General Practitioner in Nairobi, Kenya; Senior Medical Officer Magadi Soda Co Ltd, Kenya; Medical Officer, Tanganyika Territory; MB, ChB, DTM&H, DPH; died, c 1994.
Sybil W Hart was born in 1887, the daughter of William Herbert Hart and Ellen Louisa Barritt, both of whom were Quakers. Sybil was educated in London and at the Friends school in Saffron Walden from the age of 11. In 1913 Sybil married Andrew EC White and moved to Kilmarnock, both of them were ardent pacifists and Sybil also supported anti-vivisection societies. During the First World War, Sybil served on the Friends Emergency Committee and the War Victims Relief Committee. She died in 1985.
Born, Devonport, 1845; educated at the Royal School of Naval Architecture and Royal Naval College, 1870-1881; directed war-ship building of Armstrong & Co, Newcastle, 1883-1885; Director, Naval Construction and Assistant Controller, Royal Navy, 1885-1902; Consulting Naval Architect, Cunard SS Mauretania, 1904-1907; President, Institution of Civil Engineers, Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Institution of Marine Engineers; Chairman of the Council, Royal Society of Arts, 1909-1910; Master, Shipwrights Company of London; Governor, Imperial College, 1907-1913; died, 1913.
Publications: include: A Manual of Naval Architecture. For the use of Officers of the Royal Navy, Ship-builders (J Murray, London, 1877); Lecture on the turning powers of ships from the Journal of the Royal United Service Institution (1882); Modern War-ships.
Sir William Hale-White was born in Marylebone, London on 7 Nov 1857, the eldest son of William Hale White (Mark Rutherford) and his wife Harriet Arthur. He was educated at the City of London School, and Framlingham College, entering Guy's Hospital, London, in 1874. Graduated MB (London) 1879, and MRCS 1880. He was appointed House Physician and Resident Medical Officer at the Evelina Hospital for Children, Demonstrator of Anatomy at Guy's Hospital, 1881; Assistant Physician, 1885; Lecturer on Medicine, 1899; Croonian Lecturer to the Royal College of Physicians, 1897; He retired as Physician from Guy's Hospital in 1917, and became consulting physician.
During World War 1, White was a member of the Final Medical Appeal Board, and chairman of Queen Mary's Royal Naval Hospital, Southend.
Other posts held included President of the Royal Society of Medicine; late Vice-Chairman Queen's Institute of District Nursing; late Councillor, British Red Cross Society; Fellow, Bedford College; Treasurer, Epsom College, and Harveian Orator, 1927.
White was also joint editor of the Guy's Hospital Reports from 1886-1893, and in 1925 founded the Postgraduate Medical Journal of the Fellowship of Medicine, and the Association of Physicians of Great Britain and Ireland for the interchange of opinion upon the scientific aspects of medicine.
Awards: KBE, 1919; MD London and Dublin; FRCP; Hon. LLD, Edinburgh, 1927; Hon. FRCP, Edinburgh, 1931. In 1886 he married Edith Jane Spencer (Jeanie) Fripp, (died 1945). White died on 26 Feb 1949.
Publications: Text-Book of General Therapeutics, 1889; Materia Medica, 1892; Text-Book of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 1901; Common Affections of the Liver, 1908; Bacon, Gilbert and Harvey, 1927; Laennec, 1923; Great Doctors of the Nineteenth Century, 1935; Keats as Doctor and Patient, 1938.
Reginald Hale White was born in 1895, the third son of William Hale White and his wife Edith Jane Spencer Fripp. He qualified at Guy's Hospital, and took up General Practice.
Reginald Hale-White (1895-1967), general practitioner in London and Principal Medical Officer to the Alliance Assurance Company and the Imperial Life Assurance Company of Canada: Chairman of the Fellowship for Freedom in Medicine from 1955 to 1967.
The Fellowship was founded by Lord Horder in 1948 as a right-wing pressure group to support the interests of private practitioners in medicine and to oppose further extension of state intervention following the establishmernt of the National Health Service.
Margaret Mary White, born on 7 June 1914; attended St George's College for Civil Service and Secretarial Training, formerly the Civil Service Department of King's College, London; passed the Civil Service Examinations for Female Telegraphists, 1929; Civil Service Examinations for Sorting Assistants, 1929 and Civil Service Examinations for Writing Assistants, 1930; worked as a telegraphist in the General Post Office from 1930; retired from her career in 1937 after marrying Frank Arthur Smith; died on 29 January 1979.
In 1864, Louisa Makin (1836-1912) married Robert White (1825-1887). He had two surviving children by his first wife, Elizabeth (1827-1855), a daughter Fanny Alicia White (1853-1922 - later married to Dr Julian Willis) and a son Robert Hornby White (1850-1888). Robert and Louisa White had several children. After their first child, a son, was still-born in 1865, Louisa went on to have Mary Louisa (Louie) White (1866-1935); Lucy Winifred (Winnie) White (1869-1962); Jessie Gertrude (1871-[1941]; and Agnes Sarah (1873-1882). Winnie married Charles Henry Nicholls (1866-1938) in 1902. Their daughter, born after the death of a first child) was Agnes Margaret (Poppy) Nicholls (1907-1993). All three daughters were educated at Sheffield High School and worked as teachers.
Winnie Nicholls worked for two years for the London University matriculation, but gave up her studies when her father died. She worked as a private governess (1888-1892) and then as a staff and form mistress at Kensington High School (1892-1901). During this period she trained in elocution at the Guildhall School of Music, and between 1902 and 1917 she taught elocution and history of art at various local schools including St Margaret's, Harrow, Kensington High School, Putney High School, Croyden High School and Leinster House School. In 1916-1917 she founded and was Head of The Garden School, which was based on principles of love, freedom, brotherhood, cooperation and service. The school moved from London to Ballinger, Great Missenden in 1921, and in 1928 to Lane End, near High Wycombe, 'where open air and contact with great natural beauty played an important part in the lives of pupils and staff. While academic subjects were given their due importance in the curriculum, music, rhythmic movement, drama, art and handicrafts were considered equally essential. All forms of original expression were encouraged'. Winnie Nicholls retired in 1937, though the school continued for another 10 years. She was also heavily involved with the New Education Fellowship, which held conferences at the Garden School.
Mary Louisa (Louie) White worked as a music teacher. She was also a composer and pianist of some skill, and invented the 'Letterless Method' of teaching music to beginners.
Jessie Gertrude White appears to have been a music teacher.
William White lived in Peckham, but moved to Marylebone after his wedding.
Katharine C Bushnell (1855-1946) was born in Peru, Illinois on 5 Feb 1855. She became a doctor of medicine and a learned scholar of Hebrew and Greek. During her travels in India, Bushnell became involved in exposing the control of prostitution by the Indian government. She then proceeded to England to campaign against its continuance. During the early 1920s, Bushnell returned to America where she worked on her book, God's Word to Women, which was published in 1923. This book was a culmination of the work invested in the 'Women's Correspondence Bible Class'. The lecture notes of this class provided the foundation of the published work. Bushnell held positions such as President of the Union to Combat the Sanitation of Vice (America) and Vice-president of the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene. Katharine Bushnell died, aged ninety years of age, on 26 Jan 1946. Note: Nothing is known of Mrs F White [TWL 7FWH] other than her being a pupil enrolled on Bushnell's 'Women's Correspondence Bible Class'.
Born 1901; Highgate School (Senior Foundationer); Geology student, King's College London, 1918-1921; BSc, 1921, PhD, 1927, DSc, 1936; entered British Museum (Natural History), 1922; Deputy Keeper of Department of Palaeontology (formerly of Geology) at British Museum, 1938-1955; Keeper of Department of Palaeontology at British Museum, 1955-1966; Honorary Research Fellow, Department of Geology, University of Reading, from 1981; geological expeditions to Madagascar, 1929-1930, and Spitsbergen, 1939; temporary Principal, Ministry of Health, 1940-1945; Honorary Secretary of the Ray Society, 1946-1951, Vice-President, 1951-1954, President, 1956-1959; member of the Council of the Geological Society, 1949-1953, Vice-President, 1957-1960; President, Linnean Society, 1964-1967; member of the Council of the Zoological Society, 1959-1963; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1956; CBE 1960; died 11 January 1985.
