The Making of Earlsfield
1840–1914

A Building history

Keith Bailey

Contents

– Introduction
– Part I: Harbingers of Change
– William Nottidge (1768–1853)
– The Coming of the Railway
– The Moseley Family
– Robert Davis (1819–1890)
– Part II: Earlsfield Transformed 1880–1905
– Building Estates in Earlsfield 1875–1905
– The Builders of Earlsfield 1870–1910
– Earlsfield Property Records: A Random Selection
– Conclusion
– Appendix 1: Earlsfield Builders 1860–1910
– Notes

Introduction

This study examines the development of the northern half of the medieval manor of Allfarthing, from its hesitant beginnings in the 1850s and 1860s to its completion in the 1900s. The boundaries of the study area are: Allfarthing Lane, Heathfield Road, the railway and Garratt Lane. Pentland Street is included because it fits chronologically here.

In Part I some of the key players are discussed: William Nottidge, the Moseley family to whom he was connected by marriage, and Robert Davis. Part II examines the Wandsworth Tithe Map & Apportionment of 1841, which depicts the area nearing the end of its agricultural past, then with around thirty-three and two hundred residents. Part III discusses the transformation of the area between Allfarthing Lane and the Southampton Railway, known as Earlsfield from the 1880s, from a largely rural landscape into a fully-developed tract of suburbia. By 1911 this had been transformed, with 2,000 houses and a population of 12,000. Earlsfield was also the location of a large workhouse complex and a school.

Why Earlsfield? The significance of successive Earls Spencer, who by 1800 owned estates from Wimbledon and Mortlake in the west to Battersea in the east, it would seem logical for their title to give its name to this new district. The reality however is more prosaic. The most prominent estate developer in this part of Wandsworth was Irish-born Robert Davis (1820–1890), a wealthy merchant who lived for many years off Allfarthing Lane. Davis was born in Co. Leitrim, and by 1851 was living in Islington. His mother’s maiden name was Mary Jane Earls (1792–1869) which Davis doubtless chose to give the new suburb social cachet. The handful of villas and cottages near Wandsworth Common was soon transformed into serried ranks of terraced houses, with a smattering of semi-detached houses and half-houses stretching down to Garratt Lane.¹

The principal sources for housebuilding in London are the District Surveyors’ Returns (DSRs), which survive in a continuous series from 1871. The DSRs provide the applicant’s name, who might be the developer or builder, their address, the number of houses (including foot-frontage and storeys). A limited amount of duplication occurs when an initial applicant failed to complete some or all of the houses and was replaced by another builder, but the effect is negligible. Successive editions of the large-scale OS Plans at 25 inches to the mile and five feet to the mile give a precise number of houses in c.1865; c.1894 and c.1916.

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Part I: Harbingers of Change

William Nottidge (1768–1853)

Prior to 1850, the hamlet of Allfarthing consisted of a cluster of houses and associated out-buildings at the top of Allfarthing Lane. Unlike the large areas of medieval open-field furlongs and strips that survived across most of north Wandsworth, Allfarthing had already been enclosed by the early 17th century. It was then a distinct manor, surrounded by the much larger Battersea–Wandsworth estate. In 1816 Allfarthing was acquired by George, 2nd Earl Spencer (1758–1834). Wandsworth was semi-rural and close enough to London to attract wealthy newcomers. Among them was wool stapler William Nottidge (1768–1853), who acted as a middleman between farmers and woollen manufacturers. Nottidge leased land in Allfarthing from brothers Thomas and John Hayes on 30th July 1815. Thomas Hayes was a corn and flour factor at Dockhead, Bermondsey.

[Fig. 1: William Nottidge, date unknown. (Source: historyofwandsworthcommon.org/people/nottidges-moseleys/)]

Nottidge soon became the largest landowner in northern Allfarthing, owning and occupying around two-thirds of the study area by 1841. Nottidge qualified as a juror and voter in Wandsworth. He was also a magistrate and active in various official bodies and charitable organisations, including the chairmanship of the Commissioners of Sewers between the Ravensbourne and the River Mole, and the Committee for the building of St. James’s, Bermondsey, one of the so-called Waterloo churches. Coincidentally, nearby St. Anne’s Wandsworth is also a Waterloo church completed in 1822. In 1841, William Nottidge became a Visitor at the newly-built Surrey County Lunatic Asylum at Tooting. He was related by marriage to the architect of the asylum, William Moseley, members of whose family were later involved in the early development of Allfarthing. Nottidge was also involved with the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, and the Adult Orphan Institution at Regents Park. Mary Nottidge died a few months after her husband, leaving the executors to dispose of their estate.

William Nottidge’s acquisition of a substantial part of Allfarthing manor should be viewed in the context of the sale by auction of large tracts of mainly open-field land in Battersea and Wandsworth in 1835–36 by George John, 3rd Earl Spencer, who had succeeded to the title in late 1834. The final sale on 8th July 1836 concerned land in Wandsworth. Allfarthing does not feature, suggesting that Spencer’s London agents entered into a private contract with Nottidge. The 1841 Tithe Map & Apportionment highlights the dominance of Nottidge in this area. He owned and occupied two-thirds of what later became Earlsfield, north of the newly-built Southampton Railway (see Table 1 for details).

Table 1: Earlsfield 1841 — Landowners & Occupiers

Note: The Wilkinson Executors’ land is north of Allfarthing Lane, but belongs here in terms of its development.

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The Coming of the Railway

An event of major significance in the history of Allfarthing was the building of the London to Southampton Railway (renamed London & South Western (LSWR) in 1839). Just under a mile of the line affected Allfarthing manor. The Deposited Plans show only twenty-four parcels of land in the study area, of which a third were owned by Earl Spencer, mostly parts of Wandsworth Common.² Trinity Road and Heathfield Road were both provided with bridges across the cutting. Plots 6 and 8 near the later prison were owned and occupied by brothers William and Thomas Potter, market gardeners. In 1841, the Potters owned 49¾ acres, 39 acres of which lay to the south of the railway, where they rented a further 25¾ acres from Sophia Sheppard, later part of the Magdalen College, Oxford estate.³ In 1851 Thomas Potter’s Census entry refers to it as Potters Farm, covering fifty-one acres, and gives his occupation as ‘landed proprietor’.

Plots 7 (a ‘paddock and summer house’) and 9–13 were owned and occupied by William Nottage (sic). Plots 14 & 19 were owned by Sophia Shepherd. Plot 14, described as a ‘lavender garden’, was occupied by perfumer Joseph Rigge (1801–73) of New Bond Street. Rigge was born at Wandsworth but later lived at Paddington. His business partner Robert Brookbank (1785–1863) was the occupier of Plot 19 as well as much land south of the railway owned by Sophia Shepherd. The remaining plots (nos. 15–24) affected by the railway were part of Duntshill hamlet, located at the double bend in Garratt Lane. No. 15 was owned by farmer and victualler John Nash, who rented plot no. 16, owned by Daniel Watney. In Plots 17/18/20/23 were terraces of late-18th/early 19th-century cottages. Plot 21 and 22 were the Surrey Iron Railway and Garratt Lane respectively.

[Fig. 2: Joseph Rigge (left) and Beriah Drew (right), c.1860. (Source.)]

William Nottidge entered a sale agreement with the Southampton Railway on 24th June 1836. Former Royal Engineer George Henderson, now a Civil Engineer resident in Wandsworth, acted on his behalf. Under the terms of William Nottidge’s will, dated 15th March 1850, his substantial house Elm Lodge was left in trust pending its sale. The trustees were the Reverend Charles Nottidge (1787–1869), William’s younger brother, and Beriah Drew (1788–1878), a fellmonger in the Bermondsey leather industry. Charles Nottidge married into the Drew family and was Secretary of the London Deaf & Dumb Asylum (founded in Bermondsey in 1792). By the 1850s both Nottidge and Drew lived at Streatham. Drew left an estate valued at more than £140,000.

Allfarthing in 1841

The 1841 Tithe Map & Apportionment shows how rural the study area was and the dominance of William Nottidge as a landowner and occupier. The only other owners of more than trivial amounts of land were market gardeners William and Thomas Potter, and James Watney of the local brewing/distilling family, who held one-sixth of the land between them.

[Fig. 3: Wandsworth Tithe Map, 1841. (Source: Wandsworth Heritage Service.)]

Note: Three acres of land north of Heathfield Road, later developed as part of Earlsfield Road (renamed Windmill Road in 1892) were an undifferentiated part of Wandsworth Common in the Tithe Apportionment. It is unclear when and by whom it was “annexed” to Robert Davis’s development.

