Friends of Wandsworth Common · Heritage Group Talk
Battersea Library Heritage Service
It's such a pleasure to welcome Emma, our evening speaker. Emma and her colleague Sophia are the Heritage Service team — and they are the go-to people for anybody who is starting to look into the history of Wandsworth. You go along to Battersea Library, up to the first floor, and there they are in their wonderful Heritage Library. If you haven't been before, I do urge you to go and visit. They're very welcoming — not frightening at all.
Emma was a huge help to us when we were putting together material for the Wandsworth Common story, and she has continued to support the Friends Heritage Group, particularly on two current projects: providing images for Wandsworth Common Memories — our film based on interviews with long-standing local residents, some of whom are here tonight — and supporting our research into the lost houses of Wandsworth Common.
On the subject of the film: we are going to premiere it on the 6th of June at Emanuel School, and you can book by going through the website and emailing us at heritage@wandsworthcommon.org.
The talk will last about 45 minutes, followed by 15 to 20 minutes for questions. I'll hand over to Emma now — thank you.
Well, thank you very much for having me this evening. I should probably manage your expectations from the outset and say that I am not a historian, and I am not going to give you a history of the Common — because you have quite literally written the book. And there are some copies over there if you'd like to purchase one.
What I want to do this evening is show you five collections which cover the Common in some way.
As I said, I'm not a historian — I'm an archivist. My job is to organise the material we hold and make it accessible: to enable people to find it through an online catalogue, to get it off the shelf when they come in to view it, and to help guide their research. I tend to describe it as: I know where things are, and I will help people find them, rather than necessarily knowing the history myself. I'm a bit of a jack of all trades.
One of the most useful collections for looking at the history of the Common is maps, and we have a number in our holdings. Some are originals, but many are copies or published versions — which means that maps relating to Wandsworth are gathered in one accessible place, rather than requiring visits to the British Library, the London Metropolitan Archives, or the Spencer Archives in Northamptonshire.
This is one of my absolute favourite maps. I'm not sure how well you can see it this evening, but you may see it better in the recorded version. It's the Rocque Map, so called after its cartographer, John Rocque — a Georgian map surveyed between 1741 and 1745.
My favourite thing about it, if I'm honest, is that it looks to me like a map from the opening of a fantasy novel — a little bit J.R.R. Tolkien. I always pull it out.
You've got Wandsworth Common here, of course — though the map isn't particularly descriptive about the Common itself. You can see a body of water in one corner and some of the pathways already in use, but apart from that it's fairly sparse. What is interesting is that it gives you a sense of the environment around the Common. Those squares with lines and dots on them are largely market gardens, with some orchards as well, and you've got the Falcon River running down here. It all looks quite bucolic. But I've cropped this excerpt, and on the other side of the original you've got the Wandle — and that's already heavily industrial. So this part of the area was beginning to change quite significantly.
The next map is the Chorley Map, again named after its cartographer, John Chorley. This is probably more useful if you're looking at the history of the Common's landscape — and I think Stephen will be quite familiar with it by now.
What makes it particularly useful is that it comes with apportionments. These numbers you can see on the map refer to entries in an apportionment schedule, which tells you who occupied and owned each parcel of land and what it was used for. The small example I've picked out is just up here — you can see the Common, and then this little adjacent portion. Looking at the published apportionment schedule, we can see it belongs to Pierce Porter Esquire and others, and the land is described as "the Two Brewers Public House and sundry buildings, yards, gardens, closes, etc."
People often ask whether the parcel numbers on our various maps correspond to one another — I've deliberately chosen number 278 on the next map to show you that they really don't, so please don't be tempted to cross-reference them.
I should mention that it was the Spencer family who commissioned this map, primarily for taxation purposes — to establish rental values. It's a very useful historical source, and also a rather beautiful one. We don't hold the original; we have a published version which came from the Wandsworth Historical Society, but it's clear and very good for research.
