This page presents Appendix 3B of Keith Alan Bailey’s doctoral thesis The Metamorphosis of Battersea, 1800–1914: A Building History, submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in February 1995. It is published here with the author’s permission.
Appendix 3B provides biographical details for 60 of the more significant or representative builders listed in the Battersea Builders Master List (Appendix 3A). The entries are drawn primarily from the Census returns of 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881, and 1891, cross-referenced with building records, rate books, and other primary sources. As the original notes, Census data on birthplace and age are not always consistent between returns.
Taken together, the 60 entries illuminate the social and occupational world of Victorian Battersea’s building industry with unusual precision. Several themes emerge clearly: the dominance of craftsmen-turned-builders (bricklayers, carpenters, and plasterers who made the step up to contracting); the strong migratory pattern from rural southern England, particularly Wiltshire, Somerset, and Sussex; the tendency for building activity to be brief and intense; and the frequency with which builders also ran public houses or moved into related trades such as auctioneering or estate agency.
The number in red before each entry is the builder’s number as printed in Appendix 3B. Click it to go to the same builder in the Master List (see note 3). In the Master List, builders who have a biography here are marked “bio →”, which links back to this page.
1846 Martock (Som.); 1881 builder emp.8/1891 builder; 132 houses 1880-1905. Bussell is a typical large-scale builder, with a low average output over a generation. He also supplied and installed equipment.
1804 Battersea; 1851 builder emp.6/1871 retired builder/publican; 3 houses 1846-51. It seems likely that his output is under-recorded. Typical move to I licensed trade.
1836 Old Kent Road; 1871 unemp. builder/1881 builder/contr./1891 builder; 10 houses 1872-80. Son of William who built 67 houses in the York Road area in the 1850s.
1837 Yorkshire; 1871 plumber/brassfounder emp.24; 2 ho. 1873. Well-known inventor of an early water closet, building was clearly an ancillary activity.
I 1793 Sussex, II 1816 Milland (Sx.); 1861/71 builders; 25 houses 1859-68. Like the Lathey Brothers, father and son migrated to Battersea in the 1850s.
1809 Battersea; 1851 builder emp.2/1861 master builder emp. 4/1871 builder; 7 houses 1845-9. Even though there are probably unrecorded houses in the 1850s and 1860s, Eastman probably relied on repairs and subcontracting.
1864 Gillingham; 1881 builder's clerk/1891 builder; 278 houses 1883-1910. Father and son together formed one of the most important firms in late-Victorian Battersea.
1817 Southampton; 1871 carpenter; 55 houses 1865-75. Built mostly north of Clapham Junction and on the Ponton estate at Nine Elms. Died 9 Nov. 1877 after a fire at his premises which had caused frequent fits.
1841 Bisley (Glos.); 1881 builder emp.30/1891 builder; 59 houses 1866-94. Apart from Falcon Terrace (1879-80), where he was the main builder, Gregory was typically a long-lasting but small-scale operator.
1846 Warminster (Wilts.); 1871 carpenter/1881 builder emp.18; 68 houses 1876-80. Grist successfully made the move from tradesman to mid-range builder, working mostly on the Colestown II and Surrey Lane Estates.
1787-90 Bethnal Green; 1851/71 house proprietor; 23 houses 1842-67. Hart was in his late-50s when he came to Battersea until. The records of his local output are defective. Had his own minute estate at Hart Street.
1847 Pimlico; 1871 assisting father; Thomas senior built only 3 houses in the 1860s, and his workforce in 1871 implies under-recording, subcontracting or public works. Thomas junior was equally low key, with 41 houses 1879-1904.
I 1795 Berwick St. John (Wilts.); 1861 bricklayer. II 1817 Soho; 1851 bricklayer. They built 46 houses 1852-69, many with Fuller, an iron moulder. James I came from the same village as the Lathey brothers, and was probably the "pull" factor in their migration.
1811 Westminster; 1851 master bricklayer; 26 houses 1848-51. Hollands evidently acted as a middleman, using fellow tradesmen to complete houses rapidly at the peak of the cycle in New Town.
James 1851/Henry 1853 West Lavington (Wilts.): 1881 builders emp.29; 145 houses 1876-90. Also active in Wandsworth and elsewhere, became a major building firm lasting to the present-day.
1808 Middleton (Lancs.); 1861/71 carpenter; 12 houses 1855-67. Associated with Pocock's earliest work in Falcon Rd., Lawton seems to have acted more as an agent than a builder in his own right.
1831 Egham; 1861 brickfield foreman/1881 builder/contr.; 34 houses 1865-88. Responsible for Pocock's long-lived brickfield, Merritt like many local brickmakers came from the Egham/Staines area. His brother Edmund, a brickmaker in 1871, was born at Kingston in 1843. Merritt made the transition to building as the brickfield was worked out.
1802-3 Wandsworth; 1851 bricklayer emp.2/1861 bricklayer 12 houses 1846-52. All on Pain's Mendip Rd. estate. His son Benjamin was born in Kennington 1836, and followed the same trade. Moxey is typical of the craftsman-builder of the early Victorian era.
1821 Stevenage; 1871 builder; 99 houses 1862-9. Many of these were substantial houses on the Mackley Estate. Parratt also worked in Kensington at the same time.
1826 Sidbury (Devon); 1851/71 carpenter/1861 master carpenter; 23 houses 1849-66. Another craftsman who undertook building contracts around the old Village. Pinn's Terrace (1862) in Church Road survives. Pinn went bankrupt in 1867.
1853 New Arlesford (Hants.); 1891 builder/contractor/houseagent; 95 houses 1879-88. A typical middle-rank builder of the 1880s, mainly around Clapham Junction.
1844 Sutton (Essex); 1891 builder; 218 houses 1880-1910. An important builder in south Battersea, with a peaky output 1885 18/1886 0/1887 24/1888 10. Built 11 houses in Balham 1898-9.
1022Matthew Ray
1841 Windsor; 1871 builder; 3 houses 1869. Partner of Thomas Banbery, carpenter (1836 Camberwell).
1833 Baslow (Derbys.); 1871 builder emp.9; 16 houses 1867-9. Total probably understated. Shillito was one of many middling builders who appeared and vanished on the Caudwell and CLS 2 estates in the mid-1860s boom.
1838 Kingston-on-Thames; 1881 builder/1891 auctioneer/estate agent; 66 houses 1879-83. A major contributor at Falcon Park, Spearing made an unusual career move.
1825 Ampthill (Beds.); 1871 builder; 26 houses 1858-86. Another example of a long-lived local builder who made a minimal contribution. He was also a publican. His son, Joseph, was a carpenter (b. 1852 Middlesex).
1857 Battersea; George Appleton: 1842 Saxlingham (Suff.); 1881 builder emp.40; 38 houses 1875-87. Although major contributors to the southern section of George Butt's Clapham Junction Estate, Turtle & Appleton must have had a large non-Battersea order book.
1842 Bulwell (Notts.); 1871 bricklayer; 1881/91 retired builder; 27 houses 1876-80. Typical small builder with a single burst of activity, no doubt retiring to live off his tenants' rents.
1827 Bulwell (Notts.); 1871 brickwork contractor; 34 houses 1875-80. Like his younger brother Eli, his career was short and sharp, covering only the boom of the late-1870s.
1. This page is transcribed from Appendix 3B of K.A. Bailey, The Metamorphosis of Battersea, 1800–1914: A Building History (PhD thesis, 1995), and is published here with the author’s permission.
2. Dates given at the start of each entry are birth years. Census occupation descriptions are given as recorded, with the year of the relevant Census. “emp.” followed by a number indicates the number of people employed as recorded in the Census. House counts refer to Battersea only unless otherwise stated.
3. The builders’ numbers printed in Appendix 3B do not always agree with the numbering of Appendix 3A as transcribed here: they usually run one to three higher. The links from each number therefore go to the builder identified by name, dates and output in the Master List, not to the entry with the same number. For two entries (William George, no. 461, and Matthew Ray, no. 1022) no certain match has been found, so no link is given.
4. In the digitised typescript, four biographies (James Eastman, Benjamin Gilbert, Walter Lawton and Joseph Stapleton) had run on into the preceding entry. They have been separated here, giving 60 entries in all. Obvious typing and OCR errors (for example “l89l” for 1891) have been corrected silently.
K.A. Bailey, The Metamorphosis of Battersea (PhD, 1995), Appendix 3B. Transcribed and encoded for the web by Philip Boys.