Publications: Eocene fishes from Nigeria (London, 1926); The vertebrate faunas of the English eocene (London, 1931); Fossil fishes of Sokoto Province (1934); The vertebrate faunas of the lower old red sandstone of the Welsh Borders. Pteraspis Leathensis White, a dittonian zone-fossil (British Museum, London, 1950); Australian arthrodires (London, 1952); The eocene fishes of Alabama (Paleontological Research Institution, Ithaca, 1956); The old red sandstone of Brown Clee Hill and the adjacent area. II. Palaeontology (London, 1961); The fossil fishes of the terraces of Lake Bosumtwi, Ashanti.
Born 17 May 1907; BSc General, Chemistry, Botany and Physiology, King's College London, 1926-1929; member of King's College London Women's Boating Club; undertook research work on possible uses of seaweed, 1940-1945; after the war helped build up the research department of the Central Middlesex Hospital with Sir Francis Avery Jones, Physician at the Gastroenterological Department at the Hospital, and established a library of medical papers, supported by grants from the Medical Research Council; Librarian of the Gastroenterology Unit at the Hospital; retired 1972; died 1987.
By the end of the nineteenth century, White was well-known as an upholder of anti-German policies and an advocate of a strong navy, exerting his influence through articles in the Daily Express and a column in the Referee under his pseudonym 'Vanoc'. He thus became involved in the naval policies of the day and was an active member of the British Navy League, For Herbrand Arthur, eleventh Duke of Bedford (1858-1940), he also acted as supplier of information and political agent.
Thomas Whitby, deputy of Vintry Ward, was described in 1849 as having been very generous towards Guildhall Library during his lifetime.
Whitbread International was formed in 1967 as a subsidiary company to be responsible for Whitbread Group's overseas interests. The aim was to increase earnings from overseas assets to make up a third of all Company profits. However, following a reorganisation of the company's divisions in mid 1980s, Whitbread International disappeared into the new divisions of North America and Wines and Spirits. This reflected the company's focus on North American trade following the decision not to invest on the scale needed to exploit Continental business.
The Anchor Brewery in Lewisham was acquired by Whitbread at the end of 1890 for the price of £185,000. It had previously been owned by H. and V. Nicholl Limited who had bought it in 1866. The initial motive for the purchase was to use the premises as a bottling depot for distribution to the Whitbread market south of the Thames however Whitbread also had the added incentive of gaining control of the Anchor's tied trade that amounted to 24,000 barrels a year.
Manor Park was one of Whitbread and Company's brewing depots, located in Ilford.
The Matthews and Cannings brewery in Chelsea was bought by Whitbread in 1899. At that time it was valued at £274,000 which included 100 tied houses taking most of the 60,000 barrels being produced. Unlike the previous Whitbread purchases, Matthews and Cannings was kept open as a brewery with Charles Crawshay, previous manager and one of the old owners, kept on to run it. Charles Crawshay was also made a managing director of Whitbread.
Whitbread Properties Limited was formed out of the Forest Hill Brewery Company in 1929 and was based at the Saracens' Head Hotel, Beaconfield in Buckinghamshire, although later moved to The Brewery, Chiswell Street, EC1 (the main Whitbread offices).
Whitbread (London) Limited was a subsidiary company of Whitbread and Company Limited.
Samuel Whitbread (1720-96) of Cardington, Bedfordshre, was apprenticed in 1736 to John Wightman, a leading London brewer. In 1742 he entered into partnership with Godfrey Shewell and Thomas Shewell and acquired the Goat Brewhouse on the corner of Whitecross Street and Upper Old Street in the City of London about a quarter of a mile north of where the main brewery was to become established in Chiswell Street. They traded as Godfrey Shewell and Company and by 1749 were producing 18,000 barrels of beer a year and owned 14 public houses. As well as beer, the brewery also sold its surplus yeast and spent grains from which most of the Capital's bread was made along with much of the gin. This was in addition to almost of London's livestock that were feed on brewer's grain.
Godfrey Shewell left the partnership upon his marriage in 1748. Thomas Shewell and Whitbread acquired the Chiswell Street site, known as the King's Head Brewhouse (previously The Eagle and Child, in 1750 with the acquisition of a leasehold interest on the south side of Chiswell Street extending from Whitecross Street to the Brewery gate. He built a large porter brewery (porter being strong, black beer, made from coarse barley and scorched malt). The Goat Brewhouse, Old Street, was retained to brew pale and amber beer (pale ale is brewed with lightly roasted malt, compared to the highly roasted malts used to brew porters). Thomas Shewell retired in 1761 when Whitbread bought him out for £30,000.
Additions were made to the Chiswell Street Brewery in 1758 with the cooperage, a house for the head cooper, stables and a retail beer shop being built. The Porter Tun Room was constructed in 1760 along with a new storehouse and in 1790 land was bought on the north side of the street back to Cherry Tree Alley extending in some places to Whitecross Street.
Production at the Brewery was greatly enhanced by the introduction of steam power when Whitbread purchased a Boulton and Watt steam engine in 1785 to grind malt and pump water to the boilers. This enabled the Brewery to increase production and by 1787 the output reached 150,280 barrels. Samuel Whitbread died in 1796 by which time the Brewery was producing 200,000 barrels of beer a year and was described as the best in London. Although the introduction of steam power at Whitbread's saved much labour, the brewery still employed around 200 men and 80 horses.
Brewing required a huge amount of money and the market of hops was volatile. The time delay between the buying of hops and the selling of the beer also imposed severe restrictions on the cash flow of the business. This situation was further exacerbated by the need for the Brewery to support publicans. The Company established its own maltings located in Dereham, Whittington and King's Lynn in the county of Norfolk and also grew their own hops in the Weald of Kent at Beltring and Stilstead farms and Paddock Wood with a growing area of over four hundred acres.
After the death of Samuel Whitbread I the Brewery was run by Samuel Whitbread II (1758-1815) and his father's executors until 1799 when a partnership made up of Samuel Whitbread II, Richard Sangster, clerk, Joseph Yallowley, clerk, (both executors of Samuel Whitbread I's Will) and Timothy Brown, banker, was formed. The terms of the partnership freed Whitbread from attending personally to any business. They were joined by Joseph Goodman, Jacob Whitbread (Samuel's cousin) and Sir Benjamin Hobhouse, banker in 1800. Timothy Brown left the partnership in 1810 after an accounting dispute.
At the start of the eighteenth century the majority of the Brewery's trade was with free houses with 392 licensed victuallers in London and two hundred spread throughout the rest of the country. Along with these freehouses there were also twenty-nine leaseholds. In 1812 the business amalgamated with that of Martineau and Bland of the Lambeth Brewery, King's Arms Stairs, Lambeth, adding a further 38 leaseholds to the list bringing the total number to 91. The Lambeth Brewery closed down and the stock of beer, horses and the larger part of the machinery and utensils were transferred to the Chiswell Street Brewery. The managing partners at this time were Robert Sangster, Michael Bland, John Martineau and Joseph Martineau. By 1889, when the Company was formed from the partnership, the number of licensed houses controlled and served by the Brewery totalled many hundreds.
After Samuel Whitbread II's death in 1815 (he committed suicide by cutting his throat with a razor), a new partnership was formed comprising two new partners, William Wilshere and John Farquhar. John Martineau, Joseph Martineau and Michael Bland were the managing partners. William Henry Whitbread (1796-1879), the second son of Samuel Whitbread II, joined the partnership in 1819, along with Samuel Charles Whitbread (1796-1879), his younger brother. Richard Martineau joined the partnership in 1828 as a junior partner and John Cam Hobhouse (later Lord Broughton, son of Sir Benjamin Hobhouse) became a partner in 1831.
John Martineau died in 1834 "being seized with apoplexy {he} had fallen in to the vat" in the Porter Tun Room. The jury returned a verdict of "death by the visitation of God". Charles Shaw Lefevre (MP 1830-57, later Viscount Eversley, son-in-law of Samuel Whitbread II) joined the partnership in 1840. This partnership ran for twenty years. William Whitbread (d 1879), the second son of Samuel Charles Whitbread, and John Martineau became partners in 1860, followed by F Lubbock in 1875, Samuel Whitbread III (1830-1915) in 1879, and W H Whitbread, second son of Samuel Whitbread III, in 1885.
After Viscount Eversley died in July 1889 the business was registered as a limited liability company, Whitbread and Company Limited, with Samuel Whitbread III as chairman. Brewery business had been conducted by partnerships for ninety years, the total number of partners during this period being thirty, seven of whom were members of the Whitbread family.
Throughout the latter part of the nineteenth century the Brewery expanded purchasing additional land and buildings on the north side of Chiswell Street. A tunnel under the road connected the cellars on both side of the street that occupied around five acres of space underground and the total length of the beer mains in the Brewery stretched from between two and a half to three miles. Along with the rooms normally associated with a brewery, research and control laboratories had also been built following inspiration by Louis Pasteur who undertook research at the Brewery in 1871. By 1905, at the height of production when the brewery was at its fullest extent, the freehold area of Chiswell Street was over five acres.
Production at Chiswell Street rose rapidly again with the success of bottled beer which began in 1868 following a reduction on the duty on glass. The new bottling stores were located in Worship Street, Finsbury but bottled beer proved so popular that the bottling stores had to move to larger premises at 277 Gray's Inn Road in 1869. By the middle of 1889 the Brewery was producing 336,000 barrels up to nearly 700,000 barrels by mid-1900 with profits equalling £205,000. To meet the demand for bottled beers depots were opened in Lewisham, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Weston Rise, Cardiff, Manchester, Totteham, Newcastle, Poole, Hull, Leicester, Nottingham and Kingston and a new headquarters office was opened at 27 Britannia Street, London, in 1900. The first overseas depot in Brussels established in 1904, expanding to include Antwerp in 1906 followed by Liege in 1910, Paris in 1912 and Ghent in 1913. By the time the depot in Ghent was in operation more than half of the brewery's output of close to one million barrels was being bottled.
Circumstance and legislation brought in during the Great War saw production limited to 18 million barrels at the start of 1917 and then halved by March to less than a third of pre-war output. By 1918 production had fallen to 400,000 barrels and was only 100,000 barrels higher eighteen years later. Over 1000 Whitbread employees had enlisted in the War and 95 were killed either in action or from wounds sustained.
Following the purchase of the Forest Hill brewery in the early 1920s, Whitbread began experimenting with brewing 'bright' beer where the beer was matured and filtered before bottling to prevent sedimentation. The technique was a success and rolled out to the whole Whitbread brand. In the 1920s Whitbread also introduced the Double Brown which was designed to rival Guinness and was almost a recreation of Whitbread's original porter.
In the mid-1920s Whitbread was experiencing a slump in trade. Sales were down overall by an average of 34%, twice that experienced by the trade as a whole. In response Sydney Nevile, the managing director, decided upon an avid advertising campaign using popular celebrities such as Gertie Lawrence and Ronald Squire and hired a publicity manager in the form of Hal Douglas Thomson, a newspaper advertising executive. He also attempted to widen the range of products available with additions such as cider and to develop exports to the colonies although the latter was not particularly successful. However it was the popularity of Mackeson's milk stout which buoyed sales in the the late 1930s and although still a long way off their 1913 peak they were a third higher than in 1932.
Unlike the Great War of 1914-18, general beer production across the country rose rapidly during the Second World War with Whitbread's production up 50% to 914,000 barrels by 1945 - almost beating the 1912 record of 989,000. Despite mass devastation of buildings in the surrounding area due to fire raids, Whitbread's own fire brigade was able to protect the Chiswell premises. Even after the great raid on 29th December 1940, production at the plant restarted after only four days. Between 1939-1945, 565 (90%) of Whitbread's licensed public houses in London were damaged by the Blitz, with 29 completely destroyed and an additional 49 so badly damaged that they had to close.
By 1948, the Company was employing 5,000 people. In addition to Brewery workers, by the 1950s over 5000 people were employed in the cultivation and harvesting of the hop bines that were grown by the Company in Kent. New breweries were built at Luton, in 1969, Samlesbury, Lancashire, in 1972 and Magor, Gwent in 1978. The Chiswell Street Brewery ceased brewing in 1976. In 1989 the Company operated 6 breweries at Castle Eden, Durham; Magor, Gwent; Exchange Brewery, Bridge Street, Sheffield; Court Street, Faversham, Kent; Monson Avenue, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire; and Cuerdale Lane, Samlesbury, Preston, Lancashire.
During the final decades of the 20th Century, Whitbread seriously invested in the food and lodgings sectors. The Beefeater brand was launched in 1974 and Brewers Fayre followed five years later. Whitbread introduced Pizza Hut and TGI Friday's to Britain in the 1980s and adding continental-style high street brands like Costa, Cafe Rouge and Bella Pasta in the nineties. During that time Whitbread Hotel Company developed from a small number of three and four-star coaching inns and country houses, establishing Travel Inn in 1987 and securing the UK rights to the Marriott brand in 1995.
The Whitbread Beer Company was sold to Belgian brewer Interbrew in May 2000. First Quench (off-licences business) was sold in September 2000 to the Japanese investment bank Nomura (then jointly owned with Punch Group). Whitbread continues as a company with interests in hotels, restaurants and health and fitness clubs.
Samuel Whitbread (1720-96) of Cardington, Bedfordshire, was apprenticed in 1736 to John Wightman, a leading London brewer. In 1742 he entered into partnership with Godfrey Shewell and Thomas Shewell and acquired the Goat Brewhouse on the corner of Whitecross Street and Upper Old Street in the City of London about a quarter of a mile north of where the main brewery was to become established in Chiswell Street. They traded as Godfrey Shewell and Company and by 1749 were producing 18,000 barrels of beer a year and owned 14 public houses. As well as beer, the brewery also sold its surplus yeast and spent grains from which most of the Capital's bread was made along with much of the gin. This was in addition to almost of London's livestock that were feed on brewer's grain.
Godfrey Shewell left the partnership upon his marriage in 1748. Thomas Shewell and Whitbread acquired the Chiswell Street site, known as the King's Head Brewhouse (previously The Eagle and Child, in 1750 with the acquisition of a leasehold interest on the south side of Chiswell Street extending from Whitecross Street to the Brewery gate. He built a large porter brewery (porter being strong, black beer, made from coarse barley and scorched malt). The Goat Brewhouse, Old Street, was retained to brew pale and amber beer (pale ale is brewed with lightly roasted malt, compared to the highly roasted malts used to brew porters). Thomas Shewell retired in 1761 when Whitbread bought him out for £30,000.
Additions were made to the Chiswell Street Brewery in 1758 with the cooperage, a house for the head cooper, stables and a retail beer shop being built. The Porter Tun Room was constructed in 1760 along with a new storehouse and in 1790 land was bought on the north side of the street back to Cherry Tree Alley extending in some places to Whitecross Street.
Production at the Brewery was greatly enhanced by the introduction of steam power when Whitbread purchased a Boulton and Watt steam engine in 1785 to grind malt and pump water to the boilers. This enabled the Brewery to increase production and by 1787 the output reached 150,280 barrels. Samuel Whitbread died in 1796 by which time the Brewery was producing 200,000 barrels of beer a year and was described as the best in London. Although the introduction of steam power at Whitbread's saved much labour, the brewery still employed around 200 men and 80 horses.
Brewing required a huge amount of money and the market of hops was volatile. The time delay between the buying of hops and the selling of the beer also imposed severe restrictions on the cash flow of the business. This situation was further exacerbated by the need for the Brewery to support publicans. The Company established its own maltings located in Dereham, Whittington and King's Lynn in the county of Norfolk and also grew their own hops in the Weald of Kent at Beltring and Stilstead farms and Paddock Wood with a growing area of over four hundred acres.
After the death of Samuel Whitbread I the Brewery was run by Samuel Whitbread II (1758-1815) and his father's executors until 1799 when a partnership made up of Samuel Whitbread II, Richard Sangster, clerk, Joseph Yallowley, clerk, (both executors of Samuel Whitbread I's Will) and Timothy Brown, banker, was formed. The terms of the partnership freed Whitbread from attending personally to any business. They were joined by Joseph Goodman, Jacob Whitbread (Samuel's cousin) and Sir Benjamin Hobhouse, banker in 1800. Timothy Brown left the partnership in 1810 after an accounting dispute.
At the start of the eighteenth century the majority of the Brewery's trade was with free houses with 392 licensed victuallers in London and two hundred spread throughout the rest of the country. Along with these freehouses there were also twenty-nine leaseholds. In 1812 the business amalgamated with that of Martineau and Bland of the Lambeth Brewery, King's Arms Stairs, Lambeth, adding a further 38 leaseholds to the list bringing the total number to 91. The Lambeth Brewery closed down and the stock of beer, horses and the larger part of the machinery and utensils were transferred to the Chiswell Street Brewery. The managing partners at this time were Robert Sangster, Michael Bland, John Martineau and Joseph Martineau. By 1889, when the Company was formed from the partnership, the number of licensed houses controlled and served by the Brewery totalled many hundreds.
After Samuel Whitbread II's death in 1815 (he committed suicide by cutting his throat with a razor), a new partnership was formed comprising two new partners, William Wilshere and John Farquhar. John Martineau, Joseph Martineau and Michael Bland were the managing partners. William Henry Whitbread (1796-1879), the second son of Samuel Whitbread II, joined the partnership in 1819, along with Samuel Charles Whitbread (1796-1879), his younger brother. Richard Martineau joined the partnership in 1828 as a junior partner and John Cam Hobhouse (later Lord Broughton, son of Sir Benjamin Hobhouse) became a partner in 1831.
John Martineau died in 1834 "being seized with apoplexy {he} had fallen in to the vat" in the Porter Tun Room. The jury returned a verdict of "death by the visitation of God". Charles Shaw Lefevre (MP 1830-57, later Viscount Eversley, son-in-law of Samuel Whitbread II) joined the partnership in 1840. This partnership ran for twenty years. William Whitbread (d 1879), the second son of Samuel Charles Whitbread, and John Martineau became partners in 1860, followed by F Lubbock in 1875, Samuel Whitbread III (1830-1915) in 1879, and W H Whitbread, second son of Samuel Whitbread III, in 1885.
After Viscount Eversley died in July 1889 the business was registered as a limited liability company, Whitbread and Company Limited, with Samuel Whitbread III as chairman. Brewery business had been conducted by partnerships for ninety years, the total number of partners during this period being thirty, seven of whom were members of the Whitbread family.
Throughout the latter part of the nineteenth century the Brewery expanded purchasing additional land and buildings on the north side of Chiswell Street. A tunnel under the road connected the cellars on both side of the street that occupied around five acres of space underground and the total length of the beer mains in the Brewery stretched from between two and a half to three miles. Along with the rooms normally associated with a brewery, research and control laboratories had also been built following inspiration by Louis Pasteur who undertook research at the Brewery in 1871. By 1905, at the height of production when the brewery was at its fullest extent, the freehold area of Chiswell Street was over five acres.
Production at Chiswell Street rose rapidly again with the success of bottled beer which began in 1868 following a reduction on the duty on glass. The new bottling stores were located in Worship Street, Finsbury but bottled beer proved so popular that the bottling stores had to move to larger premises at 277 Gray's Inn Road in 1869. By the middle of 1889 the Brewery was producing 336,000 barrels up to nearly 700,000 barrels by mid-1900 with profits equalling £205,000. To meet the demand for bottled beers depots were opened in Lewisham, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Weston Rise, Cardiff, Manchester, Totteham, Newcastle, Poole, Hull, Leicester, Nottingham and Kingston and a new headquarters office was opened at 27 Britannia Street, London, in 1900. The first overseas depot in Brussels established in 1904, expanding to include Antwerp in 1906 followed by Liege in 1910, Paris in 1912 and Ghent in 1913. By the time the depot in Ghent was in operation more than half of the brewery's output of close to one million barrels was being bottled.
Circumstance and legislation brought in during the Great War saw production limited to 18 million barrels at the start of 1917 and then halved by March to less than a third of pre-war output. By 1918 production had fallen to 400,000 barrels and was only 100,000 barrels higher eighteen years later. Over 1000 Whitbread employees had enlisted in the War and 95 were killed either in action or from wounds sustained.
Following the purchase of the Forest Hill brewery in the early 1920s, Whitbread began experimenting with brewing 'bright' beer where the beer was matured and filtered before bottling to prevent sedimentation. The technique was a success and rolled out to the whole Whitbread brand. In the 1920s Whitbread also introduced the Double Brown which was designed to rival Guinness and was almost a recreation of Whitbread's original porter.
In the mid-1920s Whitbread was experiencing a slump in trade. Sales were down overall by an average of 34%, twice that experienced by the trade as a whole. In response Sydney Nevile, the managing director, decided upon an avid advertising campaign using popular celebrities such as Gertie Lawrence and Ronald Squire and hired a publicity manager in the form of Hal Douglas Thomson, a newspaper advertising executive. He also attempted to widen the range of products available with additions such as cider and to develop exports to the colonies although the latter was not particularly successful. However it was the popularity of Mackeson's milk stout which buoyed sales in the the late 1930s and although still a long way off their 1913 peak they were a third higher than in 1932.
Unlike the Great War of 1914-18, general beer production across the country rose rapidly during the Second World War with Whitbread's production up 50% to 914,000 barrels by 1945 - almost beating the 1912 record of 989,000. Despite mass devastation of buildings in the surrounding area due to fire raids, Whitbread's own fire brigade was able to protect the Chiswell premises. Even after the great raid on 29th December 1940, production at the plant restarted after only four days. Between 1939-1945, 565 (90%) of Whitbread's licensed public houses in London were damaged by the Blitz, with 29 completely destroyed and an additional 49 so badly damaged that they had to close.
By 1948, the Company was employing 5,000 people. In addition to Brewery workers, by the 1950s over 5000 people were employed in the cultivation and harvesting of the hop bines that were grown by the Company in Kent. New breweries were built at Luton, in 1969, Samlesbury, Lancashire, in 1972 and Magor, Gwent in 1978. The Chiswell Street Brewery ceased brewing in 1976. In 1989 the Company operated 6 breweries at Castle Eden, Durham; Magor, Gwent; Exchange Brewery, Bridge Street, Sheffield; Court Street, Faversham, Kent; Monson Avenue, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire; and Cuerdale Lane, Samlesbury, Preston, Lancashire.
During the final decades of the 20th Century, Whitbread seriously invested in the food and lodgings sectors. The Beefeater brand was launched in 1974 and Brewers Fayre followed five years later. Whitbread introduced Pizza Hut and TGI Friday's to Britain in the 1980s and adding continental-style high street brands like Costa, Cafe Rouge and Bella Pasta in the nineties. During that time Whitbread Hotel Company developed from a small number of three and four-star coaching inns and country houses, establishing Travel Inn in 1987 and securing the UK rights to the Marriott brand in 1995.
The Whitbread Beer Company was sold to Belgian brewer Interbrew in May 2000. First Quench (off-licences business) was sold in September 2000 to the Japanese investment bank Nomura (then jointly owned with Punch Group). Whitbread continues as a company with interests in hotels, restaurants and health and fitness clubs.
Whitbread acquired many companies during its brewing history including the following:
1891: H and V Nicholl's Brewery Company Limited, Anchor Brewery, Lewisham Road, Lewisham, London. Ceased to brew and premises converted into Whitbread's first branch bottling and distribution centre.
1896: Gripper Brothers, Bell Brewery, High Road, Tottenham, London (est. 1760)
1899: Matthews and Canning, Anchor Brewery, Britten Street, Chelsea, London (closed 1907)
1900: Abridge Brewery Company Limited, Anchor Brewery, Abridge, Essex
1902: Jones and Company, Steam Brewery, Brewery Road, Bromley, Kent
1920: Notting Hill Company Limited, Portland Road, Notting Hill, London with 80 tied houses
1921: F S Stowell Limited (est. 1878), later Stowells of Chelsea Limited, (wine and spirit merchants)
1924: Forest Hill Brewery Company Limited (later Whitbread's Properties Limited), Langton Rise, London
1927: Frederick Leney and Sons Limited, Phoenix Brewery, Wateringbury, Kent
1929: Jude Hanbury and Company Limited, Kent Brewery, Wateringbury, Kent
1948: Flitton's Brewery Limited, Stotford Brewery, Stotford, Bedfordshire
1951: Amey's Brewery Limited, Borough Brewery, Frenchmen's Road, Petersfield, Hampshire with 20 tied houses
1955: Dale and Company Limited, The Brewery, Gwydir Street, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire in 1955
1958: Scarsdale Brewery Company Limited, Spa Lane Brewery, Chesterfield, Derbyshire
1961:Tennant Brothers Limited, Exchange Brewery, Bridge Street, Sheffield, South Yorkshire and 700 tied houses; and John R Fielder, Titchfield Brewery, Titchfield, Hampshire (est. 1774)
1962: Norman and Pring Limited, City Brewery, Exeter, Devon with 100 tied houses; Starkey, Knight and Ford Limited, High Street, Bridgewater, Somerset with 400 tied houses and Flowers Breweries Limited, Phoenix Brewery, Park Street, Luton, Bedfordshire (closed 1969)
1963: J Nimmo and Son Limited, Castle Eden Brewery, Castle Eden, Durham and West Country Brewery Holdings Limited, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
1964: Dutton's Blackburn Brewery Limited, Salford Brewery, Bow Street, Blackburn, Lancashire (closed 1978)
1965: E Lacon and Company Limited, Flacon Brewery, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk (closed 1968)
1966: James Thompson and Company Limited, Dalton Road, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria (est. 1871), wine and spirit merchants; Rhymney Breweries Limited, The Brewery, Rhymney, Mid Glamorgan (closed 1978)
1967: Isaac Tucker and Company Limited, Turk's Head Brewery, West Street, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, and 50 tied houses; Archibald Campbell, Hope and King Limited, Argyle Brewery, Chambers Street, Edinburgh, Lothian (closed 1970) and 73 tied houses; Threlfalls Chesters Limited, The Brewery, Trueman Street, Liverpool, Merseyside (closed 1982); Evan Evans Bevan Limited, Cale of Neath Brewery, Neath, West Glamorgan (closed 1971) and Fremlins Limited, Pale Ale Brewery, Earl Street, Maidstone, Kent
1968: Bentley's Yorkshire Breweries Limited, Eshaldwell Brewery, Woodlesford, Leeds, West Yorkshire (closed 1972); Richard Whitaker and Sons Limited, Seedlings Mount Brewery, Corporation Street, Halifax, West Yorkshire (closed 1969); John Young and Company Limited, Ladywell Brewery, North High Street, Fisherrow, Musselburgh, Lothian (closed 1969); Cobb and Company (Brewers) Limited, Margate Brewery, King Street, Margate, Kent; Combined Breweries (Holding) Limited, Ramsgate Brewery, Ramsgate, Kent; Strong and Company of Romsey Limited, Horse Fair Brewery, Romsey, Hampshire, with 950 tied houses
1969: R White and Sons Limited, London, soft drinks manufacturers
1971: Brickwoods Limited, Portsmouth Brewery, Admiralty Road, Portsmouth, Hampshire with 670 tied houses
1975: Long John International Limited, Scotch whisky distillers (est. 1825) with 4 distilleries at Tormore, Speyside, Laphroaig, Islay, Glenugie, Peterhead, Grampian, and Glasgow, Strathclyde, and Coates Plymouth Gin, Plymouth, Devon
No information was available at the time of compilation.
Laurence Whistler won the first King's Gold Medal for poetry in 1935. He published twelve books of poetry. Whistler was famed for his prodigious skill in point engraving on to glass. His work may be seen in many museums and numerous churches, including Salisbury Cathedral.
Born, 1618 or 1619; educated: the free school of Thame, Oxfordshire; Trinity College, Oxford, 1635-1639; fellow of Merton College, 1640; studied medicine at Leiden, 1642-1645; incorporated his Leiden MD at Oxford, 1647; Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, 1648-1656; fellow of the College of Physicians, 1649; cared for seamen, wounded in the Dutch war, at Ipswich, Harwich, and possibly London, 1653-1654; physician to Bulstrode Whitelocke's embassy to Sweden, 1653; practised in London, 1654-; served twelve terms as censor of the College of Physicians between 1657 and 1680; College of Physicians registrar, 1674-1682; College of Physicians elect from 1676; College of Physicians treasurer, 1682; College of Physicians president, 1683; died, 1684.
Education, BSc sandwich course in Sociology and Social Administration, University of Southampton, 1972-1977; nursing training at St Thomas's Hospital, 1973-1975; MSc at South Bank Polytechnic, 1978-1980; PhD Nursing Studies, University of London, 1995; work at Department of Nursing Studies, Chelsea College, 1980-1985; King's College London, 1985-2002; Senior Lecturer, 1989; Professor of Community Nursing, 1992; specialist expertise in chronic disease care for people living at home. Publications: Health visiting and health experience of infants in three areas (London, 1985); edited Research in preventive community nursing care. Fifteen studies in health visiting (Chichester, 1986); Caring for children. Towards partnership with families (London, 1991); edited Health in the inner-city (London, 1991); Alison While, Julia Roberts and Joanne Fitzpatrick, A comparative study of outcomes of pre-registration nurse education programmes (London, 1995); Alison While, Christina Citrone and Jocelyn Cornish, Bereaved parents' views of caring for a child with a life-limiting incurable disorder (London, 1996). See also numerous articles and reports on the subject of nursing and palliative care.
Whiffen and Sons Ltd, founded by Thomas Whiffen (1819-1904). Whiffen's chief products were of medical application, including poisons and alkaloids, with a special interest in quinine and strychnine.
In 1854 a London pharmacist, Thomas Whiffen (1819-1904), joined a small firm manufacturing chemicals run by Edward Herring and Jacob Hulle at Trinity Square in the Borough. After the withdrawal of Herring in 1858 and the retirement of Hulle in 1868 the business was continued by Whiffen at his house in Lombard Road, Battersea. Chief products were of medical application, including poisons and alkaloido, mostly prepared from raw material that the firm imported. Whiffen claimed his trade in strychnine to have been the first of its kind in Britain. Overseas trading, including much re-exporting, became an important part of the firm's activity. A short-lived laboratory was set up in 1858 and was re-established by Frank Moul in 1884.
In 1887 Whiffen formed a partnership with two of his sons, Thomas Joseph (1850-1931) and William George (1852-1934). In the same years the firm moved to Southall, where it acquired the Aldersgate Chemical Works, and it also took over the business of George Atkinson (est. 1654). Another concern with which Whiffen was associated was the St Amand Manufacturing Co. Ltd, which had been set up jointly with T and H Smith and JF Macfarlan and Co for the preliminary processing in Belgium of an extract used as a source of salicin.
By the 1890's Whiffen and Sons had become one of Britain's leading fire chemical businesses. It became a limited company in 1912 with a nominal capital of £200,000. In 1947 it was acquired by Fisons Ltd.
Born, 1922; Education: Oundle School; Oxford, D.Phil. research into infr-red spectroscopy under HW Thompson; Career: Wartime work on enemy aviation fuels; infra-red research on aromatic benzene nucleus; electron-spin resonance spectrometry; 'spin-flip laser project'; Lecturer, University of Birmingham (1949-); Superintendent , Molecular Science Division, National Physical Labboratory; Professor of Physical Chemistry, University of Newcastle (1968-1985); Dean of Science, University of Newcastle (1974-1977) Pro Vice-Chancellor, University of Newcastle (1980-1983); Fellow of the Royal Society, 1966; Royal Society Council, 1971-1973; died, 2002.
Robert Phillips Whellock (1835-1905) lived in Catford; later in Finsbury Pavement, EC, and Chadwell Heath, Essex. He was elected an associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1879.
Amongst his architectural works were: the design for the billiard room, Polapit Tamar, Launceston, the interior of which was illustrated in The Builder, 2 April 1904; several houses in Launceston; the Central Public Library, Peckham Road, Camberwell, 1892-3; the Mission Hall, Peckham, 1894; the Relief Station, Peckham Park Road, for the Camberwell Guardians, 1896; and the Public Free Library, Old Kent Road, 1896.
In 1901 he published a treatise entitled Pure Water for London, which described his project for supplying water from below the London basin. In connection with the scheme, he exhibited some drawings in the Royal Academy rooms in 1900. For an obituary see The Builder vol. 88 (1905) p.602.
