Gazetteer Entry
From James Thorne, Handbook to the Environs of London, Alphabetically Arranged (1876), pp. 663–667
WANDSWORTH, Surrey, on the river Wandle at its confluence with the Thames, 5½ m. from Westminster Bridge, on the road to Kingston. The L. and S.-W., and the L., C., and D. Rlys. have stations at Wandsworth. Pop. of the par. 19,783; but this includes the vicarage of St. Anne's Hill, 10,116, and the eccl. dist. of St. Mary, Summer's Town, 1435, and 1853 in St. John's, Union Road, Battersea.
The name, Dom. Wandelesorde and Wandesore, in early records Wandlesworth, is plainly derived from its situation: it is the worth, or village (i.e. enclosed place), on the river Wandle.
From the increase of London, Wandsworth has become virtually a suburb. It is a busy place, has extensive manufactures and a large trade, and is continuously increasing in population. On the Wandle, the entrance from South Street, are the Royal Paper Mills of Mr. M'Murray, a very large establishment; and there are extensive corn mills, distilleries (Messrs. Watney's), breweries, maltings, dye-works, chemical works, colour factories, cloth printing and bolting mills, match factories, artificial manure works, and so forth; and the creek at the mouth of the Wandle forms a dock for lighters, with coal wharfs and stores.
By the Thames the ways are narrow and dirty; but away from the river are broader streets lined with good shops; outside is a vast number of genteel dwellings, and about the Common, and on East and West Hills, are many good houses. The Common has suffered greatly from encroachments and defacements; but it remains a common still, wide, open, and pleasant; connected, on the one hand, with Putney Heath, on the other with Clapham Common, and running back to Tooting and Streatham Commons.
Aubrey relates that before his time there had been established at Wandsworth a manufacture of "brass plates for kettles, skellets, frying-pans, etc., by Dutchmen, who keep it a mystery." The houses in which the mystery was carried on were long known as the Frying-pan Houses. Dye works were in operation here at least as early. Towards the close of the 17th cent., many of the French Protestants who sought refuge in England upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, settled in Wandsworth, and engaged in silk dyeing, hat making, etc. For their worship they rented and enlarged the old Presbyterian chapel in the High Street, and in it service was performed in French for over a century. Gradually the French element became absorbed in the surrounding population, but Wandsworth was long famous for hat making. At the parting of the roads to Clapham and Vauxhall is a small burial-ground—the Huguenots' Cemetery—where many old gravestones of Frenchmen remain, some almost illegible. From the many English names on the later gravestones it appears to have used as the ordinary burial-ground for that end of the parish when the Huguenot population began to die out.
A very different French refugee made Wandsworth for some time his abode. On Voltaire's release from his second imprisonment in the Bastille, he was ordered to leave France, and he came to England. For two years, 1726–7, he lived at Wandsworth, the guest of Sir Everard Fawkener, to whom he dedicated 'Zaïre.' He was in bad health, but he occupied himself in studying English books, and picked up a sufficient acquaintance with the language to write in it tolerably for the rest of his life.
Wandsworth Bridge.—In 1873 was completed a new iron lattice girder bridge of five spans, connecting York Road, Wandsworth, with King's Road, Fulham. It is described more fully under Fulham, p. 227.
Wandsworth has five churches. The old church (All Saints), in the High Street, near the bridge over the Wandle, is a plain square brick fabric, erected in 1780, except the tower at the W. end, which was built in 1630, and recased in 1841, and raised by the addition of a belfry storey for the reception of a peal of 8 bells, cast by Mears of Whitechapel.
The interior is not more beautiful than the outside, but contains a few interesting monts. from the older ch. On the E. wall, S. of the chancel, mural mont. of Alderman Henry Smith, died 1627, with his effigy, in gown and ruff, kneeling at a desk, under an entablature borne on Ionic columns. Beneath is a tablet with an insc. setting forth his numerous benefactions. Ald. Smith was a native of Wandsworth, of humble lineage; acquired what was for the time a large fortune by business in the City; married, but was left a widower without children, and in 1620, being then 72 years of age, made over his estates, both real and personal, to trustees for charitable purposes, reserving to himself an annuity from them of £500 a year for his maintenance. His benefactions embraced every town and almost every parish in Surrey, the object being not merely to afford "reliefe of the poore," but the "setting them a-worke." Smith gave primarily and chiefly to his native county, but his charity was not limited to it. Among other bequests he left £1000 to purchase lands, in order to provide a fund for "redeeming poor captives and prisoners from the Turkish tyranie;" £10,000 to "buy impropriations for godly preachers;" £150 to found a fellowship at Cambridge for his own kindred, etc. The statement on the insc.—"here lyeth," repeated in a Latin insc. on a gravestone below, is inaccurate: there is no trace of interment under the grave-stone; that and the mont. were removed from the older ch., and Smith's burial-place is unknown.