The next map is the tithe map. The tithe was also a form of taxation, but a parish one rather than a manorial one. If you're looking at Wandsworth Common, this is where it gets a little complicated — as Steven knows, the Common turns out to straddle not just Wandsworth and Battersea parishes, but part of Streatham as well. So it spreads across three different parishes, each with their own tithe records and apportionments.
The example I've got for you here is parcel number 278 — different land entirely from the Chorley Map's 278. The occupier, and I apologise if I mispronounce this, is Thomas Dub Weyson — Thomas, thank you — who is both owner and occupier, and the description is simply given as "house and garden."
Before the census these records can be very useful for researching the people who lived in an area: they'll tell you whether land was arable, meadow, and so on. And if you're researching the history of a house, they're an excellent starting point, because I always think that a house's history begins with what was there before.
The map you'll probably be most familiar with is the Ordnance Survey. These were originally military maps and are highly accurate. In this example from 1865 you can already see the railway cutting the Common in half, and you can make out the Royal Victoria Patriotic Asylum in this corner, and the Black Sea pond just here.
These are really very useful maps — and if you compare this 1865 edition with the one from 1896, towards the end of Victoria's reign, the difference is quite startling. There's a great deal more residential property by 1896, and the area has really started to fill in. You'll see it better in the recorded version.
Speaking of the Royal Victoria Patriotic Asylum, that brings me very nicely onto the next collection.
The Royal Victoria Patriotic Building was built in 1859 as the Royal Victoria Patriotic School. It was funded by public subscription and established as an asylum for girls orphaned during the Crimean War. It's a really beautiful building, as you can see in this photograph — and I'm sure many of you have visited, because it's quite the landmark. But to me there's nothing about it that looks as though it would offer sanctuary and comfort. It's very, very stern.
We know relatively little about the children who lived there, because the records haven't survived. However — and this is the next item I want to show you — we do have an account of a childhood spent there, and it's really wonderful. I'd recommend you try to seek it out. It's called Bringing Up the Rear by Connie Buckley.
Connie was orphaned just after the First World War. Her father died in the war, and her mother very shortly afterwards — there's a quite graphic passage in the book in which Connie wakes to find her mother haemorrhaging. She had five siblings — Sid, Kit, Frank, Violet, and Ada — and the family was split up, with Connie and Ada being sent to the Royal Victoria, which had only recently before that been a military hospital.
I'm going to read out some of what she says about her first impressions:
"Within two weeks of the funeral we all went our separate ways. Aunt Daisy took me on the bus that went up the hill to Wandsworth Common, where I had often played with my brothers and sisters. After a short walk we came to the orphanage, which looked huge and forbidding. The heavy gates clanged behind us. I felt trapped and afraid, and lagged behind. We walked the gravel driveway that had clusters of bronze and white chrysanthemums on either side, reminding me of all the flowers at the funeral. I blocked that out of my mind and looked ahead. The Victorian building loomed over me, and I clutched my aunt's hand. We went through heavy carved doors that had a plaque over them inscribed in Latin: 'God and my right.' It didn't seem suitable for orphans who had no right. We were now in a lofty vaulted hall, panelled with oak, with a flagstone floor. Up above there were brilliantly painted shields and the banners of the British regiments. A large portrait of Queen Victoria dominated one wall — she was the original patroness of the orphanage, named the Royal Victoria Patriotic School. It had been built for orphans of the Boer War. While Aunt Daisy was in the office I sat on a polished wooden bench and felt my eyes drawn to the picture. She was looking at me — staring and forbidding. I could imagine her saying: 'We are not amused.'"
And I'm afraid Connie's first impressions go from bad to worse after that. Her sister Ada had been sent a few weeks previously in a move that was supposed to be temporary — until their mother's health improved, which of course it didn't. Connie is told she must spend her first night in the school infirmary, in order to have a medical examination the next day. Her clothes are taken from her and a uniform provided. And worse, her hair is shaved off, because she was seen scratching her head and there was a ringworm epidemic. She tells us about this in some detail:
"I tried to tell them that I often scratched my head when I was upset, but it was no use. The relentless clippers went over my head until I was bald. My one and only claim to beauty — my waist-length, corn-coloured hair — lay around me in twisted heaps."
