The History of Wandsworth Common

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IN PROGRESS — NOT FOR PUBLICATION

The Development of the Palmerston Road Area, 1850–1910

Build 2 — 20 September 2026

By Keith Bailey. Completed 30 July 2026. Formatted for the website by Claude (Anthropic).

Introduction

The process of building estate development in Victorian and Edwardian Wandsworth and its neighbours was generally unplanned and involved a wide range of individuals and organisations. Although there were various legal requirements, such as street-width and drainage, this was overwhelmingly a private-sector achievement until the late-1890s, when local authorities acquired legal powers to build. Housebuilding depended on the availability of land and finance, as well as the provision of London-wide mains drainage to which existing and newly-built houses could be connected. Building remained largely unmechanised throughout, with legions of builders and building craftsmen and labourers transforming the fields at what seems like an impossible speed viewed from a present-day perspective.

This paper examines a small area east of Merton Road at Dunsford Cross. Although building commenced during the mid-late 1860s peak in the London building cycle, it was not completed until after 1900. Even then, in the south of this area, several acres remained undeveloped. As usual, building proceeded in fits and starts, depending on various factors including the willingness of landowners to develop and the state of the wider economy. Original landowners occasionally undertook development themselves. More usually, however, this only occurred after the land had been sold off to developers and builders.

The major pre-urban landowners in Wandsworth and its neighbours in the 18th and early-19th centuries were the Earls Spencer, but the small manor of Dunsford, which included the area discussed here, was owned by the Brodrick family, Lords Middleton. They had been lords of Dunsford since 1664. The fields discussed in this paper were Dunsford Cross Closes and Shepherds Closes. In 1841, Lord Middleton owned eleven acres of the study area, occupied by prosperous local butcher William Stimpson (d.1848). In 1841, Stimpson had employed four staff, along with members of his family and two servants. Although he died intestate, members of the Stimpson family continued to prosper in the meat trade for many years. They were remembered in the street-name Stimpsons Buildings, a block of tenements on the bank of the Wandle which was demolished in the 1960s.

In 1841, silk merchant William Edgar (born at Canonbie, Dumfriesshire) owned and occupied almost seven acres of land. He was the co-founder of the famous Piccadilly department store, Swan & Edgar. In 1841, Edgar was aged fifty and living on West Hill with six domestic servants. He owned plot 430 (6.78 acres). By 1861, Edgar had moved to Clapham, where he died in 1869.

Among the smaller landowners in the study area was a Mrs Lawrence, who owned plot 431 (1.63 acres), occupied by Jonathon Dawson. John Holland owned plots 427 (1.21 acres) and 428 (0.63 acres). In total, the absentee Holland owned almost nineteen acres in Wandsworth. Both plots were occupied by George Cupit (1780–1847) and Edward Wallis respectively. Cupit lived in North Field and gave his occupation in 1841 as ‘Independent’.

Edward Wallis neatly encapsulates the great variety of backgrounds of those directly involved in the development process in Wandsworth. He was born in the parish of St. George Hanover Square in 1826. In 1841, Wallis lived by the Wandle at Dunts Hill off Garratt Lane. Although aged only fifteen, he was running his own business as a horse slaughterer, with two staff. By 1851, he had begun a second career as a developer, living at Wallis’s Cottages next to Upper Wandle House. The head-of-household was his mother. By 1871, Wallis had added ‘Artficial Manure Maker’, or super phosphate manufacturer, and landowner to his business description. He now employed fifteen men and one boy and had four servants. Wallis died in April 1872, leaving an estate worth less than £800.

As was the case in many other parts of Wandsworth, there had been little sign in 1841 of the impending transformation from agriculture and horticulture to a corner of suburbia. Equally typical was the protracted process of development. In this case, although the first houses were built in the 1850s, the last only went up in the 1900s. Even then, a substantial area had yet to attract developers and builders, mostly for commercial rather than residential use.

[1913 Ordnance Survey 25-inch plan of the Palmerston Road area — to be added]

The Palmerston Road area, OS 25-inch plan, 1913.

Housebuilding, 1860–1920

There is little evidence as to when and by whom housing development commenced in this part of Wandsworth. The 1st Edition of the OS 25-inch plan, surveyed in 1865–66, shows that the west side of Merton Road south of Wimbledon Park Road was fully built-up. In contrast, there had been little building on the east side. The land behind still comprised a line of pastures crossed by a footpath. A public house and two short terraces had, however, been built on either side of ‘New Road’, soon to be named Palmerston Road after the recently-deceased Prime Minister, Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865), one of the most prominent politicians of the early-Victorian era. Palmerston gave his name to a public house at the northern end of the new road.

The number of houses built between 1863 and 1897 is summarised below.

Table 1: Houses Built, 1863–1897

Most of the houses in Palmerston Road were built by William Strong (1820–1896), a prominent local builder in the 1860s. Between 1863 and 1869, he built almost forty houses. Like many builders in Victorian Wandsworth, Strong came from a rural background, in his case Shinfield in Berkshire. He came to Wandsworth in the 1840s. By 1851 he was living in Wimbledon, giving his occupation as ‘master bricklayer’, employing twelve men, including his brother Thomas. By 1861 Strong had moved to no.5 Mount Pleasant, Merton Road. Between 1863 and 1869 he built forty-two houses in Merton Road and Palmerston Road, the latter having been approved by the Metropolitan Board of Works in November 1863. The relevant minute mentions ‘Mr. Strong’s public house in Merton Road’. Like many Victorian builders, he had another string to his bow. Indeed, in 1871 Strong gave his occupation as ‘publican’, now living at the Queen’s Head in central Richmond. Unusually, Strong returned to the building industry during the 1870s. In 1881 he was living in Lydden Road on the east bank of the Wandle, giving his occupation as ‘builder & contractor’. He was responsible for thirty-two houses between 1879 and 1882. Although he continued to be active into old age, Strong was clearly in reduced circumstances. In 1891 he lived in Lemuel Street, giving his occupation as ‘laundryman’. He died in early-1896, leaving a modest £250.

After the initial flurry of activity spearheaded by William Strong, almost fifteen years elapsed before a group of new streets was laid out south of Merton Road and west of Palmerston Road. In August 1883, the MBW approved an application for new streets by architect William Newton Dunn of Marylebone on behalf of Thomas & Co. They comprised a continuation of Palmerston Road together with Ingomar, Brathway and Camborne Roads. (Ingomar Road was renamed Coliston Road in 1894. The first of these names appears to commemorate an ‘incredibly popular’ stage play in five acts called Ingomar the Barbarian by Austrian writer Friedrich Halm, ‘frequently staged in the West End’ from 1851.) Coliston, by contrast, is a family-name centred on the east coast of Scotland, and may have been chosen by Newton Dunn.

Building in this newly-approved group of streets began in mid-1884, in the later stages of the first major peak in the building cycle to affect Wandsworth, and progress was very rapid (Table 1). Sixty-one houses were built in 1884 and sixty-three in 1885. Thereafter, the pace slowed with twenty in 1886 and nine in 1887. No notices appear in the District Surveyor’s Returns between 1888 and 1892. The final forty-one houses were approved 1893 and 1897.

[Editorial note: the year-by-year figures given in this paragraph (61 in 1884, 63 in 1885, 20 in 1886, and 9 in 1887) don't quite match Table 1 above (57, 64 and 16 for those same years, with no 1887 row at all). Left exactly as supplied — worth checking against the original notes.]

The principal builders in the study area are detailed in Table 2. Thirteen individuals were responsible for 145 houses out of 182 (80%).

Table 2: Principal Builders between Merton Road and Camborne Road, 1884–1906

Eighteen individuals built fewer than five houses apiece. They contributed thirty-seven houses, one-fifth of the total. Their addresses recorded in the DSRs show that the majority lived in Wandsworth or within a few miles. Some came from further afield, including Philip Skam of Herne Hill and George Saxby of Kilburn.