By Smith's is another mural mont., with small kneeling effigy of Susanna Powell, d. 1630, benefactress to this parish, widow of John Powell, servant to Queen Elizabeth, and daughter of Thomas Hayward, yeoman of the guard to Henry VIII., Edward VI., and the queens Mary and Elizabeth. N. of chancel, mont. to Sir Thomas Brodrick, died 1641, with wife, Katherine, d. 1678, with their busts in marble. Sir Alan Brodrick, Surveyor-General of Ireland, d. 1680; Alan Brodrick, 1st Viscount Middleton, d. 1747; George Brodrick, 2nd Viscount Middleton, d. 1765, and other members of the family were also buried here. Their house was at Garrett. The register records the burial, April 1635, of "Sarah, daughter of Praise Barbone," supposed to be the "Praise-God Barebone," the Puritan leather-seller of Fleet Street, who gave his name to Cromwell's first or "little" Parliament.
Griffith Clerke, vicar of Wandsworth, his chaplain, his servant, and Friar Ware, were hanged and quartered, at St. Thomas Waterings (by the Old Kent Road, then the usual place of execution for this part of Surrey), on the 8th of July, 1539, for denying the royal supremacy.
St. Anne's Church, St. Anne's Hill, made a district ch. in 1847, was erected in 1822–24 from the designs of Sir Robert Smirke, R.A. It is a Grecian temple, 100 ft. by 70, with a hexastyle Ionic portico and pediment at the W. end. The body of the ch. is of brick with stone dressings, the portico and pediment are of stone. From the roof rises a circular tower in two stages, with engaged columns, and crowned with a cupola and cross: a ch. worth noting as a characteristic example of a past phase of fashion in ecclesiastical architecture.
St. Mary, Summer's Town, Garrett, was made an eccl. dist. ch. in 1845. The ch. is very poor E.E., and consists of nave, S. aisle, and bell turret. St. Paul's, on St. John's Hill, a chapel-of-ease, belongs as much to Battersea as to Wandsworth. It is a good Gothic building of stone, with tower and spire, and apsidal chancel. Holy Trinity, by Wimbledon Park, another chapel-of-ease, is a substantial stone structure; Gothic, and cruciform; erected in 1860, and enlarged in 1870.
There are many dissenting places of worship, one for Friends, and one for Roman Catholics. It should be noted that the first Presbyterian Church in England was founded at Wandsworth in 1572: their principles and rules of church government were set forth in a publication called 'The Orders of Wandsworth.'*
The secular buildings include a County Court, Police Court, offices of the District Board of Works, banks, large schools, mechanics' institutes, etc., but none of any architectural interest.
Wandsworth has many almhouses and charitable institutions, and the open country outside has been chosen as the site for several large establishments unconnected with the locality. On the Common, near the Clapham Station, is the Royal Patriotic Asylum, founded and endowed from the surplus funds of the Crimean Patriotic Fund of 1854, for the nurture and education of orphan children of soldiers, sailors, and marines. The first stone of the asylum for girls was laid by the Queen, July 11, 1857. The building, intended for the accommodation of 300 children, was designed by Mr. Rhode Hawkins, as a free imitation—with some important deviations and the omission of the ornamental details—of Heriot's Hospital, Edinburgh. At a short distance is a correspondent asylum for boys; but the establishments are quite distinct.
* Neale, Hist. of the Puritans, vol. i., p. 243; Lysons, vol. i., p. 383.
