Thomas Humphry Ward, who married Mary Augusta Arnold in 1872, was a Fellow of Brasenose College Oxford, where he was Tutor from 1870 to 1881, when the family moved to London. There he wrote leaders for The Times, while his wife reviewed books for the Pall Mall Gazette and for The Times itself, as well as writing articles for Macmillan's Magazine. In 1884 Mrs Humphry Ward's novel Miss Bretherton appeared, to be followed by Robert Elsmere, her first major novel, in 1888, and by over twenty-five other novels. In 1908 she was one of the founders of the Women's National Anti-Suffrage League. During the First World War, Mary Ward was asked by Theodore Roosevelt to undertake a series of articles to explain to Americans what England was doing during the war. After Eton and Oxford, Arnold Ward acted as Special Correspondent for The Times in Egypt, the Sudan and India from 1899 to 1902. He then studied for the Bar and in 1910 became MP for West Hertfordshire. In 1914-1915 he served with the Hertfordshire Yeomanry in Egypt and Cyprus. Dorothy Ward helped with the work of the Passmore Edwards Settlement (now Mary Ward House) which her mother founded, and with children's play centres and a school for invalid children. She accompanied her mother to visit war zones in France during the First World War.
Mary Ward: Mary Ward was born Mary Augusta Arnold in June 1851. Her father Thomas Arnold was a school inspector, the son of Dr Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby school, and brother of Matthew Arnold the poet. In July 1871 Mary married journalist Humphry Ward. They had three children: Dorothy (1874-1964), Arnold (1876-1950) and Janet (1879-1956). From the 1880s Mary began to establish herself as a writer and journalist: her novel Robert Elsmere was published in 1888. It was a bestseller and secured Mary's reputation, earning her a £7000 advance on her next book. Mary Ward continued to write throughout her life, producing novels as well as works of a religious nature including biblical criticism. She also went on lecture tours (including in America, where she befriended Theodore Roosevelt) and devoted much time to philanthropic causes. In 1904 her daughter Janet married the historian G.M Trevelyan. From June 1908, and to much opposition from friends and family, Mary agreed to become the head of the Women's Anti-Suffrage Association, who campaigned against the suffragette movement. She began to produce anti-suffrage fiction which was not successful. During the First World War her reputation was improved by her contribution to the war effort. She was asked by Roosevelt to produce propaganda to be sold in America: England's Effort (1916) is credited with helping to involve the United States in the war and was followed by two more books. In 1919 Mary Ward was made a CBE and in 1920 was asked to become one of the country's first woman magistrates. However, over work caused her health to deteriorate, and she died in March 1920.
The Settlement: Mary Ward was encouraged to attempt to found a Settlement along the lines of the Toynbee Hall in East London. Premises in Gordon Square were rented and named the "University Hall Settlement", with the aim of providing "improved popular teaching of the Bible and of the history of religion", and to secure for residents of the Hall "opportunities for religious and social work". There were some religious disagreements among the residents of the Hall and in 1891 a small group secured a separate building east of Tavistock Square, called Marchmont Hall. They ran programmes and clubs for local men and boys, including talks, debates and concerts. Mary Ward decided to launch an appeal to provide a more spacious building which could accommodate the activities of both institutions. In 1894 John Passmore Edwards, a publisher and philanthropist, offered a considerable sum towards the building of a new Settlement on Tavistock Place, which was considered suitable as it was on the edge of an area of great poverty, Saint Pancras. The building was opened in February 1898, named the Passmore Edwards Settlement after its main benefactor.
In 1899 the Settlement expanded to include one of England's first day schools for the physically disabled, the Invalid Children's School. Mary Ward was heavily involved in the movement to provide greater care for the disabled, including the provision of better meals and training for employment.
Mary Ward died in 1920 and in 1921, with the agreement of Passmore Edwards' family, the name of the Settlement was changed to the Mary Ward Settlement (changed to the Mary Ward Centre in around 1970). In 1982 the Centre made a deal with the London County Council to move into nearby 42/43 Queen Square, in the former Stanhope Institute. The Centre runs a wide variety of adult education course and community outreach programmes.
Born 1862; lived in the Congo Free State (Zaire), 1884-1889; member of Henry M Stanley's Emin Pasha Relief Expedition to the Congo, 1886-1889; returned to Europe, where he lectured and wrote on his experiences in the Congo Free State, 1889; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, 1893-1919; began formal art training, 1893 including studying sculpting in Paris; became a sculptor, creating bronzes of Africans and African life; died 1919.
Helen Ward (fl. 1924-1925) was a member of the Blanesburgh Committee set up under the chairmanship of Lord Blanesburgh to investigate the question of the parliamentary candidature of Crown servants and their candidature in municipal elections. It reported in 1925.
Born, 1885, educated St Paul's School and Christ's College, Cambridge; teaching post in Shanghai, 1907; undertook around 25 expeditions over a period of nearly fifty years in the mountains where China, Tibet, India and Burma meet, studying the distribution of plants and animals; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), 1911-1958; RGS Cuthbert Peek Grant 1916 and 1924; RGS Royal Medals (Founder's and Patron's), 1930; died, 1958.
