Overseas telephonic communication in its early days was mainly confined to services between London and Paris, the North of France, Brussels and Antwerp. The first telephone cable across the Channel was laid in 1891. During the early 1920s services were gradually extended to other European and Scandinavian countries. In 1927 a radio-telephone service was opened between Britain and the United States. The overseas services were developed rapidly during the late 1920s and early 1930s, and communications soon extended to Australia, Canada, South America, Spain, Italy, etc.
The role of the Post Office in broadcasting began as an extension of the monopoly on telecommunications into the area of wireless telephony. Initially, the transmission of sound by radio was viewed as a new means for sending messages, rather than a potential tool for broadcasting.
The Post Office was responsible for issuing wireless licenses from the 1920s and also for the cabling relating to wireless. It derived these powers from the Wireless Telegraph Act of 1904; in this act it was provided that in order to operate an apparatus either for transmitting and receiving wireless signals, it was necessary to have a licence and also that this licence may be in a form and with conditions determined by the Postmaster General. The Broadcasting Department also afforded facilities to the Post Office for announcing policy developments, such as the introduction of reduced telephone charges.
It was also responsible in the 1950s for issuing television licenses and introduced detecting vans who 'combed' the country for illicit television receivers, i.e. those individuals who had not obtained a television licence.
Upon the creation of the new Post Office Corporation in 1969, the Broadcasting Department of the former GPO was assimilated (with its active files) into the new Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications.
Romer's Tree Frog (Chirixalus romeri) is named after Romer, who first discovered it in a cave on Lamma Island, Hong Kong, in 1952.
Association of British Zoologists: formed at the Meeting of British Zoologists on 5 Jan 1929 "to ensure a permanent organisation, with a Council which can represent British Zoologists between their annual Meetings". The first Council meeting was on 11 Jan 1930. Final meeting held 13 Jan 1973.
Maternity Alliance (1980-2005) was a national charity working to improve rights and services for pregnant women, new parents and their families, created in 1980 through the support of three organisations (National Council for One-Parent Families, The Spastics Society and Child Poverty Action Group) and individual campaigners, all concerned with issues surrounding poverty, pregnancy, birth and early parenthood. The Maternity Alliance was established as an alliance of organisations and individuals in response to inequalities in treatment outcomes and the need for support for pregnant women and families on low income. The focus of the organisation's work shifted over time to take into account social, medical and economic changes, in particular the perceived increase in the number of women who combined pregnancy and parenthood with work. Initially the organisation operated as a collective - the staffing structure was 'flat' without a hierarchy and with all staff on the same pay scale - though this changed over time. The organisation's priority in 2004 was to support families who were disadvantaged - talking to mothers and fathers about their experiences, working to find solutions to their needs and raising awareness of how to improve services and support during pregnancy, birth and the first year of life. The Maternity Alliance was a non-party-political campaign group that was very vocal on behalf of groups that did not traditionally have a voice within the political and health provision arenas. As such, MA was seen as being 'edgy' and more radical than other bodies working on the issues around maternity. The organisation ceased operating in Dec 2005, due to a financial crisis.
The history of the Museum Collection as a discrete collection within The Women's Library is less easy to trace than the Archive and Printed Collections. Fawcett Library members and related organisations often deposited objects with the Library, either as part of personal and organisational archives or as individual 'iconic' items. This ad-hoc collection continued after the transfer of the collections to the University in 1977, although several projects, including exhibitions, were carried out to highlight the importance of the visual material. In 1980-1981 The Fawcett Society deposited objects, including banners, with a number of museums (including the Fawcett Library). In 1984 the Mary Evans Picture Library became The Women's Library Commercial Picture Library partner. By the 1990s a contract Visual Materials Curator was appointed and it appears that the groupings by object type were made in this period as were some object descriptions. In Sep 1995 a project to identify, package and inventory objects from the museum and archives collection was begun; with the first museum accessions register started in 1998. Towards the end of the 1990s the Library was part of the JISC Image Digitisation Initiative (JIDI). This created digital images of the banner collection which were posted on the web as part of the Visual Arts Data Service, VADS (later the Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS)) by the end of 2001. Between 2000-2001 there was also a project to document objects held within archive collections.
With the move to the new building in 2002 the importance of visual material (initially focusing on the banner collection) was formally recognised by the inclusion of an Exhibition Hall in the building. Initially this was designed for a 'permanent' exhibition of the suffrage banners and other treasures. However, the actual move to the building saw a change in the Library's audience development. This, together with a recognition that the banners could not be on permanent display due to conservation concerns, resulted in a programme of exhibitions. For the first few years a programme of 3 exhibitions per year was carried out. However, this was later reduced to 2 exhibitions per year in order to develop a more interactive public, university and schools programme of events. External curators are often appointed to work with the Special Collections Curator to bring specific expertise to the exhibition.
