Build 3 — 22 July 2026
Supporting material for House No. 3 of the Five Houses of Wandsworth Common
Source: Keith Bailey, ‘Developing Victorian Battersea: The Story of James Lord and George Todd, Junior’, The London Journal, Vol. 40, No. 1, March 2015, pp. 56–79. Keith Bailey is an Independent Scholar, UK.
Although the broad outlines of the development of ‘ordinary’ mid- to late-Victorian building estates in suburban London are well known, there remains a large potential for more detailed studies, both of individual suburbs and estates. Records of local developers, surveyors, and builders, other than what may be gleaned from official sources or from randomly surviving deeds, are scarce, and the motivations and finances of the vast majority are either obscure or completely unknown. Occasionally, however, a powerful searchlight illuminates the complex relationships that underlie the transformation of fields into streets.
The core of this study is an action in Chancery of 1870–1, brought by barrister and estate developer James Lord against builder-turned-auctioneer/surveyor George Todd junior. The ups and downs of their often less-than-businesslike relationship over the preceding seven years no doubt mirrors many similar, but unrecorded, examples, not only in Battersea but across Victorian London.
This paper has its origins in a study of estate development and building in nineteenth-century Battersea, a suburb where land ownership was highly fragmented and landed and institutional estates virtually absent. The paper begins with a brief outline of the process of building development in Battersea, followed by biographical sketches of the two protagonists. The principal focus is the Chancery case itself, in which the adversarial legal system enables us to examine the evolution of accusation and response, supported by statistical information offering a rare glimpse into the creation of several building estates and their relative failure.
Estate development was always a risky business, and many of those involved — from landowners and builders to providers of finance — saw their dreams of large returns come to nought. The vagaries of supply and demand, over-optimism or ignorance about the local housing market and associated financial problems, often culminated in financial loss or bankruptcy. Detailed studies of the development of suburbia are few, despite the pioneering work of H. J. Dyos and others.
In 1780 Battersea was a largely agricultural parish with a population of about 2,000, albeit with pockets of industry along the Thames and a growing number of villas and mansions in the elevated southern half, notably around Battersea and Wandsworth Commons. By 1910 Battersea had been transformed into a fully developed suburb with 170,000 inhabitants. The creation of new building estates got off to a very slow start, the principal focus of activity being Battersea New Town in the north-east corner. ‘Take-off’ began with the peak of the building cycle in the mid-1840s and the 1,000 acres of suitable building land were largely covered by 1900. Battersea still retained several hundred acres of unenclosed open fields in 1840, and ownership generally was highly fragmented, leading to the development of 228 building estates, ranging from 0.25 to 60 acres and 6 to 1,600 dwellings. Three-quarters were smaller than five acres, averaging forty-nine dwellings, about one-third of the total. By contrast, seven estates covering twenty acres or more provided 24% of dwellings. The key period for estate formation was 1861–70, with 66 new schemes. Battersea’s many developers and builders provided generally adequate accommodation for 150,000 new residents over six decades.
One aspect of estate development, not only in Victorian London but from the start of sustained urban growth in the 18th century to the present day, is the often erratic and protracted process of completing any scheme, with the consequent impact on developers’ and builders’ finances. Data on the duration of building for Battersea estates show that while about half were completed within five years, almost a quarter took more than a decade. The average for estates with fifty houses or less was 4–5 years, compared with 16 years for those with more than 500 houses. Size was not the only factor causing delay, however. When James Lord was active in the 1860s, the average completion took 8–9 years. His first venture, at Bolingbroke Grove, took from 1866 to 1902 to achieve 117 houses, most of them built long after he had left the scene. The Lombard Estate was more successful, but even then was only two-thirds complete when he abandoned it in the early 1870s.
The availability of small parcels of land offered opportunities for local builders, shopkeepers, and other tradesmen to undertake development in Battersea. Their knowledge of the market was probably more realistic than that of an outsider, who often believed that the model of central London landed estates was applicable here. Lawyers and surveyors played a prominent role in estate development, whether as agents for others or initiating schemes themselves. Lawyers developed thirty-eight estates individually or in partnership, covering 194 acres with 5,000 dwellings, almost one-fifth of the total in each case.
Most Battersea estates have surviving deeds, and appear in the District Surveyors’ Returns and drainage applications, which together enable the broad outlines of who developed what and when to be established, although motivations and finances are often difficult or impossible to discover. Landowners perennially aspired to build substantial properties for middle-class occupiers paying good rents, using covenants in building agreements to attain these goals. In Battersea, these dreams were often thwarted by the presence of substantial areas of industry, while various railway companies capitalised on the ample supply of flat, cheap land in close proximity to central London, taking around 400 acres for their lines, stations, goods yards, engine sheds, and works. All this created an essentially working-class demand for housing. Only after 1880 did the middle-class element begin to grow rapidly as central and south Battersea were built up and travel to work outside the area increased.
Rector’s son Charles Francis James Lord was born at Barfreston in Kent in 1814. Two of his brothers entered the church, but James chose the law, studying at Lincoln’s Inn from 1833 and called to the bar at the Inner Temple in June 1837. Lord married twice and had nine children. He was the author of The Theory & Practice of Conveyancing (1844), and long-term chairman of the Protestant Association and a regular spokesman on behalf of anti-Catholic causes. Lord had political ambitions, and was considered as a Conservative candidate for Derby in 1848 and East Surrey in 1868.
In the mid-1850s, the family lived at Derby, the home of his second wife, daughter of a local magistrate and businessman. Around 1858, they moved to Battersea, occupying one of the Georgian ‘Five Houses’ in Bolingbroke Grove facing Wandsworth Common. The family lived in style with six or seven resident servants. Following the demolition of that house in 1864 to make way for Lord’s first development, they moved to St John’s Lodge near Clapham Junction. Lord’s financial problems and the death of his wife in 1879 appear to have caused at least a partial estrangement from his family. His financial failure clearly affected the family’s prospects. In 1881 he was staying at the Grand Hotel Brighton, describing himself as a practising barrister. He then became a lodger in two furnished rooms at 459 Brixton Road by 1891, where he stayed until his death in 1906, leaving an estate of £333 — less than that of many a modest Battersea builder and small shopkeeper; a spectacular fall indeed.
George Todd junior (1832–99) was the third son of builder George Todd (1796–1872; born at Bishop Auckland), who worked in Chelsea from the 1820s and was followed by his five sons: John (1816–97), Christopher (1831–92), George, Henry (1834–95), and Thomas (1836–1930). In 1861 three of the brothers were major builders. Christopher employed 300 men and 70 boys on the Merchant Taylors Company’s Lewisham estate, while John and George employed 72 men and 10 boys and 120 men, respectively. Financial failure soon followed, with George junior declared bankrupt in 1861, and business partners John and Christopher in 1862.
Following his bankruptcy, George junior set up the ‘City Auction, Land and Estate Company’ at 8 Pancras Lane in the City. He became a middle-ranking auctioneer and surveyor, involved with surveying, letting apartments, selling ground rents, house and factory contents, bankruptcy sales, and even 120 dozen of Madeira wine. George Todd junior had six children and moved from Chelsea to Battersea in 1863, where he played a considerable role in estate development during the 1860s. Like Lord, George Todd senior and his sons were Conservative supporters.
Between June 1864 and January 1871, George Todd made fifteen applications to the Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) for new streets on nine estates in Battersea for seven different developers. Bolingbroke Grove (June 1866), Lombard (April 1868) and Parkfield (May–October 1868) were for James Lord, though none was completed as planned.
Although only in his early forties, George Todd retired from the building world in the mid-1870s. He then embarked on a new career with the 3rd Middlesex Artillery Volunteer Corps, progressing from Sub-Lieutenant to Major between 1874 and 1892. He and his two sons, George Gough and Rowland, also in the 3rd Middlesex, are credited with a key role in founding the (Royal) Military Tournament in 1880 — arguably a more significant legacy than the Battersea estate speculations.
Their complex relationship is revealed in a Chancery case initiated by Lord in 1870. He was a vigorous litigant, involved in five Chancery cases between 1866 and 1874. Three involved property in Battersea; another was a byzantine affair worthy of Jarndyce and Jarndyce concerning the estate of long-dead relatives of his first wife.
The Bill of Complaint was submitted on 24 October 1870 and relates mainly to the Bolingbroke Grove estate. Todd’s Reply of April 1871 presents a largely contrary view of events, with two manuscript schedules appended. Schedule 1 presents Rental and Cash Accounts for Bolingbroke Grove from mid-1867 to Michaelmas 1870. Schedule 2 comprises assorted accounts for the Lombard Estate, supplementary accounts, St John’s Lodge, Parkfield Estate, Bolingbroke Grove, and other properties, totalling £4,544 12s 7d. These were additional to Todd’s August 1869 claim for £1,279, increased to £1,757 12s 6d in January 1871. Lord and his lawyers submitted an Amended Bill of Complaint in May 1871, claiming that Todd had taken advantage of the original Bill to claim £6,014 19s 9d ‘for the first time’.
Lord’s responses to Todd’s claims were perfunctory, mostly flat contradictions. He claimed that, far from owing Todd £6,015, the latter was considerably in his debt. Both men clearly suffered considerably from their collaboration. In September 1871, Lord began proceedings for liquidation by arrangement or composition with his creditors, concluded in March 1873. All these claims and counter-claims make it difficult to know which, if either, account is accurate.
In 1855 the estate of Elizabeth Hoper (1760–1852), sister-in-law of wealthy wine merchant Matthew Chalié (1747–1838), was sold by Chalié’s grand-daughter Marianne, Countess de Morella, and others to the National Freehold Land Society (NFLS; later the British Land Company [BLC]). The NFLS was founded in 1849 with the primary aim of increasing the Liberal electorate by creating small freeholds through the purchase and subdivision of land. The NFLS laid out Chatham Road with long, narrow plots, about 12 ft by 130–210 ft, to maximise the attraction to potential voters. Assorted terraced, semi-detached, and detached property with a scattering of pubs and shops appeared slowly over the next decade. New Wandsworth station (opened 1858) was half a mile away.
