoner was ordered to pay 3s.

[BNA: Link]

"An erect, active man, even yet; of medium height, spare and sinewy, with a nose that is slightly arched, as the nose of a fighter so often is; a man with rough-trimmed, shortish beard, close set ears, square forehead, and eyes of greyish blue, which look at you with open frankness."

He "lives a happy, cheery life, with his aged wife and his son and grandchildren, in one of a long row of workmen's cottages which are ranked close to one another, and none in the least to be differentiated from its neighbour, in dreary Battersea.

[This is Salcott Road, remember!]

[Robert Shackleton, Harper's, 1908-1909, p.300].

His "three medals" are the Crimean (with clasps for Alma, Balaclava, Inkerman and Sebastopol), the Turkish, and the Long Service & Good Conduct.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Cavalrymen of the 13th Light Dragoons photographed in 1872 with "'Butcher', the last survivor of the Balklava Charge". James Lamb is second from the right.

(Click on image to enlarge)

If you would like to read more — much more — about James Lamb's remarkable life, visit my other website: — ChargeoftheLightBrigade.com: James Lamb, 13th Light Dragoons.

[A number of Chargers lived in Battersea and Wandsworth. I have already written about John Breeze, who is buried in St Mary's Cemetery, Bolingbroke Grove. I hope to discuss others soon.]

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South London Press — Saturday 08 December 1877

(Click on image to enlarge)

JUVENILE PILFERERS

Harry Shepperd (16), of 1, Hampton Terrace, Upper Tooting, no occupation, John Hance (15), of 5, Wiseton-road, Wandsworth Common, butcher boy, and

Philip Keatch (13), of Madras Cottage, Trinity-road, Upper Tooting, no occupation, were charged with stealing a number of articles from various grocers.

It appeared that on the evening of Friday, the 23rd ult. a pound of butter and a posed of biscuits were stolen from the cart of Chas. Hall, grocer, of 4, Bellevue-road, Wandsworth Common, while the cart was left temporarily unattended outside the door of a customer in the Wandle-road

The following Saturday night a bottle of whiskey, two bottles of ale, and half a pound of composite candles, were stolen from the same cart under similar circumstances in Brodrick-road, the assistant in charge of the cart noticing a lad on the wheel, who ran away.

On the Monday night following, a box of Muscatel raisins, value 6s., was stolen from outside the shop of Frederic Kerry, grocer, also of Bellevue-road.

George Worley, assistant to a butcher, deposed that on Wednesday he saw three boys like the prisoners run away from a hayrick in a field in Brodrick-road. [1] Witness then found concealed in the hayrick a whiskey bottle, a black ale bottle, a jam pot, a pot of bloater paste, a pot of ham paste, a bottle of currie, a box of cocoa, two loaves of bread, some butter, and an empty raisin box.

Mr. Hall identified the whiskey bottle and several other articles produced. He said he had been continually losing things from his cart after dark lately.

Mr. Kerry identified the raisin-box as his property. Prisoners Shepperd and Hance pleaded guilty. Keatch said he helped to eat some of the things, but did not assist in stealing them.

Mrs. Shepperd said her husband was the well-known professional cricketer. [2] Her son had been on a voyage on board the Chichester training-ship, having been sent away in consequence of pilfering from gentlemen friends of his father. She wished him to be sent to sea again.

A gentleman, a relative of Keatch's, said his father held a Government appointment in Madras. The boy was a good boy, but had been led away by the others.

Mr. Bridge sentenced Shepperd to six months' hard labour, and remanded the other two prisoners.

[BNA: Link]

[1] The phrase "A hayrick in a field on Brodrick Road" reminds us how the area was not yet entirely built over. Thomas and Emma Hardy moved to the corner of Brodrick Road and Trinity Road only three months after this court case, in March 1878.

[2] This was William Shepperd, English cricketer) (1840—1919).

I wonder what happened to the three boys in later life?

"Chichester Training Ship for Homeless Boys. Supported by Voluntary Contributions."

Mrs Shepperd's "son had been on a voyage on board the Chichester training-ship, having been sent away in consequence of pilfering from gentlemen friends of his father. She wished him to be sent to sea again."

See also the remarkable "before-and-after" paintings by Barnett Samuel Marks (Saved from the Streets by on display at the Royal Museums Greenwich: "In deep mire where there is no standing' and "Escape as the bird out of the snare of the fowler".

(Click on image to enlarge)

[See also Children's Homes: The Chichester and Arethusa. I'm pretty sure I've written about the Chichester 's sister ship the Arethusa before, haven't I? Of course. It was Sarah Tonks's brother Charles.]

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A Wandsworth mother's testimonial:

I thought you would like to see the splendid results of Virol on our little son, aged nine months. Unfortunately, he was born with catarrh of the stomach and severe constipation. We tried various foods under doctor’s supervision, but it was no use; he gradually grew worse, and we have put him into hot bath as often as six times in one day; he could not sleep more than 10 minutes, and then would wake screaming terribly.