Connie doesn't claim in her book that she was abused at the Victoria — what happened to her was considered perfectly normal at the time. It's quite clear that she's deeply unhappy, but she does find kindness in some of the other girls and some of the staff as well. I think it's a really important account, though, because we hear so little from the children. I know of no other first-hand account of life as a child in the Royal Victoria, and for that reason alone it's a wonderful source. You can still find the odd second-hand copy online, and it's well worth it. I have to confess I haven't read the rest of the book, but apparently after all this she goes on to have quite a lot of adventures as an au pair, and has rather a jolly life — so there is a happy ending.
Staying with this building: during the First World War it served as the Third London General Hospital, and we hold a collection relating to that.
When war broke out the building was requisitioned and work began to transform it. It was a huge undertaking. Staff also had to ensure all the pupils were moved out. The chapel was turned into a storehouse, huts were built to act as additional wards, and after eight weeks of work there was space for 520 beds.
The staff came from quite a wide range of professions: teachers, actors, dentists, a retired professional boxer, painters, a theatre carpenter — most of them either unfit for active service or over the age of enlistment. Nurses were found local accommodation, and with the help of Captain Dodson, formerly the doctor of the Patriotic School, the first patients arrived on 25th September 1914.
The things I love most about this collection are a series of magazines it contains. They're beautifully produced and include contributions from nurses, the matron, doctors, and patients — which suggests that having a creative outlet like this was an important part of the soldiers' recovery. A great deal of time and effort went into producing these magazines, and some of the contributions are cartoons — rather wonderful ones — many of them caricatures of the nursing and medical staff, not always particularly flattering. There are also comic poems, short stories, and reports of goings-on in the hospital.
I'm going to read this one out, because I don't think you'll be able to see it. It's called "A Tribute" and it's written for the nurses:
In peaceful days a woman's craze
Was chiefly votes and dress,
But sterner days hath changed her ways
And shown her at her best.
She heard the call, gave up her all
For England, her dear England.
United all was now her law,
United to save England.With heart and will and gentle skill
She nursed her stricken men,
Each aching ill she strove to heal
And every comfort lent.
And so as men to them we send
Our heartfelt thanks and praise,
And at war's end to such a friend
Through rising cheers will raise.
It doesn't quite roll off the tongue, that one, but there are a lot of poems in a similar vein — some dedicated to nurses, some to doctors, and some of them a little bit rude.
The matron is also a contributor. In November 1915 she writes the following about the VADs — Voluntary Aid Detachments — who had come to volunteer at the hospital. These were not qualified medical staff, but they helped with more basic tasks and spent time with patients. This is what she says:
"Nearly four months ago we took in our first lot of VAD helpers. I must confess that on my part it was with very mixed feelings. I hoped that they would fit in all right, but — and I think this is where I get the impression the matron was Scottish — I had my doubts. They arrived on one very hot afternoon in June. They poured in — eighty of them. It felt like an invasion.
We had a very busy time getting ready the houses for them, and I owe more than I can say to Captain Dodson and to Sister Hovenden for their great help. I think perhaps the VADs felt as I did, and wondered too how they would fit in. We did our best to welcome them and I hope conveyed to them that we really did welcome them and did not look on them as outsiders. The CO, I thought, made a very happy remark in his little address to them when he said this was her hospital, and he hoped they would now look on it as our hospital too.
