Today, History is being made on Wandsworth Common — yet again.
Two years ago this week, I wrote:
"Whoopee, I've been writing these chronicles every month for a whole year! I'm pretty amazed, so I'll probably carry on for a while — there are so many more stories to tell."
Then last year I crowed:
"So now it's two years, not a paltry one. I can't believe that I've kept it up for so long (it's really not in my nature). But somehow these stories of long-dead people involved in long-forgotten dramas in long-ignored places seem somehow to insist that they're brought to light and life again.
And now, with this post in June 2024, I've completed three whole years . . .
Last week I greatly enjoyed two visits to the terrific new exhibition, "Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520—1920" at Tate Britain, and I expect to go again.
It's a pretty huge exhibition, and all of it is of great interest. But the very last picture in the exhibition gave me a particular thrill because it has a strong Wandsworth Common connection: Ethel Wright's more or less life size portrait of suffragette Una Dugdale Duval:
Here's how the art critic of the Financial Times described it some years ago (when the painting was on show in Chichester):
A full-length portrait of the suffragette Una Dugdale Duval by Ethel Wright depicts the campaigner as a fearless, red-lipped force of nature. (Duval’s pamphlet Love Honour Not Obey is on display in a vitrine of illuminating feminist ephemera from this tumultuous era.) Swathed in shimmery jade and planted in front of wallpaper decorated with anxious fighting cocks, Duval has clearly vanquished the masculine opposition without ruffling a feather of her own."
["Radical Women rescued from obscurity",
Financial Times, , 15 November 2019.]
More recently, Laura Cumming wrote about it in The Guardian:
" . . . Ethel Wright’s fabulous 1912 portrait of the suffragette Una Dugdale Duval, in an arsenical green dress beneath a wallpaper of ludicrous fighting cocks, where Wright’s modern bravado exactly meets that of her sitter. "
[Guardian: Link.]
Next to the portrait is a small perspex display case containing a small pamphlet, price one penny:
I would very much like to read this. Does anyone have a copy?
And the Wandsworth Common connection?
The clue is in Una's second surname — "Duval" — for she had married Victor Duval, the eldest son in a family of militant Suffragists living close to the Common at 37 Park Road (now called Elsynge Road).
The Duvals moved here from 97 Lavender Sweep (which runs between Battersea Rise and Lavender Hill). Thanks to the inspiring work of local historian Jeanne Rathbone, in 2023 a Wandsworth Green Plaque was erected there.
I would argue that there should also be one at 37 Elsynge Road.
The Women's Freedom League had held its first "Open-Air Campaign" meeting on Wandsworth Common in 1908, with "Mr Duval" (probably Victor, but possibly his father) one of the advertised speakers.
New ground has been opened up at Wandsworth Common, where meetings are being held every Sunday morning. At the first meeting, on May 31st 1908 were Miss Mary Smith, Miss Alice Milne, and Mr Duval."
Una Dugdale and Victor Diederichs Duval married on 13 January 1912 at the King's Chapel of the Savoy. She is said to have "sparked a national scandal" by saying she would refuse to use the word "obey" in her marriage vows. However, after an intervention by the Archbishop of Canterbury, no less, who advised that its omission could cast doubt on the legality of the marriage, the couple acquiesced.
According to Margaret Nevinson, writing in The Vote (the newspaper of the Women's Freedom League), the wedding had "the unique experience of a ceremony where bride and bridegroom, bridegroom's mother, most of the bridesmaids, and many of the guests had all suffered terms of imprisonment."
[Margaret Nevinson, by the way, was the mother of the Futurist artist Christopher Nevinson — after whom Nevinson Close on the new housing estate near the Patriotic School is named. Her son was a patient in its incarnation as the 3rd London General Hospital in WWI.]
— Spartacus Educational: Una Dugdale
— Wikipedia: Una Duval.
— Spartacus Educational: Ethel Wright (later Ethel Bradley)
For superb overviews of the entire Duval family, see Jean Rathbone, The Diederichs Duval suffrage family of Lavender Sweep, and her article for the Battersea Society, The Extraordinary Diederichs Duval Family.
Map and brief account on Wandsworth Borough Council's website: Diederichs Duval family — Green Plaque site.
— Spartacus Educational: Margaret Nevinson
— HistoryofWandsworthCommon [HoWC]: Emily Duval and family, 18 October 1908.
— HoWC: Elsie Duval in court for throwing stones through a Post Office window at Clapham Common, 28 June 1912.
— HoWC: "Silly Girls and Their Conduct . . . " Elsie Duval back in court for sentencing, 13 July 1912.
