PB: This is weird. Although there are a number of references to the 1937 name change — which can be seen on maps, of course — I have not been able to find ANY contemporary references in newspapers. The Wandsworth Borough news is probably the best bet, but I think it has yet to be digitised. Grrr.
Sean Creighton says in notes he sent to me in 2019 that the road was renamed to honour both father and son (i.e. Stanley Owen, Lord Buckmaster, former Liberal MP, Solicitor General (1913-1915), and Lord Chancellor (dates ?). Can this be so?
The location is significant, of course — near the site of many of Buckmaster's demonstrations (Plough Green, Chivalry Road etc).
Auckland and Buckmaster Roads
After Chatham Road, the next area of house-building was on Battersea Rise, on land formerly belonging to the Bolingbroke Grove House estate, broken up and sold at auction in 1858.12 Battersea Vestry acquired 8_ acres at the corner with Bolingbroke Grove for a parochial burial ground, which came into use in 1860 as St Mary's Cemetery (vol. 49). By 1863 land to its east had been purchased by Christopher William Todd for development with three short rows of shops and houses on Battersea Rise, and three residential streets to their south: Middleton (now Buckmaster) and Auckland Roads, both running$$north — south, and Pelling Road running east — west at their base, along the cemetery boundary. Todd later abandoned this last road, leaving only a 20ft-wide passage in its place as a link between the two other streets, which were extended.13
Work began in 1865, and then only on the main-road houses and shops (Hopefield Terrace and Villas): of these, nine survive at 133 — 143 & 145 — 149 Battersea Rise. It was not until c.1867, after the change of plan, that houses began to go up in the new streets.$$ Middleton Road was completed c.1871, Auckland Road by c.1873. Most prominent of several builders at work was John Lane of Peckham, who also built The Invitation, Auckland Road's old-fashioned brick and stucco pub, of c.1868 — 70.14
These were simple, cheaply built terraces, of two storeys in Middleton Road, with double-height canted bays, generally without basements. The addition of basements and attics gave some Auckland Road houses four stories, but otherwise they were similar. Auckland Road's west side has the greatest visual impact, with regular two-bay frontages and a roofline punctuated by a long row of gabled attic storeys (Ill. 18.5).$$ Middleton Road was renamed in 1937 after J. C. Buckmaster, the prominent local resident who campaigned tirelessly for the preservation of Wandsworth Common, and ironically was highly critical of Todd's development at Chivalry Road (below).$$
Of early residents, about half could afford a live-in domestic servant. Thomas Crapper, the sanitary engineer, and his wife Maria were the first occupants of 1 Middleton (Buckmaster) Road c.1867 — 74. His family owned most of the houses on the east side and were responsible for the construction in 1873 — 4 of the superior-looking Italianate villas at Nos 8 — 10 (St Mark's Villas), with bowed ground-floor windows. John Cazenove, the political economist and elder brother of the stockbroker and philanthropist Philip Cazenove, lived at 13 Middleton Road, where he died in 1879.15$$
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Chivalry Road area
Although not strictly located between the commons, this area is included here as it forms part of the same story. C. W. Todd was again the chief developer, acquiring the land at auction sales in 1863 and 1867 from the London Brighton & South Coast Railway Company, whose New Wandsworth railway station and coal depot stood at the north end of Wandsworth Common. Within a month or two the builder Robert Hewitt had agreed to take land facing Battersea Rise and had begun excavations.16 B
ut local inhabitants, led by J. C. Buckmaster, balked at the idea of common land being let for building. Meetings were held, Buckmaster on one occasion addressing a crowd estimated at 4 — 5,000. Handbills and posters decried the 'filching' and reselling of the common 'at enormous profit', proclaiming 'Cursed is he who removeth his neighbour's Landmark', before urging local men to tear down Todd's fences. In the end violence was avoided, though Buckmaster himself was summoned to court in 1869 for damaging Todd's property; the case was dismissed. Hewitt seems to have worked on regardless, finishing his plain three-storey houses and shops, now 153 — 167 Battersea Rise, around 1868 — 9.17
The protests may have delayed Todd's development. Most of the houses on Chivalry Road and the west side of Bolingbroke Grove date from the 1870s, 1880s or later, the row at 1 — 4 Chivalry Road being the first built, in 1872 — 4. The biggest builders were Robert Dootson of Middleton Road, who erected the fourteen two-storey houses with attics and basements at 5 — 18 Chivalry Road (Dootson's Terrace, 1877 — 8); and Stephen Martin of Hackney, with the nineteen smaller terraced cottages at 107 — 116 Bolingbroke Grove and 20 — 28 Chivalry Road (1882 — 4).18
Coal merchants and railway workers naturally found this a convenient spot to live. Late nineteenth-century residents also included foremen, bricklayers, shop assistants and junior clerks; servants were rare but not unknown, and boarders popular. A few bigger and better houses went up at the bottom end of Chivalry Road, facing the common, and round the corner in Bolingbroke Grove, where Nos 103 — 106, of the late 1870s and 80s, enjoyed long gardens reaching back to Chivalry Road.19
[50.18_between_the_commons_2.pdf]