With very few exceptions, the VADs have settled in very well, and I trust happily. They have done their work well and have become one of us. The sisters and nurses, I know, appreciate their work and are very glad to have their help. There are times when we are all tired, and sometimes we speak sharply — perhaps more sharply than we should otherwise do. I should like the VADs to remember that they are quite fresh, and that the routine of a hospital is practically a novelty to them, and that because someone speaks sharply it hasn't always meant to be unkind. If at the end of the war any of the VADs decide to train as nurses, they will then realise that it is very hard indeed, at the close of a trying day, to be as exactly as one would be in private life, where cares and worries are few and far between. I hope that the VADs will go on as they have begun, and there is no reason why it should not be a hospital of which we are all proud at the end of the war."
I particularly enjoy the qualifying phrase "with very few exceptions," which implies that at least some of the VADs have not settled in — and you get the impression the matron thinks it's jolly well their own fault if they haven't. But these items give us a real feel for life at the hospital. And that closing aspiration — that it should be our hospital — speaks to a level of informality and mutual respect between staff and patients that we might not quite expect, and that the magazine itself embodies. The patients were certainly happy to caricature the staff in a less than flattering light.
The collection also contains photographic postcards, most likely made for patients to send to their relatives. Some are formal group portraits of the nursing staff — though even there, if you look closely, some of them are smiling and some are looking quite stern. There are photographs of patients being tended to by nurses, and of patients themselves: people staring back at you from the photographs, some of them quite comic in their poses.
It's probably important to note that these images don't convey the reality of war. They were almost certainly intended to reassure relatives at home — and you have very little idea of the patients' injuries, because they're largely hidden under the covers. I don't believe the Third London General treated patients with facial injuries, for example, as that was more specialised care. But even looking through the postcards you often can't tell if someone is an amputee, because they're so often in bed. I think that was very much intentional.
There is also a photograph of some of the patients' sports activities, which I thought I'd included but seems to have gone astray — I'll send it to you. Sport would have been a really important part of rehabilitation, and for those who couldn't participate, the fresh air of the Common would at least have been a benefit.
Postcards brings us quite nicely onto the next item. Have any of you heard of the Patrick Loobey Collection?
There are some aviation postcards in it, but essentially it's a very large collection of postcards relating to the whole of the borough of Wandsworth — and actually Patrick Loobey collected more widely than that; he also gathered material relating to Hammersmith, Lambeth, and other areas. His widow donated the collection to us and to the various other relevant archives.
They're really quite wonderful. There are some beautiful postcards of Wandsworth Common, and some of them show the changing use of the Common over time. Here you have sheep grazing, with children in the background and some of the shops and businesses along the Common just visible. We also have images of children paddling in the pond — probably not recommended these days — charmingly titled "Cool in their Tootsies."
The railway is an important part of Wandsworth Common's history, like it or not, and we've got the station here, with some children waiting with their nurses. It looks like a little nursery class. And we do have one of an express train as well.
Sport features quite heavily on the Common, as you might imagine. Here's a photograph — not actually a postcard, this one, though we do find the occasional photograph in the Patrick Loobey Collection — of a ball game on the Common. Rather jolly.
Netball was also popular. I remember being told at school that it was a girls' sport, so it's interesting to see men playing it here. I'm not quite sure how the rather muddy ground visible in the background would have helped, but there you go. And we've got some tennis here as well, and of course cricket — this is Heathfield Grounds.
I think these give you a real sense of the Common as a communal space, and how important it was for people to have somewhere to go, to play sport, to meet — which is not so very different from how we use it now.
And I love this image of the boating pond. That was an activity accessible to almost everyone, whatever your income — cheap and cheerful, you could hire a boat for an hour and go out on the water.
I couldn't talk about Wandsworth Common without covering some of the records we hold relating to its preservation.
This collection is simply called "Wandsworth Common" — and I'm afraid I have no idea how we came to acquire it. The records it contains largely relate to the campaign to preserve the Common, and they include minutes of the Wandsworth Committee for the Preservation of Wandsworth and Clapham Commons, as well as various copies of the Act to preserve the Common.