Fifty years earlier, the land on which the Duvals' new home was built had been "Spanish Close", the substantial grounds of a substantial house leased to the Society hostess Eleanor Daubeny (who "moves in high court circles") and her husband, the Revd. James Daubeny.
GRAND MATINEE DANSANTE ON WANDSWORTH COMMON
Mrs. Daubeny, the lady of the Rev. Mr. Daubeny, late vicar of Publow, Somersetshire, and a lady well known in the neighbourhood of Clifton, has been giving a very splendid entertainment near her residence, Wandsworth.
It was thus announced by the Cheltenham Looker-on:
Among the on-coming engagements of the London season we perceive by the Morning Post, of Tuesday, that "Mrs. Daubeny's first morning party at the Spanish Close, Wandsworth, to meet the Foreign Princes, will take place on Wednesday, the 19th inst. It is scarcely necessary for us to add, that the lady here alluded to is Mrs Daubeny, of Sherborne Lodge, whose parties during the last two Winter Seasons have contributed so much to the fashionable gaieties of Cheltenham."
And the Surrey Standard contains the following notice of the fete:
GRAND MATINEE DANSANTE ON WANDSWORTH COMMON
On Wednesday a magnificent Matinee Dansante was given by Mrs. Daubeny, of the Spanish Close, Wandsworth Common, and was honoured by the attendance of the principal members of the aristocracy.
Mr. Oakey's quadrille band was in attendance, and the dancing was on the lawn, a marquee being erected thereon, in which were placed all the recherche delicacies of the season &c. Carriages began to set down soon after two o'clock, and continued till past five o'clock. The dancing was commenced at an early period and did not cease till near seven.
Of the company invited the Napaulese [sic] embassy and the various members of the Foreign Diplomatic Corps were expected, but the presentation at Buckingham Palace frustrated the intended visit.
Amount those who honoured Mrs. Daubeny with their presence were — The Dowager Lady Abinger, the Countess Dowager Somers, Lady Compton, Lady Hall, Hon. Lady M. Haslerig, Lady Otway, the Hon. Mrs. Darcy Osborne, Sir John and Lady Burgoyne, Lord W. Lennox. Sir John Eustace, Bart., Mr. Frederick Bunsen, Lady Atkinson, &c.
Miss Kenney, the celebrated harpist, gave some of her superb performances, and Mademoiselle Loveday performed magnificently on the piano. The Baron Pontiguy, the celebrated French amateur buffo singer, afforded undisguised delight to the company, which must have numbered at least 250.
This the first entertainment given by Mrs. Daubeny since the Rev. Mr. Daubeny's recent coming into the locality, and are given to understand they will not be unfrequent.
Mrs. Daubeny, who now moves in high court circles, is the daughter of the late General Browne Clayton, and granddaughter of the late Sir Richard Clayton, Bart, of Addington Hall, Lancashire.
[BNA: Link.]
— Eleanor Browne-Clayton (Mrs Daubeny) b. c.1816, d. 5 March 1895
— ThePeerage: Reverend James Daubeny b. 1801, d. 16 April 1882
— ThePeerage: Sir Richard Clayton, 1st Bt. b. c.1745, d. 29 April 1828
— Wikipedia: Browne-Clayton Memorial
— ThePeerage: Lt.-Gen. Robert Browne-Clayton b.?, d. 10 March 1845
As ever, the Survey of London: Battersea is hugely informative:
Spencer Lodge
Spencer Lodge, which stood on the west side of Vardens Road, was probably the house that John Blakesley agreed to build in 1764 in exchange for a lease from Earl Spencer.
By 1787 the house and land across the lane (formerly part of Wandsworth Common) were in the possession of Thomas Vardon, who also owned a field of over fifteen acres west of the house, known as Spanish Close.
After Vardon’s death, Spencer Lodge changed hands several times in the early 1800s. By the time of the Spencer sales in 1836 it was in the hands of Henry Wilkins, who negotiated a new lease enabling him to build speculative villas on Spanish Close, perhaps in response to the advent of the London & Southampton Railway, then being constructed close by. But nothing came of this, and the house then became tied up in Chancery until the early 1850s.
In 1853 Spanish Close was sold for development to the National Freehold Land Society (see Marcilly Road to Vardens Road below). The house and its immediate grounds went to the same body the following year, and had gone by 1863, when 26 & 28 Vardens Road were built on its site . . .