Francis Kingdon-Ward was born in Whitington, Lancs. on 6 November 1885. He was the son of Harry Marshall Ward and Selina Mary née Kingdon. His father was a professor of Botany at the Royal Indian Engineering College at Cooper's Hill in Surrey and was appointed to the Chair of Botany at Cambridge University ten years later. He was first educated at St Paul's School in London, and later as an undergraduate at Christ's College in Cambridge. The death of his father in 1906 and the poor state of the family's finances meant that he was unable to complete the full three years of study at Cambridge and graduated after two years. He accepted the first post offered to him, that of Junior Master at the Shanghai Public School where he taught the sons of wealthy businessmen, both British and Chinese. Having little taste for teaching, he escaped whenever he could to the mountains and forests of Java and Borneo. Less than two years into the post, he was given the travelling opportunity he had been waiting for. Having been granted leave of absence from the School, Kingdon-Ward joined an American zoological expedition which was to travel six hundred miles in central and western China, up the Yangste to Wuhan, and then to Tibet. Because of the financial backing provided by the Duke of Bedford, the expedition became known as the 'Bedford Expedition', with the aim to collect animal specimen. Although inexperienced, Kingdon-Ward made himself useful and collected a small collection of plants which he later presented to the Botany School at Cambridge.
A year later, he returned to his teaching post in Shanghai, having gained some experience in conducting an expedition. He also learnt how to deal with the indigenous inhabitants of the country he travelled in, being appalled with the way westerners behaved towards local inhabitants and vowed not to follow their example. During his own expeditions, Kingdon-Ward was known to respect local laws and customs even if he did not agree with them. The Bedford expedition had given him a taste for travelling and he soon sought a mean to take part in another expedition. His chance came with an offer from Arthur Kilpin Bulley, a wealthy Cheshire cotton merchant with a passion for plants and gardens and keen to introduce exotic hardy plants to Britain. Bulley was also the owner of a seed company, Bees. He commissioned Kingdon-Ward, as George Forrest, the botanist whom he had previously used, was unavailable.
Kingdon-Ward's assignment was to collect hardy alpine plants from the mountains of Yunnan and in the wild Tibetan marshes. Without any regrets, he resigned from his teaching job in Shanghai and set off for his first solo expedition on 31 January 1911. This expedition is narrated in his book 'The Land of the Blue Poppy - Travels of a Naturalist in Eastern Tibet' which he published in 1913. Although he felt lonely and depressed at times during his first expedition, these feelings disappeared as he progressed in beautiful surroundings. He returned in December with two hundred plants, twenty two of them being new species and he had also recorded other botanical and geological information.
He returned to England in 1912, where he was re-united with his family in Cambridge. He spent much of his time lecturing about his travels, writing a series of articles and working on his first book. He was also elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), the latter being impressed by his original observations of the regions he had travelled in. This made him the youngest man awarded with this honour. The RGS also offered to supply him with equipment in his next expedition. Despite unrest in China, Kingdon-Ward set off once again in 1913, after having undertaken an intensive short course at the RGS in surveying and map making.
The next three years were spent on various expeditions, including a trip in 1914 to Hpimaw in the frontier region of north east Burma with the intention to travel onwards into Assam. However, he had to abandon the latter part of the expedition due to ill health. He enlisted in the Indian Army for the duration of the First World War, reaching the rank of Captain.
After the War, he returned to England and attempted to set up his own nursery with a partner. But he was no businessman and in 1921, his business having failed, he returned to the Yunann province of China. In 1923 he returned to England, after having had to abort his expedition and married Florinda Norman-Thompson, the latter setting out to promote her husband's career. Meanwhile, he was planning another expedition, which was going to prove to be the most outstanding expedition of his career, botanically as well as geographically.
Early in 1924, he set off for the gorges of the Tsangpo, a Tibetan river flowing south into China and India, where it becomes the Brahmaputra. Kingdon-Ward was in search of legendary waterfalls as well as botanical specimen, and was accompanied by Lord Cawdor who partly funded the expedition, the other part being funded by Bees and other seed share investors. They travelled through virgin lands and collected many specimens as well as dispelling the myth of the giant waterfalls. This was to be the first of several visits to Northern Burma. An expedition in 1926 was funded by a group of wealthy gardeners, and in 1927 Kingdon-Ward climbed Japvo Peak in Assam. There were several other expeditions, in Laos in 1929 and in the Ajung valley of North Burma. Now funded by the Royal Horticultural Society, he returned in Tibet in 1933 where he travelled north to the source of the Po-Yigrong River in the mountains. After a round trip of 1,000 miles he returned with hundreds of species.
Kingdon-Ward undertook three more journeys in the 1930s, to Upper Burma, the Burma-Tibet border and Assam. Two of these expeditions were organised by two leading American naturalists, S Cutting and A Vernay, in 1935 and again in 1938. When war was declared in 1939 he joined up and was given his previous rank of Captain and attached to S.O.E. (Special Operations Executive). He was sent on missions to establish safe military corridors through Burma to avoid the Japanese, and later trained pilots in jungle survival at the School of Jungle Warfare at Poona in India (1943-1944). At the end of the War he was commissioned by the USA to search for fallen planes between India and China. It was during one of these trips that he found the Manipur lily.