Two individuals were responsible for a quarter of the houses: Thomas Guerin of Wandsworth (22 houses) and Edwin Wood (21). Irishman Guerin (1856–1904) was actually a barrister by profession and was presumably acting on behalf of an unnamed landowner or developer. Unusually, Guerin’s estate was assessed for probate in both England and Scotland, totalling £3,200. Edwin Wood (b.1846, Guildford) was a bricklayer in Camberwell in 1871, progressing to builder by 1881 and 1891, when his son is described in the Census as ‘assistant builder’.

[Portrait of Thomas Guerin — image to be added]

Thomas Guerin.

Builders of between ten and fifteen houses include Henry Mundy, who came from Marlborough, Wiltshire, and who lived for many years in the Plough Lane area of Battersea. He built thirteen houses in Coliston Road and Merton Road, the latter including four shops. George Vidler of Tooting was a plasterer by trade and must have worked with other tradesmen in the building of the houses with which he is credited in the DSRs. George Mann of Norwood was responsible for a dozen houses in Brathway Road in 1885.

Residents of the Palmerston Road Area in 1901

The first sixty or so houses in this part of Wandsworth were built during the 1860s peak of the building cycle. Most of them were in Palmerston Road. Progress thereafter was fitful until the remaining new streets were laid out in the 1880s as Southfields grew by leaps and bounds. It is unclear what market the landowners and developers were aiming to attract to this corner of Wandsworth. In 1901, two-thirds of heads of household belonged to the lower ranks of the middle classes and upper ranks of the working classes: (III Non-manual: 29.3%) and (III Manual: 32.0%). Semi-skilled and unskilled workers accounted for 22% and 15% of the total, respectively.

From a population numbering only a few dozen in 1841, six decades of fitful development had seen this rise to 1,634 in 1901, the great majority since 1881. In 1901 the total numbers in each street were: Merton Road (232); Palmerston Road (369); Coliston Road (232); Camborne Road (436); and Brathway Road (365). In 1841, the study area had probably contained less than 1% of Wandsworth’s population. In 1901, this proportion had risen to 2.4% of a vastly increased population. One thing which stands out in the 1901 Census is the large number of houses in multiple-occupancy, even though none had been built as so-called half-houses with separate front doors, a dwelling-type which was spreading across many parts of Wandsworth at that time.

[Editorial note: the source text read "...the great majority in the since 1881... In 1901 the total numbers in each street were: Wandsworth in 1901 were: Merton Road (232)...", which looks like a leftover duplicate phrase from editing. Tidied to a single reading above — the underlying figures are unchanged.]

The only significant commercial development in this area was along the south side of Merton Road, and a small cluster in Palmerston Road. The sole public house was the Lord Palmerston at the corner of Merton and Palmerston Roads. The retailing hub was along Merton Road between Coliston Road and Brathway Road. The most significant commercial enterprise was a laundry in Merton Road, built after 1894. The remaining streets attracted only the odd corner shop. In 1901 no.10 Merton Road was the home of laundry proprietor Albert Marsh. In 1891 he had been at no.1 Brathway Road, describing himself as ‘laundryman’ with a resident servant. By 1911, Marsh had progressed to managing director of the steam laundry, employed by Messrs. Spiers & Pond. He then lived in Wimbledon Park Road, with one domestic. He was still there in 1921, but employed as an Investigating Officer for the Ministry of Labour, still with a resident servant. Albert Marsh later lived at no.54 Seymour Road, Wandsworth. He died in 1945, leaving an estate valued at £3,786.

Conclusion

The small corner of Wandsworth discussed here was developed in the usual piecemeal fashion over several decades. When complete in the early 1900s, it contained just over 180 houses, occupied by 1,634 people. For some reason the developers and builders opted not to employ the model of the ‘half-house’, in which two households each had their own front door, which became very popular in the 1890s and 1900s. This meant that there was a significant level of multiple-occupancy in the area covered in this paper.

Completed 30 July 2026; 2,130 words. By Keith Bailey.