Marcilly Road to Vardens Road
Most of this territory belonged to Spanish Close, the seventeen or so acres of meadow which at the start of the nineteenth century belonged to Spencer Lodge. In 1853–4 first this land, and then Spencer Lodge itself, were bought for development by the National Freehold Land Society and promptly offered for sale in lots. The society’s nominal aim was to divide freehold land for the purposes of enfranchisement.
— Wikipedia: Freehold Land Societies
— Wikipedia: Forty-shilling freholders.
[PB: At the time of the Battersea Tithe map of c.1840, the pleasure ground and garden in which the house stood (plot 242) and adjacent meadow (plot 240) were owned by "Charles Wilde Norris" and occupied by "Mrs Norris".
I have seen references to a Charles Norris Wilde (1812—1885) whose wife is Hon. Emily Claudine Thomasine Wilde (1815—1901). Could this be them? Why are they not living together?
By the way, is it the case that John Buckmaster could not vote in mid-19th century elections, although he rented a (fairly large?) house on New Road, St John's Hill, because the rent was less than 40 shillings? And that he could only attain a position of authority in the Battersea vestry by becoming the Churchwarden of St Mary's, the parish Church? Perhaps someone could comment?]
There is much to be explored here and nearby. Perhaps you would like to join us in the Friends of Wandsworth Common's Heritage Group's "Lost Houses and Gardens Project"? Let me know and I'll forward your details to Stephen Midlane, who convenes the Heritage Group.
The most recent talk about ongoing research into the Lost Houses and Gardens was in April 2024, when Mark Luboff, Sarah Vey and Henrietta Gentilli recounted the history and location of the "Five Houses" along Bolingbroke Grove — learn where they used to be, what is left of them, the owners and the “upstairs/downstairs” occupants, and hear about the landscape and environs of these “country” estates.
Not to be missed.
Not only was this land taken (stolen, many would say) from the Common but access to what remained was also severely restricted thereby. The blue circle indicates just how small the gap remaining was giving access to the Common from the south-west.
The adjacent land to the south-east (now often called the "Toast Rack") was at this time owned by Magdalen College, Oxford, but had until quite recently also had been part of the Common — it was enclosed by Thomas and Sophia Sheppard fifty years earlier, and gifted by them to Magdalen. Losses to the Common such as these inspired the movement in the 1860s to save what remained, which culminated in the 1871 Wandsworth Common Act.
(SW & NSW)
There must be two Wandsworth Commons. One we know very well, because the greater part of it is situated is Battersea. People dance there coyly and self-consciously, and they play tennis and they get bitten by mosquitoes.
The other Wandsworth Common is somewhere is New South Wales. Probably if we bored a hole right through in the neighbourhood of the Catsback Bridge we should come to it quite safely and easily.
For our knowledge of its existence we are indebted to the energy and perseverance of the postal service. We have just seen a letter which was addressed to a lady at Wandsworth The address was written in Czecho-Slovakia, and being written by a foreigner was quite rightly penned in a clear reverential hand as legible as print.
Postal people treated it with distinction. They packed it off to Australia, and after about four months' delay they delivered it at its rightful destination, no doubt all the better and stronger for a couple of sea voyages.
The theory we have formed as to the Wandsworth Common down under is that from this district was years ago transported for stealing sheep from the real common, and that in gratitude, or revenge, he applied the term Wandsworth Common to a piece of land over there.
Anyhow, we hope foreign correspondents will realise the importance of adding the letters "S.W." to the directions for the delivery of postal matter.
[BNA: Link]
I was curious about this down-under "Wandsworth". And here it is:
[Google Earth: Wandsworth, New South Wales, Australia.]
[Wikipedia: Wandsworth, New South Wales.]
I include this story in part because I'm curious about the men, women and children of Battersea and Wandsworth who were transported to Australia in the early and mid C.19. (If this is something that might interest you too, get in touch.
Take these two lads, whose fathers were building the new Surrey House of Correction (i.e. Wandsworth Prison), threatened with transportation for:
FIRING THE FURZE ON WANDSWORTH COMMON
Thomas Candar, aged 17, and John Baker, aged 15, the sons of foremen on the works at the New Prison, were brought up from Horsemonger-lane Gaol, to which prison they had been committed on Monday last, on a charge of setting fire to the furze on Wandsworth Common.
[HoWC: Link.]
So far as I can discover, these boys were not transported, but Charles Knight was. Tried for stealing a mare from Wandsworth Common, he was sentenced to 15 years' transportation (John Bull, Saturday 17 April 1841).