Alongside the move to the new premises in 2002 The Women's Library agreed to meet the standards for Museum Registration, and later Museums' Accreditation. A three-year project, 2002-2005 documented the museum objects, with funding provided by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Some 3500 objects were described on the archive-museum catalogue CALM to comply with minimum SPECTRUM standards and rehoused as part of this project. Subsequent to this the majority of museum catalogue entries were edited and made available to the public via the online catalogue (by 2008). As part of the 2002-2005 project, a template for cataloguing objects in CALM was produced, together with best practice guidance for rehousing specific types of objects held in the collections. This was used for subsequent deposits, including objects within archives (for which a SPECTRUM/ISAD(G) template was agreed). As part of the retroconversion project of archive catalogues, existing descriptions of objects in archives were edited to be more consistent with the 2002-2005 project.
Ruth Homan was the daughter of Sir Sydney Waterlow, (1822-1906), first baronet, Lord Mayor of London and philanthropist. She took classes at the South Kensington School of Cookery and underwent basic nursing training at St. Bartholomew 's Hospital, London. In 1873 she married Francis Wilkes Homan but was widowed in 1880. Mrs Homan was elected to serve on the London School Board in 1891. She served as Chairman of the Tower Hamlets Divisional Committee and also as Chairman of the Domestic Subjects Sub-committee. By 1902 she was also Vice-chairman of the Industrial Schools Committee. In these capacities, Mrs Homan endeavoured to promote the teaching of cookery, laundry work and homecraft. She was also active in related organisations such as the Poplar Board School Children's Boot and Clothing Help Society, of which she was treasurer, and the London Schools Dinners Association.
Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence (1867-1954) was the daughter of West Country businessman Henry Pethick. In 1891 she left her home in Weston-super-Mare to become a volunteer with the Sisterhood of the West London Mission and she subsequently went on, with Mary Neal, to undertake a variety of philanthropic activities with working girls in London. In 1901 she married the newspaper publisher Frederick Lawrence. Emmeline became involved with the activities of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1906, acting as treasurer, and was arrested and imprisoned for the cause. In October 1907 the Pethick-Lawrences founded the suffrage paper Votes for Women to which Emmeline was a regular contributor. In 1912, following a rift with the Pankhursts, the Pethick-Lawrences left the WSPU, although they retained control of Votes for Women (which was henceforward published under the auspices of the Votes for Women Fellowship) and Emmeline continued her suffragist activities. Following the outbreak of the First World War Emmeline became involved in peace campaigning, a cause to which she devoted the rest of her campaigning career. In the inter-war period she was also active in the Women's Freedom League, the Open Door Council and the Six Point Group. She died in 1954.
Lucy Adela Jenner (b.1859) was the only daughter of Sir William Jenner (1815-1898) and Adela Lucy Leman Adey. William Jenner was physician to Queen Victoria. He married in 1858. Lucy was born in 1859, followed by five brothers.
Helen Mary Wilson (1864-1951) was born in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. She was the daughter of Henry J Wilson (1833-1914), MP for Holmfirth, and Charlotte Cowan. Helen was educated at Sheffield High School for Girls, Bedford College London and the London School of Medicine for Women. She became House Surgeon to the London Temperance Hospital in 1892 and then entered private practice in Sheffield where she worked from 1893-1906. In addition to her medical career, Helen Wilson carried on her father's campaigning work against the state regulation of prostitution and was Honorary Secretary and President of the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene. Her other voluntary activities included settlement and probation work and serving as a JP. In addition, Helen Wilson was President of the Sheffield Women's Suffrage Society, which was a branch of the North of England Suffrage Society. She died in 1951.
Not known.
