Between 1966 and 2006, Libby Hall collected old photographs of dogs, amassing many thousands to assemble what is possibly the largest number of canine pictures ever gathered by any single person. Libby began collecting casually when the photographs were of negligible value, but by the end she had published four books and been priced out of the market. Yet through her actions Libby rescued an entire canon of photography from the scrap heap, seeing the poetry and sophistication in images that were previously dismissed as merely sentimental. And today, we are the beneficiaries of her visionary endeavour.
The Post Office was established in 1635 by Charles I. The head of this new service was variously known as Master of Posts, Comptroller General of the Posts and Postmaster of England.
The Civil War saw the the Post Office contested by both sides. Acts of Parliament were passed during the Interregnum (1656) and later upon the Restoration (1660). These established the General Post Office as a branch of government which was to be headed by the Postmaster General.
The service at this time consisted of a number of main routes from London to the provinces. Postmasters on the routes collected and distributed mail and collected revenue.
During this period the scope of The Post Office's activities was limited and its administrative functions were largely concerned with its finances. The General Post Office was based in the City of London and was organised into three departments; the Inland Office which handled all internal letters, the Foreign Office which handled all overseas mails and the Penny Post Office which dealt with all locally posted mail for London. This building was destroyed by the Great Fire of London, which might explain why only a small number of Post Office records from that period survive. Those that have survived are largely volumes of accounts detailing levels of income and expenditure through the years. From 1667 the role of Postmaster General became a political appointment. Between 1691 and 1823, two Postmasters General were appointed, one being a Whig and the other a Tory. At the same time the post of Secretary to the Post Office was created. Over time this post developed into one which held real influence within the General Post Office; the Secretary's Office becoming the centre of decision making within Headquarters.
The eighteenth century saw much development of routes and post towns, although the Post Office continued to be run from London. It was not until 1715 that the Post Office appointed its first regional administrators, known as Surveyors. Surveyors were charged with ensuring that those at lower levels in the organisation were doing their duty and that the revenues were being correctly managed.
The nineteenth Century was a period of vast expansion for The Post Office. Postal rates were subject to a reform which resulted in the introduction of penny postage and the adhesive postage stamp. Increased adult literacy led to a dramatic increase in the volume of mail. The latter half of the century saw an explosion of new services as the Post Office moved into banking, telecommunications and set up a parcels operation. It also saw the development of a nationwide network of post offices through which these services could be accessed.
By the end of the century, Headquarters buildings had accumulated large volumes of historical material. To meet the challenge of managing this material, in 1896 The Post Office established its own record room.
The responsibilities of the surveyors had also grown during this period. They became the heads of districts of management; responsible for managing the range of Post Office activities in their areas.
The Post Office's move into telecommunications began in 1870, with the establishment of the United Kingdom telegraph service as a Post Office monopoly. From 1880, the control of the telephone service passed progressively to the Post Office, with the entire service being taken over in 1912. The Post Office also became involved in international telecommunications culminating in 1947 when, following the nationalisation of Cable and Wireless Ltd, it acquired the company's telecommunications assets in Britain. In 1904, the Wireless Telegraphy Act conferred licensing powers on the Postmaster General, and the Post Office continued to regulate radio services until the responsibility was passed to the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications in 1969. Within the field of broadcasting, the Post Office was responsible for the granting of transmission licences and the collection of radio licence fees, and for advising Parliament on questions of sound and television broadcasting services. In 1933 the Post Office's new Public Relations Division took over the Film Unit from the Empire Marketing Board, and in 1940 this unit was transferred to the Ministry of Information, later becoming the Crown Film Unit.
By the 1930s the size and complexity of The Post Office had grown so much as to lead to public criticism. The result of this was a committee of enquiry; the Bridgeman Committee, which led to a large-scale devolution of powers to provincial management and the creation of eight regions.
The Post Office Act of 1961 created a Post Office fund under the management of the Postmaster General. All income was paid into the fund and all expenditure met out of it. This enabled the Post Office to operate as a business with the financial status of a public authority. However, the Post Office remained a government department answerable to Parliament on day-to-day business.
The Post Office Act of 1969 saw the General Post Office ceasing to be a branch of government and becoming instead a nationalised industry, established as a public corporation. Under the terms of the Act, the Corporation was split into two divisions - Posts and Telecommunications - which thus became distinct businesses. The office of Postmaster General was discontinued and The Post Office, as it was now known, was headed by a Chairman and Chief Executive/Deputy Chairman. This role was directly appointed by the Post Office Board. The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications was created in 1969 and, in addition to sponsoring the Post Office, took over the functions previously exercised by the Postmaster General in relation to Broadcasting.
The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications was dissolved in March 1974. Broadcasting and radio regulation became part of the Home Office, whilst Post and Telecommunications functions became the responