Our Historians

Daniel Lysons

1762–1834 · clergyman and topographer

Lysons’s Environs of London surveyed every parish within twelve miles of the capital, with careful use of parish registers, monuments and records. His accounts of Battersea and Wandsworth are among the earliest serious local histories of both.

— The Environs of London, vol. 1, County of Surrey (1792): Battersea, Wandsworth, Streatham. Transcription to come.

Owen Manning and William Bray

Manning 1721–1801 · Bray 1736–1832 · antiquaries of Surrey

The great county history of Surrey, begun by the clergyman Owen Manning and completed after his death by the lawyer William Bray. Its parish-by-parish accounts of manors, churches and landowners remain the starting point for Surrey’s history.

— The History and Antiquities of the County of Surrey, 3 vols (1804–14): Battersea, Wandsworth, Tooting, Clapham and Wimbledon, transcribed in full.

James Thorne

1815–1881 · topographer

Thorne’s alphabetical gazetteer of the country around London gives a vivid snapshot of Wandsworth and its common in the 1870s, just as the suburbs were closing in.

— Handbook to the Environs of London (1876): Wandsworth

Henry S. Simmonds

fl. 1880s · Battersea historian

Simmonds wrote the first full popular history of Battersea, a lively tour of its streets, houses, people and institutions, published just as the old village was being swallowed by London.

— All About Battersea (1882): the complete book, page by page, with its engravings and a search box

John Traviss Squire

fl. 1880s · antiquary, member of the Huguenot Society of London

Squire recorded the Huguenot burial ground at Mount Nod stone by stone, and transcribed Wandsworth’s parish registers. Without his work, much of what we know about Wandsworth’s Huguenots and their graves would be lost. About Squire and his works.

— “The Huguenots at Wandsworth and their Burial Ground at Mount Nod”, Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London, vol. 1 (1886): the article, all 145 inscriptions, and name and occupation indexes

— “Notes on Wills and Acts of Administration” (1886)

— The Registers of the Parish of Wandsworth, 1603–1787 (1889): baptisms, marriages and burials. Transcription in progress.

A. Giraud Browning and R. E. G. Kirk

fl. 1890s · antiquaries

A scholarly account of Battersea from the earliest records to the sixteenth century, drawn from charters, manorial records and other documents in the Public Record Office.

— “The Early History of Battersea”, Surrey Archaeological Collections, vol. 10 (1891)

Cecil Tudor Davis

1854–1922 · Librarian of Wandsworth, 1886–1920

For 34 years Wandsworth’s librarian, Davis was “a veritable storehouse of information about ancient Wandsworth”. He lectured to local schoolchildren on the parish’s history, wrote many booklets about Wandsworth, and transcribed the parish’s churchwardens’ accounts from 1545 to 1639, one of the richest records of a Tudor and Stuart parish anywhere near London. About Davis, with his obituary.

— Wandsworth Churchwardens’ Accounts, 1545–1558, Surrey Archaeological Collections, vol. 15

— 1558–1573 (vol. 17) · 1574–1603 (vol. 18) · 1603–1620 (vol. 19) · 1620–1630 (vol. 20) · 1631–1639 (vol. 24)

— “Burials at Wandsworth, 1678–1727” [date to check: listed here as 1949, but the scan comes from Surrey Archaeological Collections vol. 14, which would place it in Davis’s lifetime]

— Wandsworth Notes and Queries and other booklets. To be listed.

Roger Logan

modern local historian

Logan’s study of the land between Wandsworth and Clapham Commons traces how farms and estates became streets, with a sequence of maps showing the change.

— Between the Commons (2007)

Timothy Walker

modern local historian

Another account of the district between the commons, published three years after Logan’s.

— ’Twixt the Commons (2010): excerpts

Keith Bailey

modern local historian

Keith Bailey’s many studies of Wandsworth’s streets, estates and builders, and his doctoral thesis on the transformation of Battersea, are an indispensable modern foundation for the area’s history.

— The Metamorphosis of Battersea (Open University PhD, 1995) and a series of building and builder studies. Being prepared for publication on this site.

Graham R. Jackson

modern local historian

A history of the playing fields at the corner of Trinity Road and Burntwood Lane, from Wandsworth Common enclosure to sports ground.

— A History of Trinity Fields (Wandsworth Common) (2021). Chapter 2 coming to this site shortly, with the author’s permission.

Dorian Gerhold

modern historian

The standard modern history of Wandsworth, cited throughout this site.

— Wandsworth Past (1998), and many other studies of Wandsworth and Putney.