But my favourite item in the collection is a scrapbook of ephemera. I'll just read from one of the items in it so you get a feel for it:
"Will you allow bankrupt and speculating builders, land societies, beer-shopkeepers, railway companies, tailors, gentlemen, and noble lords to rob you and your children of their Common rights and footpaths, and the liberty of walking on God's Earth, without a struggle? During the last 30 years, enclosures have been made by the late W. Keller and the late Mr. Wilson; the enclosure for the telescope; the enclosures by the railway companies; the Patriotic School; the St. James's Industrial School; the enclosure by the prison; the enclosure by Mr. Kosteker and Mr. Smith — making a total of upwards of 200 acres. Most of these enclosures have been filched from the Common and resold at enormous profit. What's the remedy? Down with the fences. Preserve your footpaths. Show Lord Spencer and the vinegar men on the Board of Works who have neglected their duty that you are determined to maintain your rights like true Liberals and keep them like true Conservatives."
It goes on a bit beyond that, but I think the range of people it addresses is interesting — it's really aimed at the working and middle classes living around the Common. And I find the idea of maintaining your rights "like true Liberals" and keeping them "like true Conservatives" rather wonderful — they're clearly trying to touch all bases.
The scrapbook also contains flyers for public meetings, like this one. I really love the fact that these have survived, because they're exactly the sort of thing people would pick up, go to the meeting, and throw away. But here they are. They give us a sense of the various meetings that were held, and where — this one was at the Spread Eagle Assembly Rooms in Wandsworth. It's just wonderful that someone lovingly pasted them all into this book.
Audience
I can't quite make out what date is on that last flyer.
Emma
It says March the 1st, and whoever put it in the scrapbook has very helpfully added 1871 — because usually with something like this you have no idea what year it was. So that's very useful.
Audience
I just noticed in one of the photographs there were two soldiers with hats that looked to me like Australian army hats — the one on the right with the crutches. Did that indicate there were soldiers from other countries being treated at the hospital?
Emma
I think there would have been, yes — if you were fighting in Europe it would certainly have been easier to transport Australian soldiers to a hospital in another European country rather than sending them home.
Audience (Kathy)
I can help with that, actually. There's a picture in the Story of Wandsworth Common of a famous painting from the hospital entitled "The First Australian Wounded Arriving from Gallipoli." So yes — Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians were all being cared for there. If you think about it, they've already survived their wounds well enough to make the journey here. The trains would stop at the bottom of the hill in front of the entrance so patients could be carried straight up into the main entrance, and the picture shows them arriving through the doorway.
My husband and I first saw this painting when we were in Australia, at the War Memorial there, and Phil said, "That's my old school." We've since been to a talk there. And for those of you who have the booklet — in the main figure in the foreground, there's an Australian hat sitting on the table beside him to indicate he's Australian. The artist was also Australian — he was working there as an orderly volunteer. When we went to the talk at the Australian War Memorial, they explained that the Australian hat has a wide brim to protect from the sun, but it's turned up on one side — because when you had to shoulder your rifle, the brim would knock your hat off every time if it wasn't pinned up. So that's why they're tipped up on one side.
I used to take children on local history walks and we would go into the Patriotic Building. And in Magdalen Road Cemetery there are sections for Australian, New Zealand, and Newfoundland soldiers. It's remarkable how many of those treated there actually survived. Of those who died, some are in the graveyard at the end of Bolingbroke Grove, but many are in Magdalen Road Cemetery. If you go in the first entrance and walk down the hill, there's a large monument for the Australians — about 25 of them, I think. And if you turn right there, you'll find the other nationalities. The matron is buried there as well — Edith is her first name — and she was very highly thought of.
Chair (Richard)
Emma, thank you very much — it's interesting that you've structured your talk around the collections you have access to. What sort of material are you getting in today? The things you've been describing have been in your archives for a long time — are you still receiving new material?