No information was available at the time of compilation.
The Brewery, Easton Street, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, was established in the late eighteenth century by Biddle and King, later Biddle and Wheeler, then Wheeler and Company. Wheeler and Company, together with Leadbetter and Bird, Frogmoor Brewery, High Wycombe, were incorporated in 1898 as Wheeler's Wycombe Breweries Limited. Taken over by Ashby's Staines Brewery in 1929 and acquired with that company by H and G Simonds in 1931. In voluntary liquidation 1950.
Wheeler was a research student in the Faculty of Arts at University College London from 1910 to 1914.
Born, 1890; educated, Bradford Grammar School, 1899-1904; University College, London, 1907-1912; art classes at the Slade School of Fine Art, 1909-; Franks studentship in archaeology to study Roman pottery in the Rhineland, 1913; junior investigator for the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (RCHM), 1913; PhD, 1920; Royal Field Artillery, 1914-1917; 76th Army Brigade, 1917-1919; Military Cross, 1918; RCHM, 1919-1920; Keeper of Archaeology at the National Museum of Wales and Lecturer in Archaeology at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Cardiff, 1920; Director of the National Museum of Wales, 1924; excavated Roman sites, Segontium, 1921-1922 and Gaer near Brecon, 1924-1925; Keeper of the London Museum, 1926; established the Institute of Archaeology, 1937; excavations of the Romano-British villa and cult centre at Lydney Park, 1928-1929; Roman and immediately pre-Roman St Albans, 1930-1934 and the hill fort of Maiden Castle, Dorset, 1934-1937; 42nd Royal Artillery Regiment, 1939-1943; Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India, 1944-1948; excavations at Taxila, 1944-1945; the Roman trading station of Arikamedu, 1945; the Indus city of Harappa, 1946 and the southern megalithic sites of Brahmagiri and Chandravalli, 1947; part-time professorship at the Institute of Archaeology in the University of London, 1948-; Secretary for the British Academy, 1949-1968; archaeological adviser to the newly formed Pakistan Archaeological Department; excavation of the hill fort of Stanwick in Yorkshire, 1954 and Charsada, Pakistan, 1956; member of the UNESCO team concerned with the preservation and conservation of Mohenjo-daro, 1960s; television broadcaster, in 'Animal, Vegetable, Mineral?' and 'Buried Treasure'; Fellowship of the Royal Society, 1968; died, 1976.
ACM Sir Neil Wheeler was born 1917; educated St Helens College, Hants; Royal Air Force College, Cranwell, 1935; Bomber Command, 1937-1940; Fighter and Coastal Commands, 1940-1945; Royal Air Force and US Army Staff Colleges, 1934-1944; Cabinet Office, 1944-1945; Directing Staff, Royal Air Force Staff College, 1945-1946; Far East Air Force, 1947-1949; Directing Staff, Joint Services Staff College, 1949-1951; Bomber Command, 1951-1953; Air Ministry, 1953-1957; Assistant Commandant, Royal Air Force College, 1957-1959; Officer Commanding, RAF Laarbruch, 1959-1960; Imperial Defence College, 1961; Ministry of Defence, 1961-1963; Senior Air Staff Officer, Headquarters, RAF Germany, 1963-1966; Assistant Chief of Defence Staff (Operational Requirements), Ministry of Defence, 1966-1967; Deputy Chief of Defence Staff, 1967-1968; Commander, Far East Air Force, 1969-1970; Air Member for Supply and Organisation, Ministry of Defence, 1970-1973; Controller, Aircraft, Ministry of Defence Procurement Executive; 1973-1975; retired 1975.
Born Gloucester, 1802; moved to London, 1806; school in Vere Street, London, 1813; placed with uncle Charles, musical instrument maker, Strand, London, 1816; worked under father, William, musical instrument maker, 1818-1823; early demonstrations of experiments into acoustics and the transmission of sound, 1821; first paper published on 'New experiments in sound', in Annals of philosophy, 1823; inherited musical instrument business belonging to uncle, Charles, 1823; relocated business to Conduit Street, London, 1829; invented kaleidophone, 1826-1827; Michael Faraday delivers first lecture on sound on behalf of Wheatstone, Royal Institution, London, 1828; Wheatstone announces invention of concertina, 1830; invents stereoscope, 1830-1832; experiments to measure velocity of electricity, 1830-1837; Professor of Experimental Philosophy, King's College London, 1834-1875; work on electricity generation, [1834-1850]; lectures on sound at King's College London, 1836; Fellow of Royal Society, 1836; invents constant cell battery, [1836]; first patent on electric telegraph with William Fothergill Cooke, 1837; first public demonstration of stereoscope, Royal Society, 1838; installs five needle telegraph, Paddington to West Drayton, London, 1838-1839; work on improvements to electric telegraph, [1840-1845]; high point of work on polarisation of light, [1840-1870]; 'Wheatstone Bridge' invented, 1843; conducts earliest submarine telegraph cable experiment in Swansea Bay, 1844; invents iron core galvanometer, 1845; assists work of parliamentary Select Committee on Ordnance concerning electrical detonation devices, 1855; perfects first practical ABC telegraph, 1858; establishes Universal Private Telegraph Company, 1861; with Carl Wilhelm Siemens invents self-excited generator, 1867; knighted, 1868; died 1875. Publications: The scientific papers of Sir Charles Wheatstone (London, 1879).
A deed is any document affecting title, that is, proof of ownership, of the land in question. The land may or may not have buildings upon it. Common types of deed include conveyances, mortgages, bonds, grants of easements, wills and administrations.
An assignment of term, or assignment to attend the inheritance, was an assignment of the remaining term of years in a mortgage to a trustee after the mortgage itself has been redeemed. An assignment of a lease is the transfer of the rights laid out in the lease to another party, usually for a consideration (a sum of money).
From the British Records Association "Guidelines 3 - Interpreting Deeds: How To Interpret Deeds - A Simple Guide And Glossary".
Born, 1614; educated: Pembroke College, Cambridge, 1637; Trinity College, Oxford; studied chemistry and medicine with John Scrope at Bolton Castle, 1642-1645; moved to London to study medicine, 1645; returned to Oxford, 1646; DM, 1647; Fellow of the College of Physicians, London, 1650; incorporated at Cambridge on his doctor's degree, 1652; served as a censor of the College of Physicians, London, 1658, 1661, 1666, 1667, 1668, and 1673; practised medicine in London, 1648-; physician to St Thomas's Hospital, London, 1657-1673; died, 1673.
Leonard C Wharton (1877-1943) became an assistant at the British Museum in 1902. He became interested in the languages and literature of Eastern Europe and eventually became the Museum's Slavonic expert. From 1924 to 1934 Wharton was associated with SSEES as honorary librarian and honorary lecturer in Polish.
WH Tomsett and Company succeeded Pound and Tomsett, listed in the London trade directories at 42 Trinity Square and 331 Edgeware Road (1872-6), and 12-14 Coopers' Row, Crutched Friars (1877-1879). WH Tomsett and Company are listed at 3 Savage Gardens, Crutched Friars (1880-1911) and 25 Savage Gardens (1912-1927).
Sinclair, Birch and Company are listed in the London trade directories at 8 Catherine Court (1900-1904), 26 Crutched Friars (1905-11), 27 Crutched Friars (1912-1913), 7 and 8 Idol Lane (1914-36), 33 St Mary at Hill (1937-71) and 8 St Mary at Hill (1972-3). Despite references in the directories of the 1930s onwards that Sinclair Birch was founded in 1871 there are no separate entries from WH Tomsett and Company before 1900.
Richard Weymouth, philologist and New Testament scholar, studied classics at University College London, taking his BA in 1846 and his MA in 1849. He was a Doctor of Literature at the University of London in 1868 and a Fellow of University College in 1869. He was Headmaster of Mill Hill School from 1869 to 1886. He joined the Philological Society in 1851. Weymouth was married twice; first, in 1852 to Louisa Sarah Marten, by whom he had three sons and three daughters, then in 1892 to Louisa Salter.
None available at present.
The Castlebar Estate in Ealing was established in 1423 by Richard Barenger. In 1650 it was purchased by Sir William Bateman, who held other land in Ealing, and left to his descendants. William Bateman (d 1797) and his children William (d 1820) and Mary (d 1833) were all lunatics and the estate was disputed among Mary's heirs. The estate was bought by Francis Swinden in 1854.