Millicent Garrett Fawcett (1847-1929) was born in Suffolk in 1847, the daughter of Newson and Louisa Garrett and the sister of Samuel Garrett, Agnes Garrett, Louise Smith and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. The sisters' early interest in the issue of women's suffrage and commitment to the Liberal party were heightened after attending a speech given in London by John Stuart Mill in Jul 1865. Though considered too young to sign the petition in favour of votes for women, which was presented to the House of Commons in 1866, Millicent attended the debate on the issue in May 1867. This occurred a month after she married the professor of political economy and radical Liberal MP for Brighton, Henry Fawcett. Throughout their marriage, the future cabinet minister supported his wife's activities while she acted as his secretary due to his blindness. Their only child, Philippa Fawcett, was born the following year and that same month Millicent Garrett Fawcett published her first article, on the education of women. In Jul 1867, Millicent Garrett Fawcett was asked to join the executive committee of the London National Society for Women's Suffrage and was one of the speakers at its first public meeting two years later. She continued her work with the London National Society until after the death of John Stuart Mill in 1874, when she left the organisation to work with the Central Committee for Women's Suffrage. This was a step which she had avoided taking when the latter was formed in 1871 due to its public identification with the campaign for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts. Fawcett, despite her support for the movement's actions, had initially believed that the suffrage movement might be damaged by identification with such controversial work. However, the two groups later merged in 1877 as the new Central Committee for Women's Suffrage and a new executive committee was formed which included Fawcett herself. Her influence helped guide the group towards support for moderate policies and methods. She did little public speaking during this period but after the death of her husband in 1884 and a subsequent period of depression, she was persuaded to become a touring speaker once more in 1886 and began to devote her time to the work of the women's suffrage movement. In addition to women's suffrage Millicent Garrett Fawcett also became involved in the newly created National Vigilance Association, established in 1885, alongside campaigners such as J Stansfeld MP, Mr WT Stead, Mrs Mitchell, and Josephine Butler.
In 1894 Fawcett's interest in public morality led her to vigorously campaign against the candidature of Henry Cust as Conservative MP for North Manchester. Cust, who had been known to have had several affairs, had seduced a young woman. Despite marrying Cust's marriage in 1893, after pressure from Balfour, Fawcett felt Cust was unfit for public office. Fawcett's campaign persisted until Cust's resignation in 1895, with some suffrage supporters concerned by Fawcett's doggedness in what they felt was a divisive campaign. In the late nineteenth century, the women's suffrage movement was closely identified with the Liberal Party through its traditional support for their work and the affiliation of many workers such as Fawcett herself. However, the party was, at this time, split over the issue of Home Rule for Ireland. Fawcett herself left the party to become a Liberal Unionist and helped lead the Women's Liberal Unionist Association. When it was proposed that the Central Committee's constitution should be changed to allow political organisations, and principally the Women's Liberal Federation, to affiliate, Fawcett opposed this and became the Honorary Treasurer when the majority of members left to form the Central National Society for Women's Suffrage. However, in 1893 she became one of the leading members of the Special Appeal Committee that was formed to repair the divisions in the movement. On the 19 Oct 1896 she was asked to preside over the joint meetings of the suffrage societies, which resulted in the geographical division of the country and the formation of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. She was appointed as the honorary secretary of the Central and Eastern Society that year and became a member of the parliamentary committee of the NUWSS itself. It was not until the parent group's reorganisation in 1907 that she was elected president of the National Union, a position that she would retain until 1919.
By 1901, she was already eminent enough to be one of the first women appointed to sit on a Commission of Inquiry into the concentration camps created for Boer civilians by the British during the Boer War. Despite this, her work for suffrage never slackened and she was one of the leaders of the Mud March held in Feb 1907 as well as of the NUWSS procession from Embankment to the Albert Hall in Jun 1908. She became one of the Fighting Fund Committee in 1912 and managed the aftermath of the introduction of the policy, in particular during the North West Durham by-election in 1914, when other members opposed a step that effectively meant supporting the Labour Party when an anti-suffrage Liberal candidate was standing in a constituency. When the First World War broke out in Aug 1914, Fawcett called for the suspension of the NUWSS' political work and a change in activities to facilitate war work. This stance led to divisions in the organisation. The majority of its officers and ten of the executive committee resigned when she vetoed their attendance of a Women's Peace Congress in the Hague in 1915. However, she retained her position in the group. During the war, she also found time to become involved in the issue of women's social, political and educational status in India, an area in which she had become interested through her husband and retained after the conflict came to an end. She remained at the head of the NUWSS when the women's suffrage clause was added to the Representation of the People Act in 1918 and attended the Women's Peace Conference in Paris before lobbying the governments assembled there for the Peace Conference in 1919. She retired in Mar 1919 when the NUWSS became the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship but remained on its executive committee. She also continued her activities as the vice-president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, to which she had been elected in 1902, for another year. After this she became the Chair of the journal, the 'Women's Leader', and appointed a Dame of the British Empire in 1925. It was in that year that she resigned from both NUSEC and the newspaper's board after opposing the organisation's policy in support of family allowances. She remained active until the end of her life, undertaking a trip to the Far East with her sister Agnes only a short time before her death in 1929.