One day a happy thought occurred, "Try Virol".

This advert appeared in a Scottish newspaper, but it was widely seen all over the country.

Dundee Evening Telegraph — 18 December 1914

(Click on image to enlarge)

BABY EVANS,

Splendid Results of Virol

Mrs. May Evans, of 68a, Waldron Road, Wandsworth Common, S.W., writes:

I thought you would like to see the splendid results of Virol on our little son, aged nine months. Unfortunately, he was born with catarrh of the stomach and severe constipation. We tried various foods under doctor’s supervision, but it was no use; he gradually grew worse, and we have put him into hot bath as often as six times in one day; he could not sleep more than 10 minutes, and then would wake screaming terribly.

One day a happy thought occurred, "Try Virol".

I can honestly state from the first feed of Virolised Milk our boy improved; at the end of a fortnight doctor admitted he was different child, slept well and digested his food perfectly. Constipation also better. I must tell you at ten months he has ten teeth, and is a perfectly healthy and happy romp.

VIROL

Used in 1,000 Hospitals and Sanatoria.

In Jars, 1/8, and 2/11.

VIROL, Ltd, 152-166, Old St, London, E.C.

[BNA: Link]

According to an interesting article in Wikipedia, Virol was the product of experimentatio by the Bovril company, who marketed products made from beef. The "vril" in Bovril and Virol, appears to derive from "from Edward Bulwer-Lytton's then-popular novel, The Coming Race (1871), the plot of which revolves around a superior race of people, the Vril-ya, who derive their powers from an electromagnetic substance named "Vril". Therefore, Bovril indicates great strength obtained from an ox." Presumably also to "virile"?

The original ingredients of Virol were red marrow extracted by the use of glycerol from the rib bones of cattle and the bones of calves, refined beef fat, diastatic malt (containing a mixture of amylases that convert starch into maltose and dextrin), eggs, lemon syrup and soluble phosphates. This emulsified product was rich in nutrients and the manufacturing process did not destroy the vitamin content. Later, orange juice replaced lemon juice.

[Wikipedia: Virol]

"Baby Evans", one of Wandsworth's finest, a testament to the powers of Virol.

(Click on image to enlarge)

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And finally . . . 

A Christmas Day Quiz.

Here's a wonderful recollection of Christmas Day on Wandsworth Common more than a century ago, featuring a sword and Mabel Looms (who lived on Broomwood Road).

Whose recollections? Where did he live? Which school did he and Mabel attend?

To add to the festive fun, I've interspersed the text with some wonderful images of swords, all by the same (local) artist.

Who painted the images? And which stories do they depict?

ONE CHRISTMAS MORNING I woke up and felt a long lean smooth straight cold thing with straps at my bedside. It had a handle, and pulling that with one hand I brought out what I discovered to be a sword, while in the other hand was a scabbard.

(Click on image to enlarge)

The daylight came upon me still unsheathing and sheathing the sword, trying hard for the hundredth time to put it back the wrong way. As soon as I could I fastened the belt round my waist so that the sword hung on the right instead of the left side and went out alone.

The streets were empty. I was proud though without spectators. Once or twice the weapon caught between my legs. I marched up the street, crossed the road separating it from the Common and turned to the left between the elm-trees of Bolingbroke Grove, having the road upon my left, the Common upon my right.

At the top of one of the streets parallel to ours, but at that time divided from it by that big private meadow with the pond and elm-trees, I stopped and looked down. For there lived Mabel Looms, a schoolfellow whom I adored. She had had a Christmas card from me that morning.

The street was empty. I walked backwards and forwards along the Grove past the top of the street, waiting, sufficiently proud not to be overcome by long disappointment. How many times since have I waited thus for somebody, with a dog's patience. There began to be others in the streets.

At last Mabel came up towards the Common, in the company of some elders. Without a sign I continued walking backwards and forwards. They turned to their left at the top, away from our street. I turned in the opposite direction homeward, pleased with my swinging sword and believing that the passers-by admired it.

At home they knew well where I had been.

My attachment to Mabel lasted for several years and more than once after it had been broken I attempted to renew it. She was a perfect loving friend. I thought her beautiful. Her hair was light brown, her face round rather than a long face.

(Click on image to enlarge)

A year or two later, "I exchanged the Board-school when I was ten for a private school":

Here there were fifty or sixty boys of from ten to seventeen years of age, perhaps half of them boarders. They were the sons of tradesmen, professional men, moderately well-to-do clerks, and men of small independent means.

My companions were now boys exclusively. I had no sisters; my girl cousins I saw but two or three times in all my childhood; none of my friends had sisters of their own age; my father and mother had but a few close acquaintances, who rarely came to the house and hardly ever brought their children, boys or girls, with them.

Mabel and I had forsaken one another. If we met we smiled without words, without stopping.

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Have A Very Happy Christmas, Everyone!

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SO many more stories still to tell. But that's all for now, folks.