General Sir Frederick Augustus Wetherall (1754-1842) became tenant of the Batemans' and in 1817 bought the lease of Castlebar House, purchasing the freehold in 1824. By 1840 Wetherall held 47 acres of freehold, copyhold and leasehold land in the Castle Hill area. Castlebar House was owned by a Mr Bartholomew in 1897, when it was bought as a Benedictine monastery. It was used as a girls' school.
Another estate in this area, Castle Hill Lodge, was created in 1764 by John Scott, who combined various parcels of land to form an estate of 27 acres. The estate was purchased by Francis Burdett in 1773. In 1791 Henry Beaufoy purchased the house and made some improvements. It was sold in 1795 to Maria FitzHerbert, the morganatic wife of the Prince of Wales. She sold it in 1801 to the Duke of Kent, Edward Augustus, who gave it the name Castle Hill Lodge and commissioned further improvements. In 1829 the estate was purchased by General Sir Frederick Augustus Wetherall, the duke's aide-de-camp.
The estate remained in the Wetherall family, although it was leased out as Kent House, until 1870 when the house was sold to Thomas Harrison, and the land to Alfred Prest, Ebenezer Pearce and Charles Jones. Some of the land was later sold to the British Land Company.
The Lodge was a two storey property in a Grecian style with a portico beneath a pediment. Some of the fittings were sold in 1820 and 1827; but a new house was built by 1845, which became St David's Home in 1918.
From: 'Ealing and Brentford: Other estates', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 7: Acton, Chiswick, Ealing and Brentford, West Twyford, Willesden (1982), pp. 128-131 (available online).
Prior to 1975 the firm imported and exported goods such as children's clothes to the Middle East. However from 1976, the firm began to specialise in importing greeting cards. The company had a storeroom in Paddington, later moving to the Avon Trading Estate in Kensington
Audrey Dewjee, one of the joint founders who at the time was based in Greenford, recounts:
"After a trip to America in 1975, Hussein and I started to import Black Greeting Cards in 1976 because we felt that everyone should have access to cards that reflected their ethnicity and lifestyle. Our company was called Westways Import-Export and later Westways Greetings. When we realised that Gay Greeting Cards were also available in America, we started to import them as well, from a company called Lip Productions Limited in Chicago [United States of America].
Like many of the best (but smallest) Black Greeting Card companies, Lip didn't survive for very long. While it flourished we imported cards from them and sold them wherever we could in London - to Gay's The Word and several of the leather shops. We also sold them from a little stall at the CHE [Campaign for Homosexual Equality] conference in York (I think that was in 1980). That was great because it felt like we were witnessing history in the making and we had played a tiny part! At Christmas Lip produced a beautiful range of designs, in colour, which quickly sold out.
When Lip ceased trading, we stopped selling Gay Cards because we couldn't find another 'respectable' supplier. By then, times and tastes were changing. There were more outlets and UK producers came on the scene, so there was no need for us to continue."
Audrey Dewjee 12 April 2016 (produced with kind permission of Audrey Dewjee).
Miss M E Westrop was an Inspector of Schools in Ceylon from 1928-1948. No other biographical details are available.
The congregation was founded by Rabbi Harold Reinhart in 1957. Rabbi Reinhart resigned from his position as Senior Minister of the West London Synagogue and, accompanied by some eighty former members of that synagogue, established the New London Synagogue, shortly afterwards to be renamed the Westminster Synagogue.
The congregation's earliest services were held at Caxton Hall. In 1960 the congregation acquired Kent House opposite Hyde Park in Knightsbridge. The building provided room for a synagogue, accommodation for congregational activities and a flat for the Minister.
Westminster Synagogue has, in religious terms, remained largely in tune with the Reform movement in Britain. The congregation has been served by the Reform Beth Din and has links with the West London Synagogue's burial facilities. The congregation does not have a system of seat rentals and aims to give equality to all members. Women play a full part in congregational life.
Rabbi Reinhart died in 1969. He was succeeded by Rabbi Albert Friedlander in 1971. Rabbi Friedlander combined his ministry for some years with his post as Director of Rabbinical Studies at the Leo Baeck College. Rabbi Friedlander retired in 1997.
The ministers and congregation of Westminster Synagogue have been closely involved in the Czech Memorial Scrolls Centre which is located on the top floor of Kent House. The scrolls were confiscated by the Nazis from Jewish communities in Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia during the Second World War and acquired by a British art dealer in 1963 (the small Czech Jewish community lacking the resources to maintain them). Rabbi Reinhart accepted the 1,564 scrolls on the understanding that Westminster Synagogue could provide a responsible and non-commercial home for them. The scrolls were catalogued and, where possible, repaired and many were passed on to be used in synagogues throughout the world. A small museum was set up in Kent House to display the work of the Centre and tell the history of the scrolls.
Poor relief was based on the Act for the Relief of the Poor of 1601 which obliged parishes to take care of the aged and needy in their area. Parish overseers were empowered to collect a local income tax known as the poor-rate which would be put towards the relief of the poor. This evolved into the rating system, where the amount of poor-rate charged was based on the value of a person's property. Early workhouses were constructed and managed by the parish. However, this process was expensive and various schemes were devised where groups of parishes could act together and pool their resources. As early as 1647 towns were setting up 'Corporations' of parishes. An Act of 1782, promoted by Thomas Gilbert, allowed adjacent parishes to combine into Unions and provide workhouses. These were known as 'Gilbert's Unions' and were managed by a board of Guardians.
Under the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, the Poor Law Commission was given the power to unite parishes in England and Wales into Poor Law Unions. Each Union was to be administered by a local Board of Guardians. Relief was to be provided through the provision of a workhouse. An amendment to the 1834 Act allowed already existing 'Gilbert's Unions' or Corporations of parishes to remain in existence, although they were encouraged to convert themselves into Poor Law Unions. Although there was some reorganisation of union boundaries, particularly in London, the majority of Unions created under the 1834 Act remained in operation until 1930. In March 1930 a new Local Government Bill abolished the Poor Law Unions and the Board of Guardians. Responsibility for their institutions passed to Public Assistance Committees managed by the county councils - in the metropolis either the London County Council or the Middlesex County Council.
The Westminster Boards of Guardians were formed of several smaller Unions in the Westminster area which merged:
Saint George's Hanover Square Poor Law Union:
1789: Care and management of the poor vested in a body of Governors and Directors elected by the vestry of St George Hanover Square
1867: Superseded by a Board of Guardians for the parish
1870: Became part of Saint George's Union
Saint Margaret and Saint John Poor Law Union:
1851: Governors and Directors of the poor appointed for parishes of St Margaret and St John the Evangelist
1867: superseded by Board of Guardians for the united parishes
1870: became part of Saint George's Union
1875: Close of the Collegiate Church of St Peter added to Saint George's Union
City of Westminster Poor Law Union:
1913: Saint George's Union amalgamated with the Strand and Westminster Unions to form the City of Westminster Union
Strand Poor Law Union:
1836: Union formed of the parishes of the Liberty of the Rolls, Saint Clement Danes, Saint Mary le Strand, Saint Paul Covent Garden and the Precinct of the Savoy
1837: Parish of Saint Anne added
1868: Parish of Saint Anne removed to form part of the Westminster Union, and the parish of Saint Martin in the Fields added
1913: Strand Union amalgamated with Westminster Union and Saint George's Union
Westminster Poor Law Union
1727: poor of parish of Saint James in the care of the Vestry Parochial Committee
1762: Governors and Directors of the Poor appointed
1868: amalgamated with parish of St Anne to form Westminster Union. NB Vestry of St James continued to elect Governors and Directors until 1889 when they were abolished
1913: Westminster Union amalagamated with Strand and St George's Union to form City of Westminster Poor Law Union
Source of information: Peter Higginbotham at The Workhouse website.
The Westminster Paving Commissioners were established in 1762 with responsibility for the maintenance of the streets and roads, including repairing paving and cobbles and improving drainage. The Commissioners' powers diminished as individual parishes began to establish their own committees for street maintenance.