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The Moseley Family

William Nottidge’s Wandsworth property passed to his son-in-law, the Reverend Henry Moseley (1804–72). Moseley was a noted academic and Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy and Astronomy at King’s College, London. He married Harriet Nottidge at All Saints, Wandsworth in April 1835. In 1841, the Moseleys were living in St. Ann’s Lane with three servants. In 1851 they remained at what was now St. Ann’s Hill, with four servants. Henry Moseley gave his occupation as ‘clergyman and Inspector of Schools’. He acted as a juror at the Great Exhibition of 1851. In 1854, Moseley left Wandsworth to become vicar of Olveston, Gloucestershire, having earlier become a canon at Bristol Cathedral. He died in January 1872, leaving an estate of around £25,000. There is no evidence that Henry Moseley had considered exploiting the development potential of his Wandsworth land; that was left to other members of his family who had made careers in architecture and building.

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Robert Davis (1819–1890)

Davis took a fourteen-year lease on Elm Lodge and its grounds on 27th December 1854.⁴ The lessors were Charles Nottidge, Beriah Drew, Mary Ann Ripley née Nottidge, and John Harrison, possibly the surgeon of that name, who was in practice at St. James’s Square in 1851. Harrison moved to Elm Lodge, where he died in September 1861, leaving £7,000. Nottidge and Drew sold the freehold of Elm Lodge to Robert Davis ‘wholesale warehouseman’ on 9th January 1868 for £11,300 (about £1.1m at 2024 prices). For this, Davis acquired the mansion, two cottages, pasture, orchard and arable land, totalling 19¼ acres. Elm Lodge was soon renamed Earlsfield House by its new owner.

Robert Davis was born in Co. Leitrim into a Methodist family. He chose his mother’s maiden name, Mary Jane Earls (1792–1869), for his Wandsworth development. Davis, a ‘Manchester warehouseman’, a wholesaler of linen and cloth, moved from Islington. In 1871 Davis had five servants. He was active in local Methodism. Another of his enterprises was the Wandsworth Equitable Permanent Building Society, founded in 1878.⁵

In January 1868, Davis mortgaged his Allfarthing property for £8,000, paid in the form of £8,695 of 3% Consols (Government debt in the form of perpetual bonds). The other parties to the transaction were the Revd. Arthur Brooking (1809–90), vicar of Bovingdon, Herts.;⁶ Henry Sturt (1821–85), a Quaker Manchester warehouseman in the City and a Surrey magistrate, and Major William McMahon of Staplehurst in Kent.

In October 1876, as building began in earnest at Earlsfield, Davis took out a mortgage for £10,000 at 4½% with the Star Life Insurance Company of Moorgate. All was not well in Davis’s financial affairs, however, as he soon defaulted on the mortgage. By February 1877, he owed a total of £25,000 (£3.7 million at current prices). Despite these problems, Star Life loaned a further £40,000 in January 1882. By late January 1883, despite £18,574 of the mortgage and loan remaining unpaid, Star Life advanced a further £10,000. Davis’s financial problems may well have prompted him to sell the land for the new workhouse for £10,000. In 1885, he sold off another substantial area to the British Land Company. Building on the rest of his land finally began to accelerate in the late 1880s.

After several decades during which he had played a significant role in the development of Earlsfield, Robert Davis died on 31st March 1890 in the Wesleyan chapel on East Hill, leaving an estate of £28,367 (about £4.66m at current prices).

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Part II: Earlsfield Transformed 1880–1905

In the quarter-century after 1880, Earlsfield was transformed from fields and meadows into a sea of houses, broken only by the Union Workhouse and a Board School. The population of Earlsfield grew from a few hundred in 1841, to almost 12,000 inhabitants in 1911.

As always, the rate of building depended upon the availability of finance. The London building cycle had three peaks: the late 1840s, mid–late 1860s, and the mid-1880s.⁷ In Earlsfield, little building took place before the late 1870s. A major peak occurred in 1886–88 (456 houses; 23% of the total). After a brief lull came two local peaks, which between them provided houses for around 4,000 people: 1890–92 (376 houses; 19%) and 1894 (210; 11%).⁸ Another sharp peak in 1899 added 163 houses, followed by 253 houses in 1900–1903. The final total of around two thousand houses exceeded the total for Wandsworth parish in 1861.

Table 2: Annual Housebuilding in Earlsfield 1856–1907

Between 1880 and 1885, Earlsfield Road accounted for 70% of houses.

Table 3: Total Houses by Street in Earlsfield c.1914

Sources: District Surveyors’ Returns / OS 5ft:Mile Plans 1913–16.
* Originally, Earlsfield Road included the short section north of Heathfield Road. The section between the latter and Trinity Road was renamed Windmill Road in 1892.

There were few large-scale building enterprises in Victorian London, so it is not surprising that one hundred builders were involved at Earlsfield between 1860 and 1910. (See ‘The Builders of Earlsfield’ below and Appendix 1.)