In 1948, he returned to the remote state of Manipur, between Assam and north west Burma, with his second wife, Jean Macklin, having divorced Florinda fourteen years earlier. This was the first of six trips together during which they collected several species of the pink Manipur lily. In 1952, Jean wrote her first book 'My Hill So Strong', in which she narrates the journey to the Lohit Valley in Burma, where they had just escaped with their lives after being caught in a massive earthquake. In 1956, at the age of seventy one, Kingdon-Ward climbed Mount Victoria in Central Burma (10,016ft) and travelled to Sri Lanka in 1956-1957. He was planning another trip when he fell ill, lapsed into a coma and died in London on 8 April 1958 at the age of seventy three.
Kingdon-Ward's work was recognised during his lifetime by the Royal Horticultural Society, who also awarded him with the Victoria Medal of Honour in Horticulture in 1932 and the Veitch Memorial Medal in 1933. He was awarded an OBE for his services to horticulture in 1954. Altogether, he wrote twenty five books and numerous articles.
The earliest deed in this collection is a grant in fee farm from Francis, Earl of Bedford to John Ward, in 1636/7, of a piece of land abutting north on Long Acre and south on developed and was let as two separate sites-that which became 36 Long Acre, and the site which backed on to it in Hart Street.
Since the series of deeds is by no means complete, there being virtually no title deeds after the early 18th century, the later descent of the property is uncertain. Research in the Middlesex Deeds Register might establish the identity of more recent owners. Most, but not all the documents have been stamped 'Land Registry, London No.252132, Registd 30 Jun. 1921.' Three documents, apparently unrelated to the remainder, are listed at the end.
John Warburton attended Caius College Cambridge and was a Member of the Royal Medical Society Edinburgh. He died, 1843.
Henry Warburton was born in Eltham, Kent, and educated at Eton and at Trinity College, Cambridge. After graduating, he joined his family's timber business, which he directed between 1808 and 1831. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1809. Warburton served as MP for Bridport, Dorset, between 1825 and 1841, and as MP for Kendal, Cumberland, between 1843 and 1847. Whilst active in politics, he espoused several radical and reforming causes, including the repeal of the Corn Laws, the introduction of the penny post, and the abolition of timber duty.
The Warburg family is a German-Jewish family of bankers. The Warburgs moved from Bologna to Warburg in Germany in the 16th century before moving to Altona, near Hamburg in the 17th century. Their first known ancestor was Simon von Cassel, who died c 1566. They took their surname from the city of Warburg. The brothers Moses Marcus Warburg and Gerson Warburg founded the M M Warburg and Co banking company in 1798 that is still in existence. Moses Warburg's great-great grandson, Siegmund George Warburg, founded investment bank S G Warburg & Co in London in 1946. Siegmund's second cousin, Eric Warburg, founded Warburg Pincus in New York in 1938. Eric Warburg's son Max Warburg is currently one of the three partners of M M Warburg & Co.
Aby Moritz Warburg was born in Hamburg, 1866 to a wealthy banking family; instead of entering the family business, he devoted himself to the academic study of art, European civilization and the classical tradition; studied in Bonn, Munich, and in Strasbourg, focusing on archeology and art history; worked in Florence producing studies on single works of art and their wealthy patrons; spent time on the Hopi Indians conducting an ethnological study, 1896; founded the Kultur-wissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg (KBW), to serve both as a private collection and as a resource for public education, 1921; visited the United States to document the Native Americans and their mystic traditions using photographs and text; hospitalized, 1921-1924; worked at the KBW, 1924-1929; died 1929.
Aby Moritz Warburg was born in Hamburg, 1866 to a wealthy banking family; instead of entering the family business, he devoted himself to the academic study of art, European civilization and the classical tradition; studied in Bonn, Munich, and in Strasbourg, focusing on archeology and art history; worked in Florence producing studies on single works of art and their wealthy patrons; spent time on the Hopi Indians conducting an ethnological study, 1896; founded the Kultur-wissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg (KBW), to serve both as a private collection and as a resource for public education, 1921; visited the United States to document the Native Americans and their mystic traditions using photographs and text; hospitalized, 1921-1924; worked at the KBW, 1924-1929; died 1929.
The Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg grew out of the personal library of Aby Warburg. In 1921, with the help of Fritz Saxl, the library became a research institution in cultural history, and a centre for lectures and publications, affiliated to the University of Hamburg. After Warburg's death in 1929, the further development of the Institute was guided by Saxl. In 1934, under the shadow of Nazism, the institute was relocated from Hamburg to London. It was installed in Thames House in 1934, moving to the Imperial Institute Buildings, South Kensington, in 1937. In 1944 it became associated with the University of London, and in 1994 it became a founding institute of the University of London's School of Advanced Study.
Aby Moritz Warburg was born in Hamburg, 1866 to a wealthy banking family; instead of entering the family business, he devoted himself to the academic study of art, European civilisation and the classical tradition; studied in Bonn, Munich, and in Strasbourg, focusing on archeology and art history; worked in Florence producing studies on single works of art and their wealthy patrons; spent time on the Hopi Indians conducting an ethnological study, 1896; founded the Kultur-wissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg (KBW), to serve both as a private collection and as a resource for public education, 1921; visited the United States to document the Native Americans and their mystic traditions using photographs and text; hospitalised,1921-1924; worked at the KBW, 1924-1929; died 1929.
The Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg grew out of the personal library of Aby Warburg. In 1921, with the help of Fritz Saxl, the library became a research institution in cultural history, and a centre for lectures and publications, affiliated to the University of Hamburg. After Warburg's death in 1929, the further development of the Institute was guided by Saxl. In 1934, under the shadow of Nazism, the institute was relocated from Hamburg to London. It was installed in Thames House in 1934, moving to the Imperial Institute Buildings, South Kensington, in 1937. In 1944 it became associated with the University of London, and in 1994 it became a founding institute of the University of London's School of Advanced Study.
The War Refugees Committee was a voluntary body set up about August 1914 to deal with refugees fleeing from the threat of the German armies in Europe, many of them from Belgium. The Committee arranged for them to be met at ports and stations, found temporary hostels for them and tried also to find work for them.
In September 1914 the Committee came to an agreement with the Local Government Board whereby the LGB took over much of the work, and the Treasury much of the funding, while the Committee, with local voluntary committees, continued to look after the allocation of refugees to places found for them and to meet trains and boats. The Committee appears in the Annual Charities Digest until 1918: presumably thereafter it was disbanded as having no further role to play.
The reception, housing and registration sub-committee, formerly the executive sub-committee, of the executive committee was set up to perform the duties in relation to refugees described by its title. It began work in late August 1914 and appears to have ceased to function in the middle of September, presumably as a result of the changing functions of the War Refugees Committee. The sub-committee minute book, though thin, gives a clear idea of the machinery set up to cope with the pre-war crisis.
During World War Two, the War Office published a series of instructional booklets for British Army personnel which detailed German Army field service uniforms, insignia, armour, weaponry, and tactics. The publications were designed for instructional purposes, and often included comparative studies of Allied and German weaponry and tactics as well as analyses of successful German operations
The committee comprised representatives of organisations affiliated to, or eligible for affiliation to the Labour Party. They discussed the relief of civil distress, food prices, housing and pensions.
Woolwich Arsenal was developed from the Royal Laboratory, Carriage Department and Powder House. It dates to the Tudor period and was a centre for the manufacture and testing of arms. It housed the main Government foundry. It was named the Warren until 1805 when George III renamed it the Royal Arsenal. Up to 40,000 workers were employed there during the Second World War. Post-war, the site was reduced in size and some was sold off for housing development.
Information from The London Encyclopaedia, eds. Weinreb and Hibbert (LMA Library Reference 67.2 WEI).
Redwood College was formed in July 1993 by the merger of Roding and Romford Colleges of Nursing, Midwifery and Healthcare Studies. These Colleges were in turn formed by the amalgamation of several Schools of Nursing and Midwifery in Essex and London. Redwood College of Health Studies merged with South Bank University in 1994.
Records in this collection were created by several hospitals in Essex and London, which taught nursing but which no longer exist, with the exception of Whipps Cross Hospital.
The Wanstead and Woodford Synagogue is situated on Churchfields, South Woodford. This synagogue was admitted as an Affiliated member of the United Synagogue in 1947.
The Wandsworth, Wimbledon, Epsom and District Gas Company was formed in 1913 as the amalgamated company of the Wandsworth and Putney Gas Light and Coke Company, the Mitcham and Wimbledon District Gas Light Company, and the Epsom and Ewell Gas Company by 2 and 3 geo.V, c.xlvii, Wandsworth Wimbledon and Epsom District Gas Act 1912.
In 1930 the company amalgamated with the Kingston Upon Thames Gas Company and then the Sutton Gas Company in 1931 when the name changed to the Wandsworth and District Gas Company. In 1949, was nationalised and placed under the control of the South Eastern Gas Board.
In 1890 the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act placed a duty on beer and spirits, the proceeds of which were given to county borough councils for technical education. In 1893 the London County Council set up a Technical Education Board which helped to create eighteen new technical institutes by 1904.
The Wandsworth Technical Institute was founded in 1895. It was constructed on Wandsworth High Street on the site of an ice rink. In 1926 new buildings were completed at the High Street site, these are now Grade II listed. During the Second World War the students were evacuated to Stoke Park in Guildford and the college buildings used to train radar operators. In 1974 the Institute merged with the Putney College of Further Education and was renamed South Thames College.
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.
The Wandsworth Hospital Management Committee administered the following hospitals: Saint James' Hospital, Sarsfield Road; the Weir Maternity Hospital; Saint Benedict's Hospital; the Birchlands Jewish Hospital and the Balham Chest Clinic. It was amalgamated with the Lambeth Group Hospital Management Committee in 1964 to form the South West London Group Hospital Management Committee.
The County Courts as they now exist have their origins in the County Courts Act 1846 with modifications etc under the County Courts Acts of 1888 and 1934. The area of jurisdiction of each court is set from time to time by the Lord Chancellor.
The original jurisdiction of the courts included claims of debt or for damages (except for libel, slander, seduction and breach of promise) not exceeding £400; claims for recovery of land (less than £100 rateable value); claims for the administration of estates, execution of trusts, foreclosure, redemption of mortgages; matters regarding the maintenance of infants, dissolution of partnerships, relief against fraud or mistake where the value of the estates or property etc was not more than £500; contentious business in probate and administration matters where the estate was less than £1000.