Upper Clapton Congregational Church on Upper Clapton Road was founded in 1815. When the Congregational and Presbyterian Churches merged in 1972, it became Upper Clapton United Reformed Church.
The first Independent [Congregational] congregation in Isleworth was registered in 1798. A place of worship for Congregationalists is mentioned in 1831, and in 1849 the present chapel at the corner of Twickenham Road and Worton Road was opened. A British school was attached to it from 1840 to the eighties.
From: 'Heston and Isleworth: Protestant nonconformity', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 3: Shepperton, Staines, Stanwell, Sunbury, Teddington, Heston and Isleworth, Twickenham, Cowley, Cranford, West Drayton, Greenford, Hanwell, Harefield and Harlington (1962), pp. 131-133.
Early in 1910 decline in local membership obliged the congregation of Craven Hill Church, Lancaster Gate, to decide to dispose of the church and school buildings and to erect a new church elsewhere. A meeting was held in the Craven Hill Vestry in March 1911, but in September of the same year was held in the temporary church in Wrentham Avenue, Brondesbury. At the latter meeting the request of 22 members of the Kensal Rise Congregational Church to unite in fellowship was accepted. The church closed in 1971.
A Methodist circuit is normally a group of churches in a local area served by a team of ministers. A minister will have pastoral charge of one or more churches, but will preach and lead worship in different local churches in the circuit, along with local preachers. The arrangements for leading worship in a circuit are drawn up in a quarterly Plan.
Hugh Price Hughes a Wesleyan Minister in London founded the West London Mission in 1887 as part of the Forward Movement in Methodism which stressed that faith had to be expressed in social and political as well as personal life. The Inaugural meeting of the then West Central Mission was on 21st October 1887 with the Sermon at St. James' Hall, Piccadilly preached by C.H. Spurgeon. The West London Mission remained at St. James' Hall which was a popular Concert Hall, until 1905 when it was demolished to form the Piccadilly Hotel. The Mission moved to Exeter Hall, another concert hall, in the Strand.
In 1906 the Methodist Conference gave the Mission its own building, the Wesleyan Chapel at Great Queen Street. The building was later condemned by the LCC and the Mission were temporarily housed in the Lyceum Theatre, while on Great Queen Street at the old site a new place of worship, Kingsway Hall, was under construction. Kingsway Hall opened in 1912 and enjoyed nearly 70 years of occupation until it was sold in the eighties after the amalgamation of the Kingsway Circuit and Hinde Street; the Mission returned to the West End to Thayer Street/Hinde Street.
In the early days, much of the day to day work went on in smaller chapels and halls in the middle of slum areas where social needs were great. These buildings such as Craven Hall at Fouberts Place were used for a wide variety of activities not just devotional but social, education and welfare. However, this use of smaller halls was dropped after the First World War in favour of the new Kingsway Hall premises.
Since its beginning the West London Mission has been involved with social work. One of its first services offered was a Crèche. There were also job registries and men's social department catering for the unemployed, dispensaries and free surgeries, a poor man's lawyer service, a Home of Peace for the Dying, a home for homeless girls - The Winchester House, and a clothing store. In the 1920s and 1930s the social work of the West London Mission expanded. They set up hostels for abandoned mothers and for girls in London without jobs and in 1923 a Mission Maternity Hospital was established. The social work continued and now includes St. Luke's and St. Mary's Hostels for men and women, Emerson Bainbridge House for young offenders and the Katherine Price Hughes house set up in 1937 and which now provides accommodation for men and women on probation and bail.
Another aspect of the work of the Mission was Open Air Ministry. There were open air services on the streets every evening and in Hyde Park on Sundays which included the Mission brass band. One of the most well known open air preachers was the Reverend Lord Donald Soper whose outdoor work began in 1927 at Tower Hill and in 1942 at Speakers' Corner.
The Mission now has its home at 19 Thayer Street.
The Stanhope Street Wesleyan Methodist Chapel was situated near the Hampstead Road, north of Euston and near Regent's Park. It was part of the West London Mission.
The New North Road Chapel was situated in Hoxton, Hackney.
The Wilson Street Chapel was in the First London Circuit between 1857 and 1864. It was situated off Finsbury Square in the City of London. It served the Welsh Wesleyan Methodist community.
A Methodist circuit is normally a group of churches in a local area served by a team of ministers. A minister will have pastoral charge of one or more churches, but will preach and lead worship in different local churches in the circuit, along with local preachers. The arrangements for leading worship in a circuit are drawn up in a quarterly Plan. There has been much reorganisation as chapels closed and circuits were altered; for further details and names and dates of circuits, contact the Society of Cirplanologists who collect Circuit plans.