Emma
Probably the main thing we receive now is oral history. The project you've been working on — Common Memories — will become part of our archive. But one thing I really struggle to convey to people is that the photographs you take today are historical — because in the past, you could take photographs, put them in a drawer, and 20 or 30 years later hand them on if they were of interest. But digital material doesn't suffer what we call "benign neglect" in the same way that analogue material does — it's much more fragile. That's going to be a real challenge, I think. Which is why projects like the one you're doing are so important, but it's also good to capture the present.
In terms of oral history, we tend not to go out and record ourselves — we tend to partner with local organisations who do the recording, and we'll support them by lending equipment or giving advice. We've worked with an organisation called Digital Works quite a few times, who work with school children on intergenerational interviewing. We've also worked with the Black Heroes Foundation, who have interviewed residents with lived experience about what it's been like to grow up or work in the borough. It's really important to try and capture a broad spectrum of voices.
Audience
I just wondered — because Wandsworth is a relatively new borough — how did the collection come together? Going back to earlier periods, this was all part of Surrey, and so on. What's the oldest material you have, and how did the Wandsworth-specific collection come to be?
Emma
Some collecting must have taken place very early on. The earliest material we have, I think, dates from the 1400s — I believe we have an apprenticeship indenture from that period, though I'll probably go back and find I'm completely wrong. I've never had a head for numbers. But essentially: the parish records came first, and parishes generally kept their records very well.
We also have the records of the Metropolitan Boards of Battersea and Wandsworth, which kept excellent records and whose holdings came to Wandsworth Borough Council when it came into being, eventually trickling down to us. And then we have what we call deposited collections — from local businesses, individuals, or organisations. The one thing they all have in Common is that they relate to the Borough of Wandsworth.
It's a long way of saying: a lot of the material came to us before formal accession procedures were in place, so we don't always know precisely who donated what — and crucially, we don't always have permission to dispose of things, which is actually part of the job. But that gives you the broad picture.
Chair
Can I ask about the last photograph you showed — the meeting at the Spread Eagle Assembly Rooms? Do we know what the upshot of that particular meeting was?
Emma
Honestly, no — but you probably could find out if you read the minutes in the collection. I haven't done that, but you're very welcome to. I was rather hoping that by showing you these juicy items I might lure you to come to the library.
Chair
The interesting thing to note is that if the flyer is dated March 1871, the Wandsworth Common Act was passed that July — so this was part of the campaign at a point where it was beginning to succeed.
Emma
Yes, quite — and I'm afraid I'm none the wiser on the detail, having never had a head for years, which is something of a disadvantage in this job.
Audience
I just wanted to mention that the London Borough of Lambeth also has material relating to Wandsworth, because many of its deposited collections were made by someone who collected for the whole of the old County of Surrey, which included both Lambeth and Wandsworth. So there is quite a lot there as well, and vice versa.
Emma
Yes, absolutely — and when the boroughs split in 1965 it would have been someone's unenviable job to figure out what was going where. Some things are easier to divide than others. We have a series of drainage plans, for instance — much more interesting than they sound, because they tell you who built a building and what its original purpose was — but because they're in volumes it's not always easy to split them cleanly. There's definitely crossover between the two archives.
We also have a small number of parish records — most you'll find at the London Metropolitan Archives, but we do have about four volumes for Clapham parish, for example, and the old Clapham parish included part of what's now Wandsworth. The Surrey History Centre also has relevant material.
Audience
I've seen somewhere a poster or advertisement for the railway showing what it cost when it was launched. Can people get copies of things like that?
Emma
Yes. For photographic material, we'll scan for you. If something is in a volume, you'd need to come in and photograph it yourself — we charge a flat rate of £3.10 for the day. For scanning, it depends on the condition of the material; we generally don't scan archive items other than photographs, but as I say, you can come in and take your own photographs with a decent camera.
We're based on the first floor of Battersea Library. The contact is heritage@gll.org. I should mention it's stair access only to the first floor, but we can arrange for materials to be viewed on the ground floor if needed.