There are quite a number of transportees listed in the records with the name "Charles Knight", but I think this may well be him — the court, the year, and his sentence all fit:
Charles Knight
Convicted at: Central Criminal Court
Sentence term: 15 years
Ship: Isabella
Departure date: 15th January, 1842
Arrival date: 19th May, 1842
Place of arrival: Van Diemen's Land
Passenger manifest: Travelled with 269 other convicts[Convict Records: Charles Knight. Since the name was so easily "demonised", in 1856 "Van Diemen's Land" was renamed Tasmania.]
If so, this is the ship he went out on:
— History of Wandsworth Common: April 2022.
As I wrote in 2002, there's clearly a lot more to discover about Charles Knight, including his life in Australia. Does anybody fancy trying (and for other transportees from our area)? If so, let me know and I'll do what I can to help.
To finish off, here are a couple of stories prompted by recent talks I've given on behalf of the Friends of Wandsworth Common.
On the 5th of May this year I was delighted to give a short talk to a group of perambulators on the history of the boundary where it passes through Wandsworth Common.
The site chosen for the talk was the wonderful oak tree (Quercus robur, an English, Common or Pedunculate oak) between Bellevue and Baskerville Road — which Stephen Midlane has suggested is likely to have been planted deliberately to mark the boundary between Battersea and Wandsworth parishes. I'm sure he's right.
But when was it planted?
I measured it up — its girth is about 3m 20cm (126 inches, 10 ft 6 inches) at a height of 1.5m (5 feet) — and estimated it was planted sometime between the 1860s and the 1880s.
But the tree is a very unusual shape, with massive branches above a relatively small trunk. This makes it hard to apply the usual formulae.
— Woodland Trust: "How to estimate the age of an oak" (pdf).
However Friends co-chair Richard Fox recently asked tree expert Greg Packman to take a look and he believes it to be more like 250 or more years old — in short, it was probably planted before 1774.
Wow!
Here's a map of the Common in 1893 showing the Boundary Oak in context:
Some time ago, I published a transcription of Beating Battersea's Bounds: The Parish Dial, 7 June 1862. I've been adding comments ever since, so it's now dangerously long and overly detailed — yet still incomplete. One day I'll tidy it all up, but in the meanwhile take a look (at your own peril).
At the end of May, I gave a talk during the Wandsworth Heritage Festival to/for the Friends of Wandsworth Common about the "Surrey Pauper Lunatic Asylum, Burntwood Lane — the early years".
I greatly enjoyed the event, and there was a wonderful turn-out (even though it was a wet night) and people's questions, observations and memories were really interesting.
One among many things I learned from audience members was about the "Cat Man", Louis Wain. I knew something of his work but not that he had been a patient here in the 1920s.
Several audience members had learned about him on one of the brilliant community historian Geoff Simmons's walks and talks. Geoff sent me this fantastic painting, which is (so far as I know) the only image that clearly relates to Louis Wain's time at Springfield.
Isn't this splendid . . .
Here are a few random images that convey some idea of Louis Wain's particular genius:
There's lots about Louis Wain online, for example:
— Wikipedia: Louis Wain
— Wikipedia: The Electrical Life of Louis Wain ( a 2021 biographical comedy-drama film starring Benedict Cumberpatch and Claire Foy that I really enjoyed.)
notice by the way the tall chimneys still present in Louis Wain's painting, very much in keeping with the Hampton Court vibe of the building. These were so vulnerable to high winds that they were removed (though I'm not sure exactly when).
Thanks to the wonderful videographer John Crossland, and the Friends of Wandsworth Common, you can view my talk here. I hope you find it interesting.
In addition to ongoing work — on e.g. John Buckmaster and other local defenders of the Common, on the anatomy and evolution of the Common, and on Battersea and Wandsworth's "Green Heritage" more generally — I have several projects in mind for the nearish future.
The first is a walk round Wandsworth Common's lake, in which I'll talk about its origins and development, tell lots of stories, and show a range of images (if I can work out how).
The second is a study of the Falcon Brook (that now runs in a big sewer pipe beneath Northcote Road, but was once beautiful, and ran at the foot of the hill behind the houses on Bolingbroke Grove.
— Wikipedia: Louis Haghe
I'm also exploring the early years of the Royal Victoria Patriotic Asylum for Girls.
A very big one for me for the autumn is on "The Third London General Hospital: The RVPA and Wandsworth Common during WWI." That's for Armistice Day, Monday 11 November 2024.
If you're interested in any these projects, and want to help with research, or discuss them, do get in touch. Also, let me know if there are any particular questions or topics you'd like me to cover.
SO many more stories still to tell. But that's all for now, folks.
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Philip Boys ("History Boys")
June 2024