The Reverend Alexander McAulay founded the Bow Road Methodist Church (ACC/1850/11) in 1861.
The Fernhead Road Methodist Church, also known as the Trinity Methodist Church, was founded in 1885. It was a Wesleyan Methodist Church. It is situated in Maida Vale, Westminster.
Shortly after the foundation of Methodism by John Wesley, he concluded that he needed a permanent base from which to preach and convert. He founded a chapel to the east of the City of London, but this soon fell in to disrepair. In 1778 he built a new and more permanent chapel on the City Road, which still stands today. Wesley's Chapel has been altered in some ways but was restored after a major fund raising campaign in the 1970s, and re-opened in 1978 in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh.
Wesley's House was built by Wesley in 1779. It was Wesley's winter home and also provided a home for the preachers of the Chapel, their families and servants. The house is now open to visitors and contains many of John Wesley's belongings and furniture, including his electrical machine, his study chair and his small Prayer Room.
In 1885 the Wesleyan Methodist Church established its first Mission at Saint George's Church, Cable Street, Shadwell, with the Reverend Peter Thompson as Superintendent. The Church aimed to combat the poverty and squalor of the East End of London with a combination of evangelism and social work. The Mission at Saint George's rapidly expanded and new Missions were opened at Stepney, Mile End, Bethnal Green and Tower Hill. Following the foundation of the welfare state after the Second World War the Mission shifted the focus of its social work. Saint George's was converted into a centre for the care of homeless men.
A Methodist circuit is normally a group of churches in a local area served by a team of ministers. A minister will have pastoral charge of one or more churches, but will preach and lead worship in different local churches in the circuit, along with local preachers. The arrangements for leading worship in a circuit are drawn up in a quarterly Plan. There has been much reorganisation as chapels closed and circuits were altered; for further details and names and dates of circuits, contact the Society of Cirplanologists who collect Circuit plans.
The Deptford Circuit was Wesleyan Methodist. It included churches in Rotherhithe, Woolwich, Dartford, Greenwich, Peckham, Bromley and Plumstead.
The Grove Wesleyan Methodist Mission was situated on Great Guildford Street, Southwark.
Rates were local taxes levied upon the occupiers of property to defray expenses incurred by local government authorities in providing services, including maintenance of sewer systems and the relief of the poor.
Paddington Green is the name given both to an open space and to the village surrounding it, bounded to the north and east by Edgware Road, to the south and west by the Grand Junction canal and to the north by the Regent's canal. The parish church was Saint Mary's, which ceased to be used in 1845. Part of the green west of the church, which had been bought as more burial ground, was instead used for a new parish vestry hall.
The vestry hall of the parish of Saint George was rebuilt in 1884 on Mount Street, near Hanover Square, Mayfair, presumably with an attached garden.
Until 1834 the local authority responsible for poor relief was the parish. After the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act, all except the largest parishes were forced to combine into poor law unions which elected Boards of Guardians which took over responsibility for poor relief. Some London parishes which had before 1834 obtained local acts of Parliament to regulate their administration of poor relief were able to continue their existing arrangements until 1867, when the Metropolitan Poor Act forced all London parishes to come under the control of Boards of Guardians.
Metropolitan parishes and unions were those falling within the Metropolis: London and those parts of neighbouring Middlesex, Essex, Surrey and Kent which had become increasingly urbanised. Valuation was the process of determining how much rates (local tax) should be paid by each property owner in an area.
The Royal Military Asylum, Chelsea, was founded in 1801 at the height of Britain's war with France (1793-1815). An estimated 315,000 men died during this conflict, leaving their dependents destitute. The Asylum was intended to provide a home and school for the children of fallen rank and file soldiers as an alternative to the workhouse. In 1892, the RMA was renamed The Duke of York's Royal Military School and, in 1909, moved to new premises constructed on the Downs of Dover, Kent.
Source: The Duke of York's Royal Military School website, http://www.achart.ca/york/history.html.
The West London Tabernacle, Penzance Place, Holland Park, was originally erected in the 1860's by Mr. Varley, a Baptist businessman who began to preach in the neighbouring Potteries in about 1863. It was enlarged and 'beautified' in 1871-1872 to designs by Habershon and Pite. It is built of yellow stock bricks with stone dressings, the style being a free adaptation of Italian Renaissance. The south front is flanked by two towers, now partially demolished, which contained staircases to the galleries. The centre of this elevation was pierced by a largesemi-circular-headed window with a hood moulding in the form of a pointed arch. The building is now in commercial use.