The courts have had varied and extensive jurisdictions under numerous Acts including questions between husband and wife under the Married Women's Property Act 1882 and compensation for injured workmen by employers under the Workmen's Compensation Acts 1897 and 1925.
More recent decisions and judgements of County Courts can be found at the Registrar for County Court Judgements, Cleveland Street, London W1.
Address of Wandsworth County Court: Garratt Lane, Wandsworth, SW18; later 76-78 Upper Richmond Road, SW15.
District of the Court: Kew, Richmond, Petersham, Barnes, East Sheen, Mortlake, Roehampton, Putney, Wandsworth, Southfields, Earlsfield, Battersea, Clapham, Tooting, Balham and parts of Streatham and Brixton. Please see Post Office Directories (available in the LMA History Library) for lists of County Courts existing at any one time together with an account of the area covered by each court.
The Wandsworth Common Conservators were incorporated by the Wandsworth Common Act, 1871 (34 and 35 Vic).
They were responsible for the management of the Common until 1887 when, by the Metropolitan Board of Works (Various Powers) Act (50 and 51 Vic.cap.CVI), "all the rights property powers functions," and so on of the Conservators were transferred to the MBW.
The company was formed in 1834 and incorporated by Act of Parliament, 19 and 20 Vict., c.lxii, 1856, to serve the Wandsworth and Putney neighbourhood. It was amalgamated in 1913 with the Mitcham and Wimbledon District Gas Light and Coke Company and the Epsom and Ewell Gas Company to form the Wandsworth, Wimbledon and Epsom District Gas Company from 1 Jan 1913.
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.
Wandsworth and Clapham Union was constituted in 1836 and consisted of the parishes of Wandsworth, Putney, Clapham, Battersea, Streatham and Tooting Graveney. In 1904 these parishes were amalgamated into one parish to be known as the Parish of Wandsworth Borough. The title of the Union was altered to Wandsworth Union. The Wandsworth Union was the largest in London, supporting a population of more than 350,000.
Saint John's Hill Workhouse (also known as the Wandsworth and Clapham Union Workhouse) was constructed in 1838. In 1886 a new, larger workhouse was constructed in Swaffield Road. This allowed the older workhouse to become a dedicated infirmary or hospital, known as Saint John's Hill Infirmary.
Source of information: Peter Higginbotham at The Workhouse website.
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.
Green Lanes is a main road in North London which runs through several postcodes. The section of road which runs through Harringay and Hornsey includes late Victorian terraced mansion houses and shops such as that owned by the Seckers. 555 Green Lanes is now an estate agent.
The roads alongside Tottenham Green were a popular location for building large houses and saw increased growth from the 1700s onwards.
Sir Albert James Walton was born in 1881. He was educated at Framlingham College and the London Hospital, where he gained many scholarships and prizes, qualifying in 1905. In the BSc examination in 1906, he obtained honours in anatomy and morphology, and on taking the MB, BS degrees he secured honours in midwifery, gynaecology and pathology. At the London Hospital he held appointments as emergency officer, house physician, receiving room officer, resident anaesthetist, house surgeon, assistant director of the Institute of Pathology, surgical registrar and demonstrator of anatomy, before being elected to the honorary staff in 1913. Other hospitals to which he was attached were the Poplar Hospital for Accidents; the Evelina Hospital for Children; the Seamen's Hospital, Greenwich; and the Victoria Hospital, Kingston. During the World War One he served as Captain RAMC(T) attached to the 2nd London General Hospital and also at the Endsleigh Hospital for Officers, the Palace Green Hospital for Officers and the Empire Hospital for Diseases of the Brain and Spinal Cord. In World War Two he was a temporary Brigadier attached to the Army Medical Service. At the College he was a Hunterian Professor, 1919; a member of Council, 1931-1947; and Vice-President, 1939-1941. He was an extra surgeon to the Queen, having been surgeon to King George V, King George VI and to the Royal Household. An honorary member of the Academie de Chirurgie of Paris, he was a past President of the Association of Surgeons, the Medical Society of London, and the surgical section of the Royal Society of Medicine. He was awarded the diploma with distinction of the Gemmological Association of which he became President, and he was chairman of the National Association of Goldsmiths. These two bodies established at their headquarters in the city the Sir James Walton Memorial Library, containing models of minerals made by Sir James himself. He was the first medical man to appreciate the importance of the atomic structure of minerals in the causation of chest diseases. He died in 1955.
Before 1889 there were very few facilities for technical education in Britain, apart from those found in selected grammar and elementary schools. The Technical Instruction Act of 1889 empowered County Councils to aid technical or manual instruction by means of the penny rate, further funding came from the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act of the following year. A 35 man Technical Instruction Committee was set up in Essex in 1891, when a further Act was passed to regulate the administration of these funds. Known, from their origins, as 'Whisky Money', they amounted to about £22,000 per annum but gradually diminished. Following the Education Act of 1902 further funds came from the levy of a Higher Education rate in the areas served, to meet the cost of higher education. In 1930 the system of differential rating was abolished and a flat higher education rate was raised over the whole administrative county.