When development began in earnest after 1880, there was still no station between Clapham Junction and Wimbledon. Coincidentally, the LSWR was then in the process of widening its line from two tracks to four between Clapham Junction and Hampton Court Junction. This provided the opportunity to build a new station where the line crossed Garratt Lane. The name chosen was Earlsfield.

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Building Estates in Earlsfield 1875–1905

This section briefly summarises the early history of each estate. The names are chosen for convenience and were not generally used at the time.

I. Earlsfield Road

In 1878, Robert Davis began the long process of transforming the former Nottidge estate into a fully-fledged suburb. On June 7th, the architect Thomas J. Lynes (1839–1905) obtained MBW approval on behalf of Davis for the diversion of the hitherto isolated Nottidge Road to join a new road, Earlsfield Road, which paralleled the railway as far as Trinity Road. In 1871 Lynes had moved from Beddington to St. Ann’s (now Marcilly) Road. Unusually for a Victorian middle-class professional, Lynes never employed a resident servant and his estate was valued at only £796.

In September 1886, the MBW sanctioned the application by Messrs. Leach on behalf of Robert Davis for the final extension of Earlsfield Road to Trinity Road. The new road ultimately had 356 houses and was almost entirely residential, with a few clusters of shops at the southern end.

II. British Land Company Estate

Robert Davis, possibly advised by Thomas Lynes (see above), waited until 1885 before embarking on a substantial development at the southern end of his property. Davis did not undertake this ambitious enterprise himself, but sold a large area between Swaffield Road and the railway to the British Land Company (BLC). Established in 1856, the BLC was an offshoot of the National Freehold Land Society, whose original objective of increasing the number of freeholders eligible to vote had soon been overtaken by estate development, several of them in Wandsworth and Battersea.

The BLC was represented in the sale by its Surveyor, Henry Bateman Michell (1847–1928). Michell gave notice to the MBW in 1885 for the ‘Earlsfield Estate’, comprising Bassingham, Brocklebank, Bucharest, Dingwall, Inman, Swaffield, Wilna, and Winfrith Roads, plus an extension of The Grove from Allfarthing Lane to Earlsfield Road. This was a major development by contemporary standards and ultimately contained 533 houses. Also in 1885, Davis sold nine acres to the Wandsworth Guardians for £10,000 (£1.08 million at 2024 prices), for their new workhouse.

The BLC acted as an intermediary between landowners and builders by selling off plots. This included seventy-six lots (ten in Earlsfield Road and sixty-six in an unspecified New Road) in September 1885.⁹ The following month, Walter Collier of Hackney advertised the sale of eighty-seven lots: fifty in Winfrith Road and thirty-seven in Earlsfield Road.¹⁰ In February 1886, eighty-nine lots of freehold building land were auctioned by Collier at the Spread Eagle, Wandsworth, of which thirty-seven were in Earlsfield Road and fifty-two in The Grove.¹¹ The terms of sale were generous, with ninety percent of the purchase money remaining on mortgage or contract at 5% to be repaid over nine years. A random example of those who took advantage of the sale included solicitor Macdonald Beaumont of Lincolns Inn, who purchased nos. 6 & 7 Barmouth Terrace. In 1891 Beaumont was living at Kidbrooke, employing three servants. He leased the plots to builder Harry Godfrey of Bassingham Road, one of Earlsfield’s principal builders.¹²

III. Earlsfield Road Extension

The extension of Earlsfield Road from The Grove to Trinity Road was approved by the MBW in September 1886. The applicants were Messrs. Leach on behalf of Robert Davis. Davis’s death in 1890 marked the start of the final phases in the development of Earlsfield. (The section north of Heathfield Road was renamed Windmill Road in 1892.)

IV. Algarve Road

William Stanbury (1841–1925) was a member of a family of prominent south-west London builders, originally from south Devon. They were active in Battersea and Wandsworth between 1879 and 1898 and responsible for 555 houses. William built 184 houses locally. In May 1888, he gave notice for Algarve, Capern and Cargill Roads. Stanbury died at West Hill in 1925, leaving an estate of £34,884. His elder son, John (1863–1937), followed in his father’s footsteps, but on a larger scale, building 371 houses, 350 of them in Battersea. John Stanbury gave his occupation as ‘builder and contractor’ in 1891 and ‘retired builder’ in 1901 (age 38!), when he was living at Cheam, with no fewer than six servants. He died at Leatherhead, leaving a very substantial estate, valued at £208,872.