If you would like to receive occasional notifications of new Chronicles, let me know.

I've made a rough-and-ready index of all stories in the Chronicles so far.

Plus there's a SEARCH box at the top of this page, and here:

Send me an email if you enjoyed this post, or want to comment on something you've seen or read on the site, or would like to know more — or just want to be kept in touch.

Philip Boys ("HistoryBoys")

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Extras . . . 

I missed this press release in November, but better late than never.

14 November 2023: Wandsworth’s new library hosts an exhibition of objects from the Wandsworth Heritage Collection

"Around 70 objects from Wandsworth’s Heritage Collection go on display at the new Wandsworth Town Library, opening today. Working in partnership with Roehampton University, Wandsworth Council have been working to give items from the Wandsworth Heritage Collection a new home in the heart of Wandsworth Town."

[Source and further information: Link]

(Click on image to enlarge)

I'm delighted with this development, the first of many that I hope will lead to the creation of a new Wandsworth Museum.

The London Borough of Wandsworth no longer has a local museum. But it does have a collection of 10,000+ items in a basement on West Hill, most of which have been there since March 2008.

As the Clapham Society put it so well a year or two ago:

— The Wandsworth Museum collection is very inaccessible for Wandsworth residents;

— There is currently no way of finding out what is in the collection;

— There are no plans for promoting or developing the collection;

— There is no way to add to the collection;

— It is not clear what the condition of items in the collection is and how they are maintained;

— There is a great deal of public interest in historic items and heritage issues in the borough;

— There is no opportunity for items in the collection to be used as educational tools with children and young people in the borough.

There have been inspiring Wandsworth Museums in the past. Let's hope that a new Wandsworth Museum will re-open soon.

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Chronicles, talks, videos etc  . . . 

(Click on image to see the entire photograph.)

On 1st December I gave short talk to the Wandsworth Historical Society on a series of photographs of women in the Surrey Pauper Lunatic Asylum. They were taken by the psychiatrist Hugh Welch Diamond, Superintendent of Women, c.1851. I brought the story up to date by exploring some of the ways these images of incarcerated girls and women are being used (and even faked) today. Many are now displayed in art galleries throughout the world, or featured on mugs, tee shirts and shopping bags (a fact which I find rather disturbing).

New videos from The Friends of Wandsworth Common

In October, I gave two talks on pioneering local photographers to/for the Friends of Wandsworth Common. As usual, they were filmed by the wonderful John Crossland — thanks, John! You should be able to view the videos on the Friends website.

Dorrett & Martin

On Tuesday 24th October, at Naturescope, Chris Allies and I talked about the amazing Battersea photographer Paul Martin, and his partnership with Harry Dorrett at their studio facing their Common on Bellevue Road ("Athol House", no.16).

Paul Martin, "Surrey Tavern (on Trinity Road), Wandsworth Common, 1896. The negative of this was taken by moonlight (40 minutes exposure). Keep rather bright and strong."

(Click on image to enlarge)

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"Seeing and Believing: Pioneering photographers on and around Wandsworth Common, 1845—1875"

Including Geoffrey Bevington, Hugh Welch Diamond, Peter Le Neve Foster, Lewis Carroll, John Thomson, and Henry Morris.

(Click on image to enlarge)

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"COMMON MEMORIES: Life on & around Wandsworth Common, 1930s-1980s"

(Click on image to enlarge)

COMMON MEMORIES — Life on & around Wandsworth Common, 1930s—1980s

6/2023 — Over the past year, members of the Friends of Wandsworth Common Heritage group, led by Ros Page, have interviewed lifelong residents of the Common to explore their life and experiences and how the Common used to be.

The interviews were all filmed by John Crossland and the more than 20 hours of footage beautifully and sensitively edited down into this 'charming and engaging' film by Rosa Navas, a local film maker and Friend.

The film is interspersed with old images and film clips, bringing alive the narrative of the interviewees. The result is a fascinating insight into how life on Wandsworth Common has changed over five decades.

With special thanks to the production team led by Ros Page, including Stephen Midlane, Henrietta Gentilli, Louise Murphy, John Turner, cameraman John Crossland and editor Rosa Navas.

The film was launched on 6 June 2023 in the Fiennes Theatre, Emanuel School, and special thanks are due to Lisa Irwin and the school for their very generous support.

The video is now available to view via the Friends of Wandsworth Common website or on YouTube .

A DVD is also available, at £5.

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Wandsworth Common: The Lake

A couple of years ago I made a short video (my first) from Edwardian postcards and photographs of the lake, set to music by Claude Debussy, which you can view here. Utterly self-indulgent.

HistoryBoys | Magic Lantern Show #1 | The Lake, Wandsworth Common . . . also known as the Dog Pond, the Long Pond, or just 'the Pond'.

And here's one on the Three-Island Pond

HistoryBoys | Magic Lantern Show #? | The Three-Island Pond

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SO many more stories still to tell. But that's all for now, folks.

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Philip Boys ("History Boys")

December 2023

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