The first grants to fund laboratory equipment and organised, evening science schools in the region were made in 1895. The two largest projects were the technical institutes at Walthamstow (1897) and Leyton (1898). The schools were so successful that by 1910 there were calls for day classes to be introduced. The Day Classes were delayed by the outbreak of the First World War, but the first was opened at Walthamstow in 1917 with 75 pupils. Leyton followed in 1918 with 100 pupils.
By 1924 the demand for technical education in the area had become so pronounced that the District Sub-Committees recommended the establishment of larger technical colleges in extra-metropolitan Essex. In 1933 the Technical Instruction Committee decided to divide the County into four regions and to provide each with a technical college, supported by a ring of junior and senior evening institutes.
The last to be built was South West Essex Technical College - formed by the merger of Technical Colleges of Walthamstow and Leyton. It served the boroughs of Walthamstow, Leyton, Chingford, Wanstead and Woodford and the districts of Waltham Holy Cross, Epping and Ongar.
A school of art was founded in 1883 by the Walthamstow Literary Institute in Trinity schoolroom, West Avenue, which was united to the Science and Art Department, South Kensington. In 1892 it moved to Grosvenor House, Hoe Street, then on to Court House, Hoe Street, in 1900. It was taken over by Walthamstow Higher Education Committee in 1906 but was closed in 1915.
Community Health Councils were established in England and Wales in 1974 "to represent the interests in the health service of the public in its district" (National Health Service Reorganisation Act, 1973). Often referred to as 'the patient’s voice in the NHS', each Community Health Council (CHC) served the public and patients in its local area by representing their interests to National Health Service (NHS) authorities and by monitoring the provision of health services to their communities.
CHCs were independent statutory bodies with certain legal powers. CHCs were entitled to receive information about local health services, to be consulted about changes to health service provision, and to carry out monitoring visits to NHS facilities. They also had the power to refer decisions about proposed closures of NHS facilities to the Secretary of State for Health. For this reason, CHCs were sometimes known as the ‘watchdogs’ of the NHS. The co-ordinated monitoring of waiting times in Accident and Emergency departments led to ‘Casualty Watch’ which gained national press coverage. Locally, many CHCs represented patients’ views by campaigning for improved quality of care and better access to NHS services, and by responding to local issues such as proposed hospital closures.
Each CHC had around 20 voluntary members from the local area. Half were appointed the local authority, a third were elected from voluntary bodies and the remainder were appointed by the Secretary of State for Health. Members met every month to six weeks and meetings were usually open to the general public. Guest speakers or guest attendees were often invited, particularly when a specific topic or issue was under discussion.
All CHCs employed a small number of paid office staff and some had shop-front offices, often on the high street, where members of the public could go for advice and information about local NHS services. CHCs published leaflets and guidance on a wide variety of topics from ‘how to find a GP’ to ‘how to make a complaint’.
Within the guiding principles and statutory duties of the legislation, CHCs developed organically in response to the needs of the communities they served and for this reason considerable variation can be found in the records of different CHCs.
Waltham Forest Community Health Council met for the first time in July 1974 and was originally called West Roding Community Health Council. It catered to the West Roding District of The Redbridge and Waltham Forest Area Health Authority which covered Waltham Forest and part of Redbridge to the West of the River Roding. In 1979 the CHC changed its name from West Roding to Waltham Forest "in order to more closely identify with the community we represent" (Annual Report, 1978-1979). Its stated functions were "first, to provide information, advice and advocacy to health service users, and secondly, to influence the nature of health care provision and monitor its provision on behalf of the local population" (1993/1994 Work Programme).
Community Health Councils in England were abolished in 2003 as part of the ‘NHS Plan (2000)’. The last meeting of Waltham Forest CHC was held in November 2003.
The County Courts as they now exist have their origins in the County Courts Act 1846 with modifications etc under the County Courts Acts of 1888 and 1934. The area of jurisdiction of each court is set from time to time by the Lord Chancellor.
The original jurisdiction of the courts included claims of debt or for damages (except for libel, slander, seduction and breach of promise) not exceeding £400; claims for recovery of land (less than £100 rateable value); claims for the administration of estates, execution of trusts, foreclosure, redemption of mortgages; matters regarding the maintenance of infants, dissolution of partnerships, relief against fraud or mistake where the value of the estates or property etc was not more than £500; contentious business in probate and administration matters where the estate was less than £1000.
The courts have had varied and extensive jurisdictions under numerous Acts including questions between husband and wife under the Married Women's Property Act 1882 and compensation for injured workmen by employers under the Workmen's Compensation Acts 1897 and 1925.
More recent decisions and judgements of County Courts can be found at the Registrar for County Court Judgements, Cleveland Street, London W1.
Eric Walters-Kohn was born in Vienna in 1906; incarcerated in Dachau and Buchenwald, and came to Great Britain in 1939. Many of his family members died in the Holocaust including his mother.
Prepared by Vandercom, Stanton & Co, solicitors
Dachau was a Nazi German concentration camp, and the first one opened in Germany, located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory near the medieval town of Dachau, about 16 km (10 miles) northwest of Munich in southern Germany.
Opened on 22 March 1933, the Dachau concentration camp was the first regular concentration camp established by the coalition government of National Socialist (Nazi) NSDAP party and the Catholic Zentrum party (dissolved at 6 July 1933). Heinrich Himmler, in his capacity as police president of Munich, officially described the camp as 'the first concentration camp for political prisoners.'