The large quaint-looking red brick Gothic building, with great central clock-tower, and overhanging watch towers at the angles, seen above the railway cutting, is the Freemasons' Female Orphan Asylum, erected, 1852, from the designs of Mr. Philip Hardwick. In Spanish Road, Wandsworth Common, is the Friendless Boys' Home, a valuable refuge for boys from 10 to 16 years of age, "who have lost character, or are in danger of losing it." It is said that of the lads who pass through the school about 75 per cent. are reclaimed. About 200 are now in training. At East Hill is St. Peter's Hospital, the Almshouse of the Fishmongers' Company, a spacious, solid, and comfortable looking range of buildings, occupying 3 sides of a quadrangle, with a chapel in the centre, erected 1849–51. The Royal Hospital for Incurables, West Hill, is noticed under Putney.
On the Common will also be observed two enormous piles of buildings, the Surrey Lunatic Asylum and the County Prison. The former, erected in 1840, from the designs of Mr. Wm. Moseley, is a late Tudor structure, consisting of centre and advanced wings, 535 ft. long, and provides accommodation for 950 inmates. The Surrey House of Correction, an equally huge group of brick and stone buildings, erected in 1851, makes provision for 1000 convicted criminals, with all appliances for labour, instruction, and sickness. The Union Workhouse, East Hill, is another vast brick pile, affording accommodation for 850 paupers, with a large infirmary attached.
Garrett is a hamlet of Wandsworth, about 2 m. S. on the road to Tooting. United with Summer's Town, it was made an eccl. dist. in 1845. The name appears to be derived from a mansion which some 3 cents. since was known as The Garretts, and was the seat of the Brodrick family, of whom there are many memorials in Wandsworth ch. The place has little in itself to attract attention; but in the last cent. it acquired notoriety as the scene of a mock election, which appears to have been always exceedingly popular with the London mob, who flocked to it in prodigious crowds, and it obtained general celebrity from Foote having dramatised the incidents of the election in one of the most popular of his comedies, 'The Mayor of Garrett,' produced at Drury Lane in 1764. Various attempts have been made to explain the origin of the election, but none worth repeating. All that is really known is that the custom had grown up, on the occurrence of a general election, to elect a Mayor of Garrett, who in course of time came also to be constituted Knight and M.P. The candidates were usually conspicuous by some personal deformity or peculiarity, and a fluent tongue. The electors were the mob, the electoral oath being administered on a brickbat. There were processions from town of the candidates, a hustings and speeches, charing of the elected, tumult and debauchery. "The publicans at Wandsworth, Tooting, Battersea, Clapham, and Vauxhall [the line of the procession], made a purse," writes Sir Richard Phillips, "to give it character." Its character was at best a bad one. But it is easy to see why the publicans upheld it.
"None but those who have seen a London mob on any great holiday can form a just idea of these elections. On several occasions a hundred thousand persons, half of them in carts, in hackney coaches, and on horse and ass-back, covered the various roads from London, and choked up all the approaches to the place of election. At the two last elections, I was told, that the road within a mile of Wandsworth was so blocked up by vehicles, that none could move backward or forward during many hours; and that the candidates dressed like chimney-sweepers on May-day, or in the mock fashion of the period, were brought to the hustings in the carriages of peers, drawn by six horses, the owners themselves condescending to become their drivers."*
If peers escorted and drove the candidates, Foote, Garrick, and Wilkes, according to the same chronicler, wrote some of their addresses. Becoming at length insufferable, the election was suppressed in 1796. An attempt was made to resuscitate it in 1826, but the authorities intervened, and the election for Garrett belongs as much to the past as an election for Gatton or Old Sarum. The proposed election of 1826 induced Hone to visit Garrett and collect whatever traditional information yet lingered there. He gave the result in his 'Every-day Book,' (vol. ii., col. 819—866) accompanied with much additional matter, engravings of the last two mayors, Sir Henry Dimsdale, M.P. and muffin-seller, and Sir Jeffry Dunstan, M.P. and itinerant dealer in old wigs, and some characteristic "reminiscences of Sir Jeffry Dunstan," contributed by Charles Lamb.
* Sir Richard Phillips, A Morning's Walk to Kew, 1817, p. 81.
Dr. John Jebb, Bp. of Limerick, died at West Hill in 1833. Mulberry Cottage, Wandsworth Common, was the residence of Francis Grose, the antiquary.