From: 'The Norland estate', Survey of London: volume 37: Northern Kensington (1973), pp. 276-297.
The church of Saint John was established in 1855, part of the development of Saint John's as a residential district by the wealthy Lucas family. A parish was assigned in the same year.
The Richmond Main Sewerage Board was created by Provisional Order of the Local Government Board under Section 279 of the Public Health Act, 1875 in 1887 to serve the parishes of Richmond, Kew, Petersham, North Sheen, Barnes and Mortlake, its members being appointed by the two sanitary authorities covering this area, the Richmond Corporation, which supplied six members (including the Mayor ex officio) and the Richmond Rural Sanitary Authority which also supplied six members (including the Chairman, ex officio). When the rural authority ceased to exist in 1892, part of its area was added to the borough of Richmond and the remainder was administered by a newly-created Barnes Urban Sanitary Authority (later Urban District Council) and, by an order of the Local Government Board in the following year, the constitution of the Richmond Main Sewerage Board was changed, Richmond supplying 7 members and Barnes 6. Barnes received a charter of incorporation as a municipal borough in 1932.
The Sewage Works in Westhall Road, Kew Gardens were opened in 1891, and were reconstructed over the period 1947-1960.
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.
Saint Pancras Parish first had a workhouse in 1777, which was rebuilt in 1802. The Parish adopted Hobhouse's Act of 1831 which provided for administration of the parish by an executive committee elected from the ratepayers and continued to operate in this way after 1834, only becoming a Board of Guardians in 1867. Further building work took place at the workhouse in 1881. The workhouse is now Saint Pancras Hospital. The Saint Pancras Union also built Highgate Infirmary, which they subsequently sold to the Central London Sick Asylum District. In 1868 construction began on an industrial school at Leavesden. The school later became Abbots Langley Hospital.
Source of information: Peter Higginbotham at The Workhouse website.
The Technical Education Board was set up by the London County Council in 1893 under the Technical Education Acts of 1889-91. It consisted of 20 members of the Council and 15 representatives of other bodies with Sidney Webb as Chairman. Though it enjoyed considerable independence it had the active backing and support of the Council. Its income was derived from the customs duty on spirits and beer (under the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act, 1890), and from the rates; and its work was aided by the large sums devoted by the City Parochial Charities to the establishment and maintenance of polytechnics. Its aim throughout was to aid and reinforce the supply of technical and secondary education rather than to make direct provision of such education, nevertheless the overlapping of spheres of interest of the Technical Education Board and the School Board for London resulted in controversy which was resolved in the Cockerton judgment of 1900-01 and led finally to the transfer of the work of both Boards to the Council in 1904 under the Education Act of 1902.
The sewage works in Byegrove Road, Colliers Wood, were originally constructed by the Croydon Rural District Council to serve the northern part of its area. On 31 March 1915, this Authority ceased to exist, parts of its area being transferred to the rural districts of Epsom and Godstone and the remainder formed into the three urban districts of Beddington and Wallington, Mitcham, and Coulsdon and Purley. The parish of Morden had already been transferred from the Croydon rural district to the Merton urban district on 1 April 1913.
Following these changes, the three new urban districts together with the Merton and Morden Urban District Council decided to form a Joint Drainage Committee under Section 57 of the Local Government Act 1894 to manage the works and continue its services throughout the area hitherto served.
In 1916, by provisional order under Section 279 of the Public Health Act 1875, the Local Government Board created the Wandle Valley Joint Sewerage Board, to consist of the Chairman and 3 other members from each of the two urban districts of Beddington and Wallington and Mitcham and the Chairman and 2 other members of the urban district of Merton and Morden. Coulsdon and Purley Urban District Council was not represented but the small part of its area covered by the works continued to be covered as a transitional arrangement until alternative means of sewage disposal were put into effect in its respect.
The name of the authority was changed to the Wandle Valley Main Drainage Authority by the Wandle Valley Main Drainage Order 1962 (S.I. 1962 No. 2616) and its functions were transferred to the Greater London Council on 1 April 1965 by virtue of Section 35(1) of the London Government Act, 1963.
When the National Health Service was established in 1948, it was divided into three parts.
The personal health services, including ambulances, health visitors, community nursing and midwifery were run by local authorities. General medical services, including general practice, dental and ophthalmic services were the responsibility of the executive councils. Hospitals were placed under the control of regional hospital boards. Within each region hospitals were formed into groups and responsibility for more routine administration was delegated to the hospital group management committee. Teaching hospitals were excluded from this system. They had their own boards of governors who were directly responsible to the Minister of Health. Within each hospital region joint committees were established to facilitate consultation and cooperation between teaching hospitals and the board's hospitals.