It's worth making an appointment, as we sometimes close for school groups and I occasionally go out for outreach. We're generally open until 8pm, but if you come in on spec and one of us is there, we'll do our best to help.
Audience
Just a statement rather than a question — the Patrick Loobey photographs are available in published books, which you can find online, probably through AbeBooks. They're not expensive, and the quality is superb — probably from 10x8 plates, and the reproduction is wonderful.
Emma
Absolutely — it's a lovely collection, and as I said it covers the whole borough. We do have volunteers digitising it at the moment, so watch this space.
Audience
I wanted to say that the Wandsworth Heritage Society played a very important part in setting up the Friends. When the MAC set up a subcommittee to engage with the public about the Common's history and to gauge interest in a Friends group, you very kindly let us use a number of photographs for our display stand. They were a wonderful way of engaging people and starting conversations. And now a film has been made by the Friends that will go back into your archive — so it's a real circle. It shows what working together can achieve.
Emma
Absolutely — and that's a lovely way of putting it.
Audience
Thank you — that was very interesting. On a personal note: I know some of you will be aware that the old newspapers are available on microfiche at the library, and I've found that very useful myself. I was looking up my great-grandmother, who was run over by a bus on Balham High Road during the war, and I found several columns about it, which was fascinating. And my grandmother was an air raid warden outside Wandsworth Prison. I wonder — do you have any records about air raid wardens? Any lists of who was on duty where?
Emma
Not necessarily lists of individual ARP wardens, but what we do have are the telegrams, messages, and incident reports — though those are arranged by incident number rather than by person, so you couldn't easily look someone up that way. However, for the Borough of Wandsworth specifically, we do have some lists of ARP wardens. I'm not sure we have them for Battersea — but given that Wandsworth Prison is in Wandsworth, you'd probably be in luck.
Audience
That would have been Wandsworth, yes. Wonderful — I'll come and see you.
Audience
I apologise if this has already been asked — probably by Ros — but a lot of the people on the oral history project mentioned their memories of the Parkies, the park wardens, on the Common. We haven't been able to find any photographs of them. I imagine you've had a good look through your collections?
Emma
I have, and I was rather hoping we'd find one, because it would have been lovely to illustrate that particular memory. But unfortunately, no.
Audience
Emma — on a different subject: over the years I've heard rumours that the bowling green was built by prisoners of war. Do you have any evidence of that? I can't remember who told me, but it's stuck with me.
Emma
That's really interesting — I don't know off the top of my head. But it would be worth looking at the Council minutes, and possibly the local newspapers, which might well have reported it. I should mention that as well as newspapers on microfilm, we also have access to the British Newspaper Archive. It doesn't include the Wandsworth Borough News yet, or only very patchily, but it does have other local publications like the South Western Star. And crucially, you can do keyword searches rather than trawling through microfilm frame by frame. You can access it free at any Wandsworth library.
It's also worth mentioning that in Wandsworth libraries generally, you can get free access to the census records, and to Ancestry and FindMyPast. I find Ancestry a bit easier to use when you're searching for a person; FindMyPast is better if you're searching by address. We've also got the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, the Times Archive online, and the British Newspaper Archive — so if you're undertaking serious research, there really are a lot of resources available to you. They're there to be used, and they do measure how often people access them, so please do make use of them.
Chair
Any other burning questions? No? Then let's wrap up. Emma, that was fantastic — thank you so much.
Emma
Thank you. And actually — one thing I should have mentioned earlier. The second project I've been helping with is the group of Friends volunteers researching the lost houses and gardens of Wandsworth. I ran a series of three workshops for those volunteers, explaining how to approach the research. I should say, though, that one of your number — Sarah, who isn't here tonight — really taught us things in return. She was very adept at working with the older census records and we actually learnt a thing or two from her. That's always wonderful when it happens.
Chair
And I feel as though I've learnt quite a lot from you this evening — particularly about the hats. That was terrific. Thank you again, Emma.