Around 1837, Miss Henrietta Wollaston, walking in a deep cutting being dug across the Common to make way for the new London and Southampton railway, finds this same fossil, and gives it pride of place in her "choice cabinet".
We know this because the eminent palaeontologist Gideon Mantell included it in his "Short Sketch of the Geology of Surrey", a chapter of Edward Brayley's monumental A topographical history of Surrey, 5 vols. (1841-44).
Mantell writes:
"In Surrey, the usual fossils of the clay have been found wherever the strata have been explored, by wells, railway sections, and other excavations.
The section across Wandsworth common, formed by the line of the Southampton railway, afforded a highly-interesting suite of specimens, of which a good series is preserved in the choice cabinet of Miss Henrietta Wollaston . . . (p.135).
Notice in the centre of the Stanford map how the slender curves of the railway lines gouge through superficial gravel and sand deposits to the clay layers beneath. This exposure was achieved by the efforts of hundreds of navvies in the course of just a few months. On the right, the Falcon Brook has scoured out a much wider band down to the clay, but the process had taken many thousands of years.
[Similarly, but on an even greater scale, the Wandle — just off-image bottom left hand corner.
Notice, by the way, that the first large houses in the area — such as Allfarthing Manor, the "Five Houses" along Bolingbroke Grove, or the Burntwood houses — were built on gravel, never on clay. Gravel drains better than clay, and was therefore believed to be "healthier".]
In the first of a series of lectures given in Clapham in November 1840 (to help fund a local school), Mantell invited his audience "to stroll with him over Clapham and Wandsworth commons". As the Morning Post recorded:
[F]rom the interesting phenomena furnished by these well known localities [Mantell] taught them many of the wonders of geology, and much of the history of the ancient earth and its inhabitants.
In the gravel they had discovered the teeth and bones of the elephant and the rhinoceros, creatures of tropical growth and origin, and in the clays they had found the usual exuvia; of a marine deposit, the weeds, sponges, shells, and fish, which could only have existed in the depths of a profound ocean.
[BNA: Link.]
Mantell's talks were hugely popular — not surprising because he was universally famous for discovering* and naming the first dinosaur — the Iguanodon. but also because fossil-hunting on the Commons had been all the rage for several years. Even without the railway cuttings to give access to deep layers, both Commons were covered in pits, mainly to provide gravel and sand for new roads in the area. (Doubtless gravel-diggers were paid if they passed on interesting-looking specimens.)
[* Or was it his wife, Mary Ann? But that's another story.]
Mantell was a brilliant showman, engaging artists such as John Martin to visualise the primordial world with much drama and violence:
Here's another Mantell-inspired image of the awesome Iguanodon:
I'm banging on about Mantell's Iguanodon, even though it's taking us away from Henrietta Wollaston (if only for a while), because it has a great bearing on the history of Wandsworth Common.
When the Great Exhibition closed at the end of 1851, the "Crystal Palace" was dismantled and moved from Hyde Park to Sydenham (1852-54). Or, to be more precise, to Penge Common — at this time, Penge was a "detached" part of Battersea. (It didn't become independent of the manor until 1888.)
To add to the visitor attraction, models of dinosaurs were made on a giant scale and exhibited in the Park — including Iguanodon:
One of the most splendid publicity stunts was a dinner held within the body of the Iguanodon model:
But how would Londoners reach a place as remote as Penge/Sydenham? By railway, of course. Hence a new line was constructed specifically to carry visitors.
The obvious, most direct, route would have taken the line across Clapham Common, but local hostility prevailed. An alternative round-about-the-houses route was decided upon that crossed Wandsworth Common, where there were fewer powerful people to protest.
Work began on the "West End of London and Crystal Palace Railway" in 1853, and the line opened in 1856.
Years later, having been extended in both directions (ultimately to Victoria and London Bridge in a great loop), this became the line that runs through our Wandsworth Common Station.
From the point of view of Wandsworth Common, the new dinosaur railway was a double whammy. First, yet another line was being built that divided the Battersea side of the Common and closed off all traditional footpaths. The railway cutting was bridged only once in nearly a mile between Battersea Rise and Nightingale Lane railway — at what became the Cat's Back Bridge.
Secondly, the railway company acquired (from Earl Spencer) very much more of the Common than they needed ‐ a land-bank or "wayleave" — presumably because they couldn't know in advance where exactly their line would run. When the line was completed, they were legally obliged to sell the land. But of course they did not return all surplus land to the Common; they parcelled it up and sold it off to speculative builders, and profited handsomely from the sale. High fences, typically coated in black tar, were erected around the alienated areas.
However, these assaults on the integrity of the Common in the 1830s, '40s and '50s, were ultimately powerful stimuli to the campaign to save it in the 1860s. John Buckmaster, for example, was frequently prosecuted for breaking down the railway company's fences.