In 1974 the regional hospital boards, hospital management committees and most boards of governors were abolished. They were replaced by regional health authorities and area health authorities, which were responsible for the three formerly separate parts of the NHS. In 1982 the area health authorities were in turn abolished. Their powers were transferred to district health authorities.
In 1947 the South East Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board was formed, responsible for Kent, East Sussex and south east London. In 1974 it was renamed as the South East Thames Regional Health Authority. In 1994 it merged with the South West Thames Regional Health Authority to form the South Thames Regional Health Authority.
Henry Andrade Harben was born in 1849, son of Sir Henry Harben, Director and Chairman of the Prudential Assurance Company. Harben studied to become a lawyer and was called to the bar in 1871. In 1879 he followed his father as Director of the Prudential (he succeeded him as Chairman in 1907). As well as his work as a lawyer Harben sat on several local administration committees and served as Mayor of Paddington. He was also an antiquarian and researcher, becoming fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1893. Harben died in 1910, leaving his collection of antiquarian books, maps, drawings, and prints to the London County Council. His major work was the Dictionary of London, which was published posthumously in 1917.
John Burns was formerly a member of London County Council. His private collection of documents was acquired by Lord Southwood, who gave them to the Library.
The London and North Western Railway was formed in 1846. It was originally planned as a freight only line, however, once it opened it ran a passenger service initially from Bow Junction to Islington. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the L and NWR connected to the Great Northern, Great Eastern, Great Western, London and North Western, London and South Western, Midland and Metropolitan District Railways. By 1922 the L and NWR had absorbed the North London Railway.
No administrative history has been traced for these photographs.
The Artists League of Great Britain was founded in 1909 as The Imperial Arts League. Its purpose was to "protect and promote the interests of Artists and to inform, advise and assist Artists, who have enrolled as members, in matters of business connected with the practice of the Arts."
These 'business matters' included copyright, contracts, reproduction rights, export problems and insurance. The League was directed by a council of experienced Artists who gave their services on a voluntary basis.
In 1971 the Imperial Arts League changed its name to The Artists League of Great Britain.
The Field Lane Foundation started out in 1841 on the 7th November as the Field Lane Sabbath School accommodating 45 boys and girls crowded into a small room in Caroline Court. The School was soon moved to Saffron Hill, an area of great poverty near Holborn, but was regarded with much suspicion and hostility by the locals. The teachers persisted and by 1842 the founder Dr. Provan had a staff of 7 voluntary teachers who helped lay plans for the future of the school.
The school was maintained by contributions from the teachers but by 1843 the committee decided to seek financial help with the aid of a Times advertisement. Help came from Lord Shaftesbury who served as President of the School until his death in 1885.
In 1847 the Field Lane Free School opened. The school opened from 9.30am to 12 noon and from 2pm to 4pm with an average attendance of 40 growing to 70 within the year. Curriculum was limited but in addition to the Day school evening classes were started such as the Girls' sewing class.
The school soon moved to larger premises and in 1851 the committee widened its activities to assist with poor mothers by providing suitable clothing and bedding for babies. Further help came with the opening of the Night Refuge giving accommodation to 100 men. In 1857 a similar refuge for destitute women and girls was opened in Hatton Gardens.
In 1865 a piece of land was purchased on Saffron Hill and a new building erected to accommodate all the branches of activity undertaken. This meant with increased space a Day Nursery and Youth Institute could be established.
The 1870 Education Act placed the Field Lane Ragged School under the management of the School Board for London. However in 1871 Field Lane opened 2 Industrial Schools for boys and girls. These were designed to educate and train orphans, destitute and deserted children. The schools moved out to Hampstead, the boys to Hillfield and the Girls to Church Row away from their original city site.
In 1908 Field Lane was incorporated under the Companies Act. In the post First World War years, the Field Lane Schools admissions dropped substantially with the introduction of the Probation Service and in 1931 the Hampstead Schools closed. During this time, the work of sending children and families to the seaside or country for holidays had developed to the extent that in 1939 Eastwood Lodge near Southend was purchased as a Holiday Home. Further development was disrupted by the outbreak of war and much of the work in London came to a standstill.
