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The Caudwell Family of Spencer Park
Research notes

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The Caudwells came to Wandsworth Common in about 1874, when the temperance publisher Job Caudwell built himself a house of solid concrete in the new Spencer Park. The family stayed for three generations.

Almost everything we know about them as people comes from the memoir of Job’s granddaughter, Irene Caudwell, Four Miles from Charing Cross, now transcribed in full on this site.

These are working notes, added to as the research goes on. The newest findings are in the research log at the foot of the page.

Contents

• The family in outline
• Job Caudwell
• The concrete house in Spencer Park
• The Clapham Junction estate
• The monument in Wandsworth Cemetery
• Job’s children
• Irene Caudwell
• Open questions
• Research log
• Sources

The family in outline

Of the five children who survived, the memoir names four sons (Paul, Eber, David and Ben) and one daughter (Afra). memoir

Job Caudwell (1820–1908)

Born on 8 December 1820 at Drayton, Berkshire, the seventh and youngest son of William Caudwell and Hannah, née Lousley. confirmed

A teetotaller and vegetarian, he published temperance and reform literature from 335 Strand. He was the author of Vegetarian Cookery for the Million (1864), and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (1863) and of the Royal Geographical Society (1879). The historian James Gregory calls him a “household name” in the Victorian temperance movement. confirmed

He died at Spencer Park on 5 June 1908, aged 87. confirmed To his granddaughter he was “Grandpa”, and to his sons “The Governor”. memoir

The concrete house in Spencer Park

Plots in Spencer Park were reserved for Caudwell, described as a Wesleyan Senior Circuit Steward, before the auction of 1873. His concrete house, like the Revd Jacob Stanley’s next door, was probably built in 1874. confirmed (Keith Bailey)

Irene remembered it:

Grandfather bought the second plot of ground in Spencer Park and had his house built to his own design entirely of concrete; floors, staircase, walls and ceilings, to obviate danger of fire. Four square, with a front door bell sufficiently loud to rouse the local Fire Brigade, it had a flat roof from which a considerable part of London was visible, including a first-class free view of the fireworks at the Crystal Palace.

Caudwell is listed at No. 44, first as “publisher” and later as of “own means”. He was still there in 1907. confirmed

The Clapham Junction estate

In June 1865, while still living at Haverstock Hill, Caudwell bought William Howey’s former market garden immediately north of the new Clapham Junction station. George Todd had laid it out in 357 lots. The 12.26-acre estate eventually held 386 houses. confirmed

Caudwell meant it as a “high rent” estate for lower-middle-class railway users. In practice its terraces filled with railway employees and local industrial workers. confirmed (Keith Bailey)

The monument in Wandsworth Cemetery

Job was buried in Wandsworth Cemetery beneath a granite obelisk, a smaller copy of Cleopatra’s Needle. It is inscribed with the names of all ten of his children. confirmed memoir

Those already dead were given the dates of their arrival and departure; the five then living had their names, “but the dates politely left blank”. Paul, as the eldest, headed the list. memoir

For all its shelves, the vault holds only Job and his first wife. The four sons, the daughter and the second wife were all buried elsewhere. The five children who died in infancy lie in the old cemetery on Battersea Rise. memoir

Job’s children

• Paul, the eldest. As a boy he was made to help gravel the garden while his father watched from the roof: “Lazy Paul!” After his marriage to Ada he lived away from Wandsworth for twelve years, returning in 1900 with their daughter Irene. A solicitor, scholar and painter, he was his father’s chief executor. At his death, the local posters called him “Solicitor, Scholar and Artist”. memoir
• Eber, the second son, had “a vivid personality which stood him in excellent stead as a popular Surgeon in later years”. memoir
• David and Ben appear in the memoir in passing. memoir
• Afra, the only surviving daughter, “loved to frighten people with tales of spectral visitations”. She left home before 1900 for lodgings in Putney. memoir
• Sidney, one of the five who died in early infancy, “used to sit on the stairs sharing a boiled potato with his favourite cat”. memoir

Irene Caudwell

Irene came to live at Spencer Park in 1900, aged nine, “with a crimson frock and highly starched white embroidered pinafore”. memoir

She became a writer. The title page of her memoir lists religious plays (among them Golgotha, Simon Peter, The Iscariot and a children’s play, The Christ-Child), a one-act comedy, Down Our Way, and books including Damien of Molokai and Ceremonies of Holy Church. memoir

Her first book, an anthology for the sick called In the Morning, was published through Father Maurice Child, and a copy was accepted by Queen Alexandra. memoir

When she typed Four Miles from Charing Cross she was living at 25 Earlsfield Road, Wandsworth Common. The memoir is a vivid picture of Wandsworth and its churches, above all St Anne’s, over half a century. memoir

Open questions

• Dates of birth and death for Paul, Eber, David, Ben and Afra, and the names of the four others who died in infancy. to check
• Irene’s dates, and when she wrote the memoir. to check
• Is “the old cemetery on Battersea Rise” St Mary’s Cemetery? lead
• Where did Eliza Harvey, Job’s second wife, come from, and what became of her? to check
• Does the obelisk survive in Wandsworth Cemetery? A photograph is needed. to check

Research log

Sources

• Job Caudwell (this site)
• Irene Caudwell, Four Miles from Charing Cross, full transcription (this site)
• Keith Bailey, Spencer Park (this site)
• Keith Bailey, The Metamorphosis of Battersea (1995), chapter 8 (this site)
• Chronicles, June 2025, Part One (this site)
• Literary Women of Wandsworth Common: Irene Caudwell (this site)

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