[Another large area of Common sold off by the railway company at this time was the triangle close to Wandsworth Common station, where Ravenslea, Wexford and part of Mayford Roads were later built. The purchaser, James Anderson Rose, intended the land to be returned to the Common on his death. But the Battersea vestry [sic?] refused to stump up the money.]
So now at last we can get back to Henrietta Wollaston . . .
For Henrietta Wollaston, the railway cutting over Wandsworth Common was no great distance from her home in Battersea. Her illustrious family lived "between the Commons", first at 83 Clapham Common West Side (her house is still there, nicely restored), and then nearby at Beechwood (demolished to make way for Culmstock Road).
[Her father was George Hyde Wollaston (1761-1841), a merchant, banker and Clapham antiquarian, and her uncle the wealthy chemist, physicist and geologist William Hyde Wollaston (1766-1828). Doubtless the family knew the great scientist Henry Cavendish, who lived on South Side and regularly walked to Wandsworth Common and back.
GHW became chairman of Marc Isambard Brunel's Thames Tunnel Company — the tunnel, between Rotherhithe and Wapping, is still in use. (Today, the Thames Tunnel carries not the foot passengers and horse-drawn carriages it was designed for but the Windrush Overground Line.). N.B. Brunel's sawmills were not far away from us — by the Thames on the Battersea-Wandsworth border.]
There are even a couple of "Wollaston islands" — one is south of Tierra del Fuego, the other is north of Australia in the Timor Sea.]
Came to an anchor in the evening under Woollaston Isd.” (Feb 24)
“I walked or rather crawled to the tops of some of the hills; the rock is not slate, & in consequence there are but few trees; the hills are very much broken & of fantastic shapes.
Whilst going on shore, we pulled alongside a canoe with 6 Fuegians. I never saw more miserable creatures; stunted in their growth, their hideous faces bedaubed with white paint & quite naked.
[See "Savages" in a "Charming Country". Curiously, I came across this on the same day of the year as Darwin's diary entry— 24 February. What were the chances?]
But Henrietta Wollaston was not alone as a fossil-hunter (or "fossilist"). Many local women created important collections at this time, as Mantell records:
In the flints and pebbles . . . may be found many of the silicious* fossils of the chalk formation; of which there are numerous examples in the interesting collections of Mrs. Allnutt, Miss H. Wollaston, Mrs. Potts, Miss Graham, and other residents on Clapham common. Among these fossils are casts of the usual echini, plagiostoma, pectens, spirolinites, and other shells of the chalk; and remains of corals, and other zoophytes. (p.130)
[* silicious (made from from silica) i.e. flint.]
Mantell also draws attention to microfossils, a branch of study in which some of the Clapham fossilists were particularly skilled.
Nor must I omit to mention those minute but highly-interesting objects, the fossil infusoria, which abound in the flints; one specimen, highly magnified, is here figured (Pl. 1, fig. 36); the original is invisible to the unassisted eye."
Thus, with merely a common lens, the attentive observer may find an inexhaustible source of amusement even in the beds of gravel spread over the wastes and heaths of this district. (p.130)
Clearly Mantell thought of these women as thorough-going scientists, not casual hobbyists. Although unable to attend a university or any other advanced course of study, a number must have acquired start-of-the art optical instruments and used them expertly.
I have no idea what kind they used, but here is a contemporary microscope:
I can imagine groups of ladies in crinolines* arriving at the railway cuttings armed with small geological hammers to scour the newly exposed layers (doubtless much to the delight of the navvies with their pickaxes and shovels).
No, not crinolines — these were hooped dresses that mainly prevailed in the 1850s and 1860s. This is the period of huge puffed-out sleeves.
[See Mimi Matthews's visual guide to fashionable clothing in the 1830s . But this mainly shows the evolution of evening dress.]
So what did affluent women wear when prospecting for fossils in railway cuttings? We may never know, but here's a painting of the palaeontologist Mary Anning (1799-1847), who was also active at this time — though she was not an affluent Clapham lady, and collecting was her work:
Wouldn't it be good to know more about the pioneering collectors "Mrs Allnutt, Miss H. Wollaston, Mrs Potts, Miss Graham, and other residents"? But so far as I know, no work has yet been been carried out on this remarkable group of local women. What a wonderful project for someone!
According to Henrietta's father's list of Clapham residents in 1841, a "John Allnutt" lived on Clapham Common South Side, the Wollastons lived on West Side, a "John Graham" and a "Mrs Graham" lived in separate houses on North Side, and a "Thomas Potts" on Clapham Common and a "Roger Potts" were living on Nightingale Lane. "Dr Mantell" is living at Crescent Place (George Hyde Wollaston, Clapham with its Common and Environs).s
[In one edition of this essay, Mantell also mentions a "Mrs Abbott", but this may have been a misprint for "Mrs Allnutt".]