An Act of 1792 established seven 'Public Offices' (later Police offices and Police courts) in the central Metropolitan area. The aim was to establish fixed locations where 'fit and able magistrates' would attend at fixed times to deal with an increasing number of criminal offences.
Offices were opened in St Margaret Westminster, St James Westminster, Clerkenwell, Shoreditch, Whitechapel, Shadwell and Southwark. An office in Bow Street, Covent Garden, originally the home of the local magistrate, had been operating for almost 50 years and was largely the model for the new offices.
In 1800 the Marine Police Office or Thames Police Office, opened by 'private enterprise' in 1798, was incorporated into the statutory system. In 1821 an office was opened in Marylebone, apparently replacing the one in Shadwell.
Each office was assigned three Justices of the Peace. They were to receive a salary of £400 per annum. These were the first stipendiary magistrates. Later they were expected to be highly qualified in the law, indeed, to be experienced barristers. This distinguished them from the local lay justices who after the setting up of Police Offices were largely confined, in the Metropolitan area, to the licensing of innkeepers. In addition each office could appoint up to six constables to be attached to it.
The commonly used term of 'Police Court' was found to be misleading. The word 'police' gave the impression that the Metropolitan Police controlled and administered the courts. This was never the case, the word 'police' was being used in its original meaning of 'pertaining to civil administration', 'regulating', etc.
In April 1965 (following the Administration of Justice Act 1964) the London Police Courts with their stipendiary magistrates were integrated with the lay magistrates to form the modern Inner London Magistrates' Courts.
The police courts dealt with a wide range of business coming under the general heading of 'summary jurisdiction', i.e. trial without a jury. The cases heard were largely criminal and of the less serious kind. Over the years statutes created many offences that the courts could deal with in addition to Common Law offences. Examples include: drunk and disorderly conduct, assault, theft, begging, possessing stolen goods, cruelty to animals, desertion from the armed forces, betting, soliciting, loitering with intent, obstructing highways, and motoring offences. Non-criminal matters included small debts concerning income tax and local rates, landlord and tenant matters, matrimonial problems and bastardy.
Offences beyond the powers of the Court would normally be passed to the Sessions of the Peace or Gaol Delivery Sessions in the Old Bailey (from 1835 called the Central Criminal Court). From the late 19th century such cases would be the subject of preliminary hearings or committal proceedings in the magistrates' courts.
Outside the London Police Court Area but within the administrative county of Middlesex lay justices continued to deal with both criminal offences and administrative matters such as the licensing of innkeepers.
The exact area covered by a Court at any particular time can be found in the Kelly's Post Office London Directories, available on microfilm at LMA. The entries are based on the original Orders-in-Council establishing police court districts. A map showing police court districts is kept in the Information Area of LMA with other reference maps. Please ask a member of staff for assistance.
A school existed as part of the Western Synagogue from 1820 and at that time the aim of the school was "that male children of the Jewish persuasion (whose parents are unable to afford them educated) be instructed in Hebrew and English reading, writing and arithmetic; that the principle of religion be carefully inculcated and every exertion used to render them good and useful members of society".
The School was funded by voluntary contributions and classes were held at the teachers homes. The children were admitted from age 5 to 12 and discharged at 13. In addition to instruction, the boys received gifts of clothing and on barmitzvah an entire new outfit was provided.
By 1837 the school committee had decided to rent premises in Stanhope Street but by 1843 this was too small and a new school was opened in Greek Street. The equivalent girls school opened in 1846 at Richmond Buildings, Dean Street and shortly after moved to Greek Street. Its aims were '... the diffusion of religion and knowledge of moral and social principles among the young and ignorant.'
In 1853 the 2 schools were amalgamated and named the Westminster Jews Free School. It remained at Greet Street until 1882 when it became obvious the school was no longer big enough. A new school was built in Hanway Place and consecrated in July 1883 and could now accommodate 500 children. By 1911 the school numbers had decreased dramatically and on 31 December 1945 the school officially closed down.
At Saint Dunstan's Coffee House in 1715 four men met to form "A Charitable Proposal for Reliving the Poor and Needy and Other Distressed Persons." The men were Henry Hoare, William Wogan, Robert Witham and Patrick Cockburn, and the proposal marked the beginnings of the first voluntary hospital in the country, the Westminster Hospital.
The first patient was received in May 1720, in a rented house in Petty France. After moves to larger rented premises in 1724 and 1732, a building fund was launched and a new hospital built in Broad Sanctuary. The building was completed in 1832. A nurses' training school was set up in 1873, and a medical school constructed in Caxton Street, in 1885.
In 1913 plans were drawn up to amalgamate the Westminster Hospital with Saint George's Hospital, an institution created in 1733 by ex-Westminster Hospital surgeons. It was proposed that the new combined hospital would move to purpose-built premises either in Clapham or Wandsworth. World War I and the opposition of the House Committee meant this idea never came to fruition.
In 1933 plans were set in motion for the purchase of a new site in Saint John's Gardens, in order to build larger premises for the hospital. The new building was opened by George VI in April 1939.
Chartham Park Convalescent Home (H02/CP) was presented to the hospital by I.D. Margary in May 1946 and this was followed by affiliations with other institutions - All Saints Hospital for genito-urinary medicine, Austral Street (H02/AS) in July 1946; The Infants Hospital, Vincent Square which was renamed the Westminster Children's Hospital (H02/WCH) in September 1946; Parkwood Convalescent Home, Swanley, Kent (H01/PCH) in September 1946; Yarrow Convalescent Home, Broadstairs, Kent (H02/YH) in May 1947; The Gordon Hospital, formerly the Western Hospital for Fistula, Piles and Other Diseases of the Rectum, Vauxhall Bridge Road (H02/GH) in 1948.
The Wolfson School of Nursing was opened in 1960, funded by The Wolfson Trust. Also in 1960 the Westminster Hospital acquired Queen Mary's Hospital for limbless ex-servicemen (H02/QM). In 1971 Putney Hospital joined the Westminster Group and became closely linked with Queen Mary's Hospital.
An extension to the Westminster Hospital was built in Page Street between 1964 and 1968, which was linked to the existing hospital by a tunnel. A proposal in 1968 that the 12 London teaching hospitals should be grouped in pairs and linked to the nearest university, ended in the Westminster Hospital forging links with Saint Thomas' Hospital (H01/ST) and King's College London.
From the advent of the National Health Service in 1948 the Westminster Hospital Group was part of the South West Metropolitan Region. In 1974 the hospitals were part of the Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster Area Health Authority South District in the North West Thames Regional Health Authority. The district was administered in 3 sectors, whose main hospitals were: Westminster Hospital, Saint John's Gardens - where medical training was based, Saint Stephen's on Fulham Road in Chelsea - the district's other major acute hospital, and Banstead in Surrey - where the main in-patient psychiatric services were provided.
In 1982 the 90 area health authorities were replaced with 192 district health authorities. In west London the Victoria Heath Authority was created, which administered the Westminster, Westminster Children's, Saint Stephen's, Saint Mary Abbots, All Saints and the Gordon Hospitals.
In 1980 the Flowers report had recommended the amalgamation of some of the London medical schools. In 1984 Westminster Medical School merged with Charing Cross Medical School to form the Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School.
In April 1985, Riverside District Health Authority was created as part of the North West Thames Region. It merged Victoria Health Authority and Hammersmith and Fulham Health Authority. A district management team was responsible for Westminster, Westminster Children's, Saint Stephen's, West London Hospitals and two mental health hospitals, Horton and Banstead. By the summer of 1987 the long term strategy was to close Westminster Hospital, Saint Stephen's, Westminster Children's, Saint Mary Abbots and West London Hospital. The plan was to demolish Saint Stephen's and build the new Chelsea and Westminster Hospital on the same site on Fulham Road. A two year consultation process followed. In 1989 Saint Stephen's closed and patients and staff moved to Westminster Hospital while the Chelsea and Westminster was being built.
In May 1993 the Westminster Hospital closed and moved into the new building at 369 Fulham Road, occupying the site of the old Saint Stephen's Hospital. Staff and services were brought together from five major hospitals: the Westminster, Westminster Children's, West London, Saint Mary Abbots and Saint Stephen's. In April 1994 Chelsea and Westminster Healthcare NHS Trust was established, and is based at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.