With the introduction of the welfare state many of the Field Lane services became state responsibility so the Institution turned to helping the aged. Eastwood Lodge was re-opened and in 1947 a house in Reigate known as Dovers was purchased and opened as a residential home for 21 able bodied elderly people. Along with Dovers, Holly Hill, Banstead was opened as a "half way" convalescent home and in 1951 the Institution took over The Priory, West Worthing which became another residential home. In 1953 the Field Lane Institution inherited another holiday home, 'Singholm' at Walton-on-Naze, from the Home Workers Aid Association and converted it to a residential home for 43 old people.
All these homes have been involved in programmes of modification and extension to the buildings to increase access and accommodation. The Field Lane Institution also continued its London work in the form of Community Centres with the upgrading of Ampton Street Baptist Church near Kings Cross.
The Institution became the Field Lane Foundation in 1972 and continues in its work today.
Henrietta Barnett née Rowland was born on 4th May 1851 into a well to do family. From an early age she became involved with charity work being a district visitor for the Charity Organisation Society where she met her future husband the Rev. Samuel Barnett, curate at St Mary's church Bryanston Square. They married in 1873 on 28th January and moved to Whitechapel when Rev. Barnett was appointed vicar of St. Judes Church, Commercial Road, Whitechapel. Henrietta lived and worked here for thirty years 1873 to 1902 in poverty stricken East End of London.
She was a determined lady who had a wide experience of social work as the first woman Poor Law Guardian 1875, a member of the Departmental Committee of Inquiry into the condition of Poor Law Schools, the co-founder of the Children's Country Holiday Fund 1884, and the co-founder of both Whitechapel Art Gallery 1901-1936 and Toynbee Hall.
Henrietta Barnett also had a dream of 'a huge estate on which all classes could live in neighbourliness together with friendships coming about naturally without artificial efforts to build bridges between one class and another'. This vision was realised in 1906 as Hampstead Garden Suburb and in May 1907 the first sod was cut.
Henrietta Barnett died in 1936 at the age of 85.
Early water supply to the city of London came directly from wells and rivers. However, as early as 1236 the fresh water supply was dwindling as the number of residents in the city increased; and works began to bring in fresh water from outside the city. The era of free water gave way to the era of commercial supply with the foundation of the New River Company (1612) and the London Bridge Waterworks (1581). Chelsea Waterworks Company was founded in 1723, and in 1746 laid the first iron water main (pipes were previously made of wood or lead). The Southwark Water Company was founded in 1760, the Lambeth Water Works Company in 1785, the Vauxhall Water Company in 1805, the West Middlesex Waterworks Company in 1806, the East London Waterworks Company in 1807, the Kent Waterworks Company in 1809 and the Grand Junction Waterworks Company in 1811.
It was not until 1902 that the Metropolis Water Act was passed, leading to the creation of the Metropolitan Water Board. This took over eight private water companies, taking over the New River Company headquarters on Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell. The board was made up of 66 delegated members, 14 from the London County Council, 31 from the Metropolitan Borough Councils and City Corporation, and 21 from the authorities of localities outside the water companies' areas. From 1907 widespread reservoir and waterworks building was carried out.
From 1974 the administration of the Metropolitan Water Board was transferred to the new Thames Water Authority. In 1989 Thames Water became a private company and set up a principal operating subsidiary, Thames Water Utilities Limited, to supply water and sewerage services.
Grinling Gibbons (1648-1721), was a woodcarver and sculptor who invented a style of foliage woodcarving that was unprecedented in its finely modelled naturalism and subtlety of design, its startling projection and flamboyant pale tone. Long celebrated as the greatest British woodcarver, Gibbons might be said to rank among the greatest of all decorative woodcarvers.
Sir Hugh Myddleton was the founder of the New River Company.
This series of family papers was deposited in September 1998 by Mr William Wild. The paper concern his family who farmed and owned land in Harmondsworth for over 200 years before moving in the 1940's to make way for Heathrow Airport.
The Association of District Surveyors of Buildings was appointed under the Metropolitan Building Acts subsequent to 1844. In 1845 the first meeting of the Association was called at a London Coffee house, Mr John White being the first Chair.
Acts of Parliament regulating the construction of buildings had been in existence since 1667 giving the Corporation of the City power to appoint surveyors. Building control in inner London was administered at a local level by district surveyors from the mid nineteenth century to 1986. District Surveyors were a statutory, independent body responsible for surveying and supervising all construction work in their districts. They inspected plans and buildings to ensure quality of construction and compliance with statutory requirements under London Building Acts and bye laws. Reports were made to the relevant central administrative authority. In latter years, together with the Building Regulations Division of the Greater London Council's Department of Architecture and Civic Design, district surveyors were responsible for executing the Council's statutory duties under the London Building Acts.
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.