The Allnutts (the head of the household was a noted wine merchant) are known to have exhibited examples of local geology in their gardens. Mantell writes that local flints often became cemented together to form large irregular blocks of conglomerate "imbedded in the loose sand and gravel of Clapham and Wandsworth commons", and that:
[M]asses of this conglomerate are employed with good effect in grotto and rock-work, as in the beautiful grounds of John Allnutt, esq., of Clapham common."
[I must ask historian of Clapham Common, Mike Tuffrey, where the Allnutts lived, and whether there are any fragments of grotto and rock-work can still be found in local gardens.]
As I was drafting these notes, I came across an important article that mentions Henrietta Wollaston as an early member of the Palaeontographical Society, the world's oldest society specifically dedicated to palaeontology: Elsa Panciroli, Patrick N. Wyse Jackson & Peter R. Crowther, "Scientists, collectors and illustrators: the roles of women in the Palaeontographical Society", Geological Society, London, Special Publications, 2021.
This lists 24 women members of the Palaeontographical Society in 1848 or 1849, shortly after the Society’s formation. So far as I can tell, none of Henrietta's local contemporaries was also a member.
I am most grateful to Professor Wyse Jackson for sending me a copy of this essay.
According to Mantell:
The tertiary* formations of the London basin have long been celebrated for the immense number and variety of their organic remains . . . [which include] the teeth and bones of several extinct mammalia; bones of birds, serpents, turtles, crocodiles, and other reptiles; many genera of fishes, crustacea, and a few zoophytes; immense quantities of marine shells, of several hundred genera and species; and leaves, seed vessels, stems of plants, and rolled masses of wood perforated by boring-shells (p.135).
[* Tertiary — a term no longer employed in geology, but widely used in the early C19 to mean rocks thought to be associated with the Great Flood in the Bible. In modern chronology, roughly between 66 and 2.6 million years ago.
It would be good to discuss how the study of geology and palaeontology in the Wandsworth/Battersea/Clapham area related to contemporary religious beliefs (I'm thinking about catastrophic floods, the extinction and creation of species, the immense destructive power that has raised and ground down mountains, and above all the emerging idea of Deep Time), but I think we'd better leave that for another time.]
Mantell lists many fossils that have been found on Wandsworth Common:
As the key makes clear, "Miss Wollaston" is responsible for many of the finds: Plate 1, fig.14, and 2, figs 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 19.
In another edition of this essay, in which the plates were re-used with a slightly modified commentary, Mantell revisits specimen 7 ("Wood") and elaborates:
7. Teredo antenautae: Pl 2. fig 9. Masses of wood, more or less perfectly preserved, and perforated by a boring-shell allied to the teredo, are found everywhere in the London clay.
Miss Wollaston's cabinet contains several fine specimens from Wandsworth common; some examples are sufficiently hard to bear cutting and polishing, and in that state present a beautiful appearance from the section of the sparry tubes, and the rich grain of the wood they traverse."
I first came across Henrietta Wollaston five or six years ago, but I failed to find out anything more about her than her Nautilus and other fossils, as discussed in Gideon Mantell's volume.
At much the same time, I noted a reference to a "Lady Pollock", the only woman referenced in the run up to the 1871 Wandsworth Common Act — she helped to fund the campaign, and was clearly a great supporter of the preservation movement. As with Henrietta Wollaston, it proved impossible at the time to find out anything more.
It certainly never occurred to me that they could be connected.
Lady Pollock listed among the Great and Good of the campaign to save Wandsworth and Clapham Campaigns, April 1870:
For some years I assumed that this "Lady Pollock" was a Wimbledon-resident, active at the same time in their local campaign. This was Sarah Anne, the second wife of Frederick Pollock, 1st Baronet. Here's a fine photograph of her by Camille Silvy:
And here's her husband, Frederick:
But I now think, no — Frederick is George Pollock's brother (both having been made Baronets in their lifetimes). Hence both wives are called "Lady Pollock". Confusing, eh?
[I explored this initially in >Chronicles June 2022, where I came to all the wrong conclusions.]
In short, I believe that "our" Lady Pollock was born Henrietta Wollaston and married the East India Company soldier-hero "Sir George Pollock of the Khyber Pass". (Really — I wouldn't make it up.) He was chiefly famous* for leading an "Army of Retribution" into Afghanistan in 1841, during what Britain called the First Afghan War.
[* Or infamous: I recall reading at the time of the British withdrawal of troops from Kabul ten years ago that local people still remember the punitive destruction of their great Bazaar in 1842. This was Pollock's doing. (Yet another example of the general historical principle underlying these Chronicles that "What happened then still matters now".)]