After five years in residence, Lord decided to demolish his house and develop the site in 1864. He acquired 3½ acres from the BLC in January 1866 for £2,400. Todd was then engaged in less-than-successful attempts at building substantial houses at Battersea Park, but also had two estates to his name, both the property of market gardener William Howey.
George Todd obtained four times more than Lord had expected for selling the building materials from his house. Lord intended to build on his own account, but Todd urged him to lease plots, thereby avoiding problems with unfinished and unlet houses — wise advice given subsequent events. Todd was appointed to plan the estate, and supervise and certify builders’ work for 5% commission. Todd alleged that he had received nothing before legal action began in late-1870, although it seems incredible that he would have waited so long for payment.
Todd’s plans for Darley Road, Skeldon Road (later abandoned), and Swaby Road (later part of Northcote Road) were approved by the MBW on 15 June 1866. The original plans do not survive, but the layout of the estate sought, as usual, to maximise the number of house plots; provision was made for three shops, but no pubs. Messrs. Hiscox and Williams of Battersea contracted to build the roads and sewers, plus nine houses in Swaby Road and three shops in Chatham Road. Lord directed Todd to advertise for more builders in The Builder. John Reid offered very low prices for ten houses in Chatham Road, but was soon bankrupt. Todd suggested that he be replaced by John King, who agreed to complete the ten houses and erect fourteen more.
In August 1867, Todd allegedly advised Lord to make building agreements, advancing money on the basis of his certificates. Lord claimed all the builders went bankrupt before completing the houses, leaving carcasses that were insufficient security for the sums advanced. Todd denied playing any role in the building agreements. He claimed that Lord aimed to secure large ground rentals and high rates of interest for his advances.
The house designs were probably by Todd, and comprise mainly three-storey terraces with canted ground-floor bays and roofs concealed behind parapets. They had two rooms on each floor, ideal for rapid subdivision and looking distinctly ‘urban’ compared with the assorted houses on the NFLS estate. The terrace of nine houses built by Hiscox and Williams in Swaby Road in 1868 were three-storey with six rooms, semi-basements, and bays on the two lower floors. Unusually for the time, they were faced in red brick.
George Todd not only had to manage builders but also day-to-day tenancy matters. Todd’s Schedule 1 provides a house-by-house record of tenants and rents, detail rarely available for an ‘ordinary’ estate like this. Only one house was vacant in 1867–8, increasing dramatically to 13 in mid-1869 (36%), and 24 in mid-1870 (67%). There was growing concern locally about the level of over-building as early as 1869.
The first tenancy agreements commenced in March 1866, mostly for one or three years, with annual rents of £27–£36 p.a. in Chatham Road, soon reduced to £20–£30; £55 for larger houses in Bolingbroke Grove; and £25 in Swaby Road (1868). Although 87% of the rents due at Midsummer 1867 had been paid, arrears were already £37 10s. The reasons for non-payment were many and varied. Mr Paice was ‘late bankrupt’ and nine months in arrears; J. Reader was ‘distressed, ejected’; Mr Fairweather was ‘being sued’; ‘respectable’ Mr Dick had gone ‘to become a gardener in Berkshire’. Others ‘ran away to Calcutta’, ‘ran away, sued’, ‘had to give up house through reverses’, ‘paid by instalments’, or ‘vacated in great distress’.
By late-1870, things were at a low ebb: only 32% of the nominal quarterly rent roll of £45 had been collected; arrears were £20. Six houses in Chatham Road still had annual tenants, but Swaby Road had only weekly tenants. In every sense the estate was a failure. Few houses were built after 1868, and most stood empty and unproductive.
The 1871 Census shows fifteen empty houses, with thirty-four under construction in Chatham Road (fifteen), Darley Road (sixteen), and Bolingbroke Grove (three). At least Lord was able to dispose of twelve plots in 1872 for St Michael’s Church, Sunday schools, and institute.
Why was the Bolingbroke Grove estate so problematic? Conceived in the boom years 1864–5, it remained remote from the local suburban frontier until the late 1870s. The NFLS had already established a pattern of working- and lower middle-class houses and tenants, and only the Wandsworth Common frontage offered scope for superior houses. By 1881 there were seventy-two houses, still with a high vacancy rate of 21%. Bursts of activity in Darley Road in 1879–86 and 1896–1901 increased the total to 106 in 1891 and 121 in 1902, still leaving five vacant plots.
Was Lord to blame, aiming for rapid and substantial profits from middle-class tenants, irrespective of the realities of the local housing market? Or was it Todd, whose record elsewhere shows that although his grasp of practicalities may have been better, his business acumen was questionable? The chaotic proceedings at Bolingbroke Grove were a far cry from well-ordered central London estates — yet they were typical of many estates springing up across Battersea in the 1860s.
The street names provide their own footnote to the social history of the estate. The derivation of several roads in the area, suggested by builder Henry Bragg, is unknown, with one exception: Morella Road commemorates Marianne Richards, a descendant of an owner of one of the Five Houses, who in 1850 married a controversial Carlist general, Field-Marshal Don Ramón Cabrera, Count de Morella.