Dachau served as a prototype and model for the other Nazi concentration camps that followed. Its basic organisation, camp layout as well as the plan for the buildings were developed by Kommandant Theodor Eicke and were applied to all later camps. He had a separate secure camp near the command centre, which consisted of living quarters, administration, and army camps. Eicke himself became the chief inspector for all concentration camps, responsible for establishing the others according to his model.
In total, over 200,000 prisoners from more than 30 countries were housed in Dachau of which nearly one-third were Jews. 25,613 prisoners are believed to have died in the camp and almost another 10,000 in its subcamps, primarily from disease, malnutrition and suicide.
Eric Walters was an inmate of Dachau and Buchenwald until March 1939.
Academic, historian and political activist, Walter Rodney, was assassinated in Guyana on 13th June 1980, aged 37 years old. A close friend of Eric and Jessica Huntley, Walter Rodney had also published two books through Bogle - L'Ouverture publications, The Groundings with my Brothers which had been fundamental to the launch of Bogle - L'Ouverture in 1969 and How Europe Underdeveloped Africa in 1972. In the wake of his death the Huntleys organised a public memorial held on 25th July 1980 and also founded the Walter Rodney Memorial Trust on 29th July 1980.
The trust was established to serve as a memorial to Walter Rodney's "profound contribution to the growing awareness and emancipation of the Caribbean working class." Its primary objective was to promote, encourage and organise "the documentation of the history and activity of the black working class in Britain, Africa, the Caribbean, North America and other parts of the world" (LMA/4462/R/03/001).
Walter Laqueur was the former director of the Wiener Library
Dr Walter was a radiotherapeutic consultant in Sheffield, author of A Short Textbook of Radiotherapy (1950) and Cancer and Radiotherapy (1971). Further details of his career can be found in Munk's Roll, vol VII, and his obituary in the British Medical Journal.
Born, 1885; educated: Prior Park College, near Bath, 1898-1901; University College School, London, 1901-1903; University College Hospital; National Hospital, Queen Square. Royal Army Medical Corps, consulting neurologist to the British forces in Egypt and the Middle East, 1915-; Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 1920; staff of the National Hospital, 1921; the Department of Neurology was founded for him at University College Hospital, 1924; died, 1973.
Born in London, 1885; educated at Prior Park College, Bath, 1898-1901; University College School, London, 1901-1903; attended University College London as a medical student, 1903-1910; BSc, 1908; MB, BS, 1910; held house appointments at University College Hospital, London, for a year; worked at the National Hospital, Queen Square, London as House Physician and Resident Medical Officer; MD, 1912; Member of the Royal College of Physicians, 1913; Consulting Neurologist to the British Forces in Egypt and the Middle East, Royal Army Medical Corps, 1915-1919; OBE, 1919; mentioned in dispatches; elected Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 1920; pioneered description and analysis of human reflexes in physiological terms, 1920-1930; appointed Honorary Physician, National Hospital, Queen Square, 1921; appointed Honorary Physician, University College Hospital, 1924; DSc, 1924; delivered the Oliver Sharpey Lecture, Royal College of Physicians, 1929; editor of Brain, 1937-1953; advised caution about some `miraculous' cures at Lourdes in the Catholic Medical Guardian, 1938-1939; published, mainly in the journal Brain, important papers on the function of the cerebral cortex in relation to movements, and on neural physiology in relation to the awareness of pain, 1940-1960; honorary doctorate, National University of Ireland, 1941; elected Fellow of the Royal Society, 1946; delivered the Harveian oration, Royal College of Physicians of London, 1948; President of the Association of Neurologists, 1950-1951; President of the Royal Society of Medicine, 1952-1954; Ferrier Lecturer, Royal Society, 1953; knighted, 1953; from 1953, increasingly absorbed in philosophical problems of the mind-brain relationship; honorary doctorate, University of Cincinnati, 1959; President of the Royal Society of Hygiene and Public Health, 1962-1964; Fellow of University College London, 1964; in a special issue of the journal Brain, summarised his experience during fifty years as a neurologist, 1965; died, 1973. See also C G Phillips' memoir in Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, vol xx (1974). Publications include: with (Sir) Gordon Holmes and James Taylor, edited Selected Writings of John Hughlings Jackson (2 volumes, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1931-1932); neurological sections of Conybeare's (1936) and Price's (1937) Textbook of Medicine; Diseases of the Nervous System (E & S Livingstone, Edinburgh, 1940, 11th edition 1970, and widely translated); Critical Studies in Neurology (E & S Livingstone, Edinburgh, 1948); Further Critical Studies in Neurology (E & S Livingstone, Edinburgh & London, 1965); The Structure of Medicine and its Place among the Sciences (The Harveian Oration, Royal College of Physicians, E & S Livingstone, Edinburgh, 1948); Humanism, History, and Natural Science in Medicine (The Linacre Lecture, E & S Livingstone, Edinburgh, 1950); papers on physiology and diseases of the nervous system.
Maurice O'Connell Walshe (b 1911) was reader in German at Bedford College London. He published a number of works on German, Russian and Buddhism.