Sir George Pollock's fame rests on his remarkable achievements in the Himalayas in the aftermath of the first Anglo-Afghan war (1838-42). The war had been a disaster for the British. Sir Robert Sale and his army were besieged in Jelalabad and Pollock successfully forced the Khyber Pass and relieved the trapped forces. In 1844, the British residents in Calcutta created the Pollock Medal to commemorate Pollock's achievements. This medal was awarded to the 'best cadet of the season' at the Addiscombe Military Academy.
[NAM: Link.]
Well, that's one way of putting it. Certainly his "remarkable achievements" in forcing the Khyber Pass made him into a popular hero back home in Britain (to which he returned soon after).
But there are other ways of telling the story, for example as told by William Dalrymple in his Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan (2012). Here's his characterisation of George Pollock from an introductory dramatis personae:
Sir George Pollock (1786-1872): Pollock was a precise, ruthless and doggedly efficient [East India] Company general who had been in India more than thirty years when he received his orders to relieve the besieged British garrison in Jalalabad. His reputation had been built on careful planning and meticulous logistics, and he was determined not to be bullied into acting prematurely. After carefully collecting supplies in Peshawar, he forced the Khyber with his Army of Retribution, finally relieving Jalalabad on 16 April.
After another pause to collect more transport and ammunition, he advanced, defeating Akbar Khan in the Tezin Pass and retaking Kabul on 16 September. After destroying Istalif, and burning much of Kabul, he withdrew from Afghanistan and was received by Lord Ellenborough at Ferozepur on 19 December 1842.
His first wife having died in 1845, and by now seriously ill. George Pollock returned the following year to England. He married Henrietta in 1852. She was in her mid-40s. He was 20 or so years older. (I wonder how they met?) There were no children in this second marriage.
"After returning to England in 1846, Pollock benefited from an annuity of £1,000 per annum from his employer, the East India Company, and lived at Clapham Common"
[Wikipedia: Sir George Pollock, 1st Baronet.]
When I visited the Foreign and Colonial Office a decade or so ago during an Open House weekend, I was largely oblivious to the iconography. However, I imagine many visitors from the countries such as India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, where these battles took place, and where many of the figures held sway, are rather less ignorant. I wonder what they think when they gaze upon such lavish memorialisation?
[By the way, it has proved impossibly difficult (so far) to find detailed information about the iconography. Blog-type articles about the "glorious Durbar Court" seem utterly oblivious to the meaning of what they're looking at ["The stunning floor is made of Greek, Sicilian and Belgian marble . . . there are many sculptures and carvings of officers, dignitaries and intricate tiled friezes."
If you know of any good sources, and there must be some, please let me know.]
— Wikipedia: George Pollock, 1st Baronet.
— National Army Museum: First Afghan War; a well-illustrated account.
— National Portrait Gallery: Portraits of Sir George Pollock, 1st Bt (1786-1872)
— Charles Rathbone Lowe, Life and Correspondence- of Field Marshal Sir George Pollock (1873).
— British Empire.co.uk: Afghanistan 1839: George Pollock; a recent Anglo-centric view that probably reflects how Pollock's actions were viewed at the time.
— William Dalrymple, The Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan (2013) — a terrific account of the First Afghan War, whose "splendid narrative echoes with latter-day reverberations". Dalrymple uses many Afghan sources, not previously taken into account. See also Wikipedia: Return of a King.
— On his death on 6 October 1872, George Pollock received an spectacular funeral in Westminster Abbey. I include a programme for the service (in effect a who's who of the military establishment of the time), and a poem by Tom Taylor, a near-neighbour, published in Punch, 26 October 1872.
Some of you will remember Southlands Teacher Training College on Wimbledon Parkside. The College took the name "Southlands" from its original home on what is now called Castle Street, Battersea ‐ this was George Pollock's house. (Why did he give it that name? Was it to remind him of south Asia?)
The College, originally for women students, was there from 1872 to 1930, when it sought more spacious grounds on the edge of Wimbledon Common. The name "Southlands" was retained. Men were admitted in 1965, and it later joined with other teacher training colleges and was incorporated into the University of Roehampton.
— Roehampton University: Southlands College: History.
I'm sure the new opportunities being offered for the education of women in the home her husband had vacated would have pleased Henrietta Wollaston no end.
Return to the top of this page . . .
Now you might think that Jane Austen couldn't possibly have spent time on Wandsworth Common (and I'm not saying you're wrong). But there are links.
Really?
Oh, yes.
SO many more stories still to tell. But that's all for now, folks.
Send me an email if you enjoyed this post / want to comment on something you've seen on the site / would like to know more — or just want to be kept in touch.
If you would like to receive notifications of new Chronicles, let me know . . .
Philip Boys ("History Boys")
March 2025
— Friends of Wandsworth Common
— Wandsworth Historical Society