V. The Earlsfield Estate 1891

The death of Robert Davis in March 1890 marked the beginning of the end for semi-rural Allfarthing. In March 1891, Messrs. Barlow & Roberts of Aldermanbury in the City obtained the approval of the newly-created London County Council for the ‘Earlsfield Estate’. Architect Arthur Job Barlow (1850–1903) of Kensington never married, but lived latterly with two spinster sisters and a servant. His estate was valued at only £209. Between 1890 and 1894, 682 houses were built in Earlsfield, enough to house around 4,000 people at prevailing densities. A major development by contemporary standards, Earlsfield Estate comprised Allfarthing Lane (part), plus Barmouth, Cader, Crieff, Galesbury, Jeypore, Killarney and Swanage Roads.

VI. Vanderbilt Road 1894

In 1841 the land south of the later nursery off Garratt Lane was described as market garden ground (TA 406/407). By the mid-1860s, it was an orchard, with a few buildings at the western end. In 1894, the orchard was gone, and the land was called Creswick Farm. A cluster of farm buildings included two long, narrow ranges at the western end, probably stalls for the farm’s dairy cattle. The occupier for many years was dairyman Henry Cookson.

In May 1894, much of the farm was the subject of an application by architect and surveyor William Clinch Poole (1842–1911) on behalf of builder George Palmer of Hammersmith (1850–1937). Poole lived for many years at Belleville Road, Battersea. Palmer built all but two of the 73 houses in Vanderbilt Road in 1894. The dairy business survived in a strip of land to the south of the new houses.

VII. Stanbury Estate, Allfarthing Lane 1897

After a period during which he had worked mainly in Battersea, William Stanbury gave notice for Aslett, Treport, Delia, Crealock and Daphne Streets south of Allfarthing Lane in October 1897. This estate included frontages to Garratt Lane and the south side of Allfarthing Lane, finally seeing the completion of the latter as far as The Grove, almost fifty years after the Moseleys’ less-than-successful venture at St. Ann’s Park Road.

VIII. Wellings Estate 1898

In 1866, the triangular area south of Swaffield Road and east of Garratt Lane comprised two fields and a strip of land along the western edge: Plot 447 at the north end comprising four acres and Plot 455 to the south five and a half acres, both arable. By 1894 both fields had become a nursery, with solitary Goldsworth Cottage near its centre, whose last occupant, horticultural labourer George Spong from Bisley, had come to Wandsworth in the 1860s.

The last group of new streets in Earlsfield was approved in May 1898 after two decades of more or less continuous building activity. Arthur Wellings’s application for Atheldene and Farlton Roads and the extension of Wilna Road to Garratt Lane was approved. Wellings (1854–1934), a builder and surveyor then living at Streatham, left an estate of £68,342. Atheldene and Farlton Roads replaced the nursery, while Wilna Road opened up access to the west from the BLC estate. Much of Atheldene Road and the Garratt Lane frontage were built in 1898–99 by Henry Groombridge, the most prolific builder in Earlsfield.

IX. Pentland Street 1899

In 1841, the land on which Pentland Street was built formed part of a substantial property owned by the executors of Henry Wilkinson (1764–1837), an East India Company employee who was lost at sea and who had lived at Wandsworth since before 1790. Although the final part of the Earlsfield jigsaw lies north of Allfarthing Lane, it belongs in its origins, date and developer with the rest of the study area. The name was approved by the LCC in 1899. The applicant was the splendidly-named Leopold Slowgrove Rogers (1870–1945), the son of a Chelsea cabinetmaker. In 1891, Rogers gave his occupation as architect’s assistant. By 1901, he was a land surveyor living in Battersea, with one servant. It is in that capacity that Rogers applied for Pentland Street. Most of his work in the Wandsworth area was in Balham and Norwood. By 1921 he was living in West Norwood and working as an architect & surveyor, speculating builder and property owner. Rogers died in 1945, leaving an estate of £56,250. Rogers was acting on behalf of Charles Bentley, an architect & surveyor in the City, who had been associated with other developments in Battersea and Wandsworth.

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The Builders of Earlsfield 1870–1910

The aspirations of Victorian landowners and developers for their building estates were often thwarted by economic and demographic realities. By the late 1870s, it was apparent that the Earlsfield housing market would be dominated by the lower echelons of the middle classes, including burgeoning armies of clerical workers, and the skilled working classes. At the opposite end of the social scale a small number of professionals and people of independent means were attracted by the amenities of Wandsworth Common and easy access to London.

Like any late-Victorian suburb, the new streets were very similar in appearance irrespective of date, comprising serried rows of two- and three-storey stock-brick and slate-roofed houses. Internal arrangements were more varied, ranging from separate rooms for living-in servants at one end of the spectrum to so-called ‘half-houses’ with two flats and shared yards, in vogue after 1890. Overall the average number of residents was five or six per house.

Housebuilders in Victorian London were generally small-scale operators, whose output seldom exceeded ten houses spread over a one- to three-year period. The size of this army of builders is concealed to some extent by uniform facades decreed by developers or surveyors. The participants in the break-neck development of Earlsfield after 1870 are summarised in Appendix 1. Builders often moved between suburbs during the course of their careers, but here only their work in Earlsfield is considered. In total, 101 ‘builders’ were responsible for 2,005 houses. These figures conceal a vast range of builders and their contributions. Thus, the thirty-five men who built between one and five houses built ninety-seven houses, just 5% of the total. The twenty-one builders of six–ten houses built 9% (179 houses). Sixteen builders of eleven–twenty houses achieved a total of 244 (14%). The twenty-eight builders of more than twenty houses were the real creators of Earlsfield, contributing three-quarters of the total. At the pinnacle of the hierarchy were ten men each responsible for more than fifty houses. Their contribution was 894 houses (45%).

The careers of Earlsfield’s twelve largest builders are summarised below.

Henry Groombridge (1836–99) was born at Shoreham, Kent, the son of an agricultural labourer. In 1871 Groombridge was working as a bricklayer in Beckenham. By 1881 he was a ‘builder’, living at Denmark Hill. Groombridge is first mentioned in Earlsfield in October 1890, with fourteen houses in Algarve Road. Over the next twenty years he built a further 148, including all those in Cargill Road and Farlton Road. Amongst his output were thirty-six combined houses and shops, all but two of them in Garratt Lane. In 1891, Groombridge lived at no. 304 Earlsfield Road with his wife and a servant. He died at no. 17 The Grove in December 1899, leaving £5,834. His executor was Arthur Wellings (1854–1934), with whom he had had a long connection. Until 1891, Wellings was an ‘oil & colourman’, but by 1901 he had become an auctioneer & surveyor, living in style at Streatham with his family, three servants and a coachman.

Ernest Bowering (1864–1941) almost as prolific as Groombridge, Bowering built 147 houses in Earlsfield between 1898 and 1904, including eleven shops. His work was concentrated on the Stanbury estate bounded by Allfarthing Lane and Garratt Lane. A carpenter by trade, Bowering only gave ‘builder’ as his occupation in 1901. In 1921 he had reverted to carpenter, working at a steam joinery works in Usk Road.

George Palmer (1857–1923) born in Westminster, Palmer’s origins are unclear. In 1880 Palmer married the daughter of a Wandsworth farmer and cowkeeper living at Dunts Hill. He was therefore familiar with the area before he became one of its principal builder-developers. In 1881, the Palmers lived in Edmund Street, giving his occupation as ‘clerk and general dealer’; his wife was a School Board teacher. In 1891, the Palmers lived in Garratt Lane near Algarve Road where George was in business as a ‘tobacconist, newsagent and fancy goods seller’. In 1901, Caroline was running the shop, while George had reverted to being a ‘builder and contractor’. The reasons for these changes of career are unclear, but Palmer was apparently responsible for more than 120 houses in Earlsfield. In 1911, the Palmers were at Mellison Road, Tooting and George gave his occupation as ‘retired master builder’. He died there in March 1923 leaving an estate valued at £81,840. His son Lancelot carried on his father’s connections with the property market. In 1939 he was an ‘estate and property manager and repairing builder’ living at Epsom. Lancelot died at Ross-on-Wye in 1945, leaving £101,282, a far cry from his father’s humble beginnings.

Jason Thomas Meyler (1855–1910) was born at Llanelli. By 1881 he was living in Hammersmith, and gave his occupation as ‘joiner’. In 1891, Meyler was now a ‘builder and contractor’, still at Hammersmith. By 1901 he had moved to Brighton, where he died in 1910 leaving an estate of £11,414. Meyler’s work in Wandsworth was concentrated in Swaffield Road (52 houses) and Brocklebank Road (45 houses).

Stephen Hunt Brunsden (1861–1911) was born at Ruckley in Wiltshire. Brunsden is yet another ‘major’ Wandsworth builder who clearly acted on behalf of someone else when giving notice to the District Surveyor. He is credited with no fewer than 92 houses between 1889 and 1894. In a variety of sources, including a libel trial in 1903, there is no hint that he could have been responsible for so many houses. In 1891 Brunsden was lodging at Grove House in The Grove, home of builder Charles Spencer. The latter is credited with more than fifty houses in Earlsfield. It seems possible that Spencer was also the builder of the “Brunsden” houses, with the latter acting as his agent.

James Carlyon Peters (1841–1905) & William Lewis Peters (1850–1928). Although it is appropriate to consider the biographical details of these brothers together, they always notified the houses they built in their own names. Their combined output of 144 houses made them the third largest builders in Earlsfield. The brothers came from Gerrans in Cornwall, not far from Truro. In 1861, James was lodging with and working for Ralph Varcoe, carpenter, also from Gerrans. In 1871, James was in Cornwall, lodging with his mother; by 1881 he was a carpenter employing two men, living at Basnett Grove, Battersea. James soon progressed to building in his own right, initially north of Allfarthing Lane. In 1884/85 he gave notice for fourteen houses in The Grove, followed in 1887 by twenty in Wilna Road and eighteen in Swaffield Road. James Peters left Wandsworth in the mid-1890s and was living at South Croydon in 1901, giving his occupation as builder & decorator. He died there in October 1905, leaving an estate valued at £19,360. In 1871, William Peters was a ‘joiner’ lodging at Wyke Regis near Weymouth. He moved to Battersea in the late 1870s and in 1881 was a carpenter living in Wycliffe Road. In 1891, he was a builder with a servant living next door to St. Anne’s vicarage. By 1901, William Peters had followed his brother to New Malden. He had retired by 1911. Peters died at New Malden on 1st January 1928, leaving £72,252. William Peters’ output in Earlsfield exceeded that of his brother, and was concentrated into a three-year period (1887–89), comprising thirty houses in Wilna Road and fifty in Brocklebank Road.

William Thomas Mulliner (1856–1934) & James Arthur Mulliner (1859–1916). These brothers belonged to a veritable dynasty of builders in Wandsworth, the first of whom, their father William senior (1826–90), moved from Suffolk around 1862. His sons made a major contribution to the creation of Earlsfield. William was born at Ipswich. He gave his occupation as ‘builder’ when he married at St. Anne’s, Wandsworth in late 1881. In 1891 William was living at no. 25 St. Anne’s Hill. In 1901 he was a ‘housebuilder (employer)’ at no. 1 Crieff Road, a neighbourhood favoured by the Mulliner family. By 1911 he was a ‘retired builder’ at no. 29 Crieff Road. William Mulliner left an estate of £36,772, significantly more than any of his siblings. James Arthur Mulliner was also born at Ipswich. In 1881 James was a joiner, progressing to ‘builder and house agent’ by 1891. He married at St. Anne’s in 1882. In 1901 he lived at no. 32 Killarney Road and in 1911 at no. 31 Crieff Road, assisted by his son Sidney (21). James Mulliner’s estate was valued at £6,654. Between them, the Mulliner brothers built seventy-five houses in Earlsfield, about 4% of the total. Notifications to the District Surveyor for all but nine of the houses were made by William, clearly the leading partner.

Harry Thomas Godfrey (1843–1920), a carpenter by trade, was born at Torquay. When he remarried at Stoke Newington in 1876, he gave his occupation as ‘carpenter & joiner’. By 1881, Godfrey was a ‘journeyman builder’ living in Willesden. He first appears in Wandsworth in 1889, giving notice of four houses in Bassingham Road, where he lived in 1891. These were followed by sixteen houses in Barmouth Road in 1892–94, eight including shops. In 1893–94, Godfrey built four houses in Killarney Road, three in Swanage Road and six in Bassingham Road. His final local contribution was sixteen houses in Swanage Road and Earlsfield Road. After 1894, Godfrey is elusive, but is probably the carpenter & builder of that name living in Wimbledon in 1911. Harry Godfrey died intestate in 1920.

John Ross Myring (1846–1906), yet another carpenter-turned-builder, was born at Shoreditch. In 1881, he was living at Abyssinia Road, Battersea, a carpenter employing two men. In 1891 he was at no. 371 Earlsfield Road. Myring built forty houses in Earlsfield Road between 1882 and 1885 and fourteen in Bassingham Road in 1887. The balance of his local output comprised a few houses in The Grove and Inman Road. In 1901, Myring lived at East Dulwich and one of his sons was an estate agent and auctioneer. He died at Lordship Lane, leaving a modest £737. Two of his sons, both builders, acted as executors.

Charles Spencer (1847–1922) unfortunately seems to have left little documentary trace. In 1891, he lived at Grove House, Grove Road with his wife, eleven children and one servant. This was probably the detached house between Pentland Street and The Grove, which survived into the 20th century. Spencer’s principal activity was in Earlsfield Road, where he is credited with seventeen houses, sixteen houses & shops and a laundry between 1885 and 1888. Spencer built the solitary house in Cader Road, together with thirteen in Barmouth and Jeypore Roads. By 1911 Spencer had moved to Croydon, where he died in 1922, leaving an estate of £23,977.

Joseph Liddiatt (1820–1889) was active in Earlsfield between 1880 and 1888. His output was restricted to a relatively small area — 70% of his houses were in Earlsfield Road, with the remainder evenly divided between Heathfield Road and Westover Road. Born at Stroud, by 1841 Liddiatt was a plasterer living in Westminster. In 1851 he had progressed to builder, with two servants. The early 1860s represent the apogee of Liddiatt’s career. In 1861 he was a master builder, employing thirty men and four boys. In 1871, now at Battersea Bridge Road, Liddiatt was still a ‘master builder’, but with only three employees. Nearing the end of his active career, Liddiatt was a builder with no servants in 1881. He died at Cologne Road in mid-1889, leaving only £84. Liddiatt’s son Joseph William (1848–1907) assumed his father’s mantle. In 1881 he was a builder living in Trinity Road with two servants, where he remained until his death. In 1901 Joseph gave his occupation as builder and house agent.¹³

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Earlsfield Property Records: A Random Selection

Investigating the detailed history of any house is dependent upon the survival of deeds, a random selection of which are in the public domain. The following small sample relating to Earlsfield are at Wandsworth Archives.

William Tytherleigh, a retired ironmonger living at Clapham, leased nos. 20–26 (cons.) Algarve Road in October 1890 from retired Major James Childs. This was clearly an investment as Tytherleigh remained in Clapham until his death in early 1914, leaving an estate of £1,426.¹⁴

In May 1893, Walter Scott, a Lewisham publican, leased no. 10 Windmill Road (formerly Earlsfield Road) to George Mitchell of Lee, surveyor.¹⁵

In November 1901, builder George Palmer leased no. 108 Wilna Road to Alfred Hamilton, a Clerkenwell police sergeant.¹⁶ Palmer was involved in a much more substantial transaction in April 1901, involving the sale of shops in The Parade, Garratt Lane (nos. 36/38–43 and 61–67) to William Pullen, beer retailer of Wandsworth Bridge Road.¹⁷ Some transactions were less prosaic, reflecting the reach of Empire. In January 1896, Palmer leased nos. 3–6 Jeypore Road to Charles Turner, stationer of Harringay, who in turn mortgaged them to Charles Caudle, surgeon of Hatipoti in Assam for £1,000.¹⁸

In December 1900, a City architect and surveyor Charles Bentley, who had been involved in developments in the Wandsworth area for many years, leased no. 11 Pentland Street to Balham builder Joseph Down. Down in turn mortgaged nos. 11 & 12 Pentland Street to Miss Mary Trinder of Cirencester, the daughter of a hay merchant who was about to marry an accountant. This series of transactions reveals how extensive were the ramifications of Wandsworth’s development.²⁰

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Conclusion

Viewed from a 21st-century perspective, the speed with which the suburbs of Victorian London were built is breathtaking. In 1800, the population of Wandsworth parish was 4,445, the majority of whom lived in and around the central settlement. Large swathes of medieval open-field strips occupied the area north of the High Street and parts of Southfields. There was long-established industrial activity along the Thames and Wandle — the latter gave rise in 1803 to the pioneering Surrey Iron Railway, the world’s first public railway. Wandsworth’s population grew rapidly in the following decades, reaching 5,644 in 1811 and 6,702 in 1821, before slowing to reach 6,879 in 1831. By 1851, the population was 9,611. The pace of change accelerated thereafter as Wandsworth began to assume the characteristics of a burgeoning suburb. By 1861, the population had reached 13,346. The 1860s saw the first real surge in housebuilding, with 19,783 inhabitants in 1871.

As yet, however, little of this growth had affected the area between Allfarthing Lane and the London & South Western Railway. Not until the dramatic upturn in the building cycle in the late 1870s did the fields of Allfarthing begin to be transformed and dubbed Earlsfield. From barely 500 inhabitants in 1861, the population of this newly-created suburb reached around 10,200 in 1901 and 12,700 in 1911 — not far short of the total for Wandsworth in 1861. The population of Earlsfield would have been even greater had Robert Davis not sold a sizeable area for the new Workhouse in the early 1880s, coinciding with the opening of Earlsfield station in 1884.²¹

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Appendix 1: Earlsfield Builders 1860–1910

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Notes

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Draft version, April 2026. © Keith Bailey. All rights reserved.

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