Born 1888; educated at Cheltenham College and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich; commissioned into Corps of Royal Engineers, 1908; Instructor, Royal Military College, Duntroon, Australia, 1914-1915; served in World War One, 1914-1918; service at Gallipoli and on the Western Front, 1915-1918; Brevet Maj, 1919; British Representative, International Commission, Teschen, Czech-Polish frontier, 1919-1920; Instructor in Tactics and Bde Maj, School of Military Engineering, Chatham, Kent, 1923-1926; General Staff Officer 2, War Office, 1927-1930; Brevet Lt Col, 1928; Imperial Defence College; Assistant Adjutant General, War Office, 1934-1935; Brig, General Staff, Eastern Command, 1935-1939; Maj Gen, 1939; Commandant, School of Military Engineering, Chatham, Kent, and Inspector, Corps of Royal Engineers, 1939; Engineer in Chief, BEF (British Expeditionary Force), France, 1939-1940; awarded CB, 1940; General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland District, 1940-1941; Corps Commander and acting Lt Gen, 1941; Commander, Salisbury Plain District, 1942; Controller General, Army Provision (EG), 1943-1946; Vice Chairman, Harlow New Town Development Corporation, Essex, 1947-1950; President, Cheltonian Society, 1948-1949; died 1966. Decorations: CB, MC. Publications: Outline history of the Russo-Japanese War [1924]; Elementary tactics (Sifton, Praed and Company, London, 1926); History of the Corps of Royal Engineers, Volumes VIII and IX (Longmans, London, 1959).
Born 1897; Wellington College, Berkshire, until 1916, Royal Military Academy, Woolwich; Royal Artillery, 1918-1935; service in Palestine and Syria, 1940; Assistant Provost Marshal on GHQ, Northwestern Expeditionary Force (Norway); Deputy Provost Marshal, 1 Army, North Africa, [1942-1943]; Chief Instructor and Commandant, C Wing, Civil Affairs Staff Centre (CASC), 1943-1944; served in Allied Control Commission Germany, including on the Quadripartite Commission charged with the detection of war criminals, [1944-1947]; retired from active service and promoted to Brigadier, 1947; Governor HM Prison Service; died 1985.
John Benn-Walsh (1798-1881) was the son of Sir John Benn-Walsh of Warfield Park, Berkshire, and Ormathwaite, Cumberland. Benn-Walsh was a Member of Parliament, local administrator and a writer. He was married to Jane Grey, with 2 sons and 2 daughters. In April 1868 he was created Baron Ormathwaite of Ormathwaite.
Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole was born on 13 March 1884 in Auckland, New Zealand. He was educated at King's School, Canterbury, Durham School and in 1903 he attended Emmanuel College Cambridge. Before the First World War Walpole joined the staff of the Mersey Mission to Seaman in 1906; he travelled to France and Germany in 1907 and became the assistant master at Epsom College in 1908. In 1909 he went to London where he published his first novel The Wooden Horse. While in London he also became a book reviewer for the Evening Standard, in 1913. During the First World War, 1914-1918, he served with the Red Cross in Russia, receiving the Order of St George for his heroism. He was also awarded a CBE in 1918 and during the following two years he received the literary prize, the James Tait Black Prize. Walpole was a prolific writer, averaging about a novel a year. He was knighted in 1937. Walpole died in his country home in Keswick, Cumbria on 1 June 1941.
Sir Joshua Walmsley, (1794-1871), was the son of John Walmsley and his wife, Elizabeth Berry, and was born at Concert Street, Liverpool, on 29 September 1794. Joshua was educated at Knowsley, Lancashire, and Eden Hall, Westmorland. On the death of his father in 1807 he became a teacher in Eden Hall School, and on returning to Liverpool in 1811 took a similar situation in Mr Knowles's school. He was then employed by a corn merchant in 1814, and at the end of his engagement went into the same business himself, and ultimately acquired a comfortable income. He married in 1815 Adeline, née Mulleneux. In 1826 he became president of the Liverpool Mechanics' Institute, and about the same time began his close friendship and business partnership with George Stephenson. Elected a member of the Liverpool town council in 1835, he worked to improve the police, sanitary, and educational affairs of the borough; he was notable for promoting non-sectarian schools. He was appointed mayor in November 1838 and knighted in 1840 on presenting an address to Queen Victoria from the town council of Liverpool on the occasion of her marriage. Walmsley was the founder in 1848, president, and chief organizer of the National Reform Association and was a supporter of the forty-shilling freehold movement. In 1849 he was returned as MP for Bolton, Lancashire, but in 1852 exchanged that seat for Leicester, where his efforts on behalf of the framework knitters had made him popular. His parliamentary campaign for a reform bill was overshadowed by continental affairs. As proprietor of the Daily News, he adopted a non-interventionist stance during the Crimean War. Walmsley died on 17 November 1871 at his residence at Hume Towers, Bournemouth. His wife survived him by two years. Source: C. W. Sutton, 'Walmsley, Sir Joshua (1794-1871)', rev. Matthew Lee, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
William Allcard (b 1801) was an engineer who worked with George Stephenson. He was responsible for the design of the Sankey Viaduct on the Liverpool to Manchester Railway.
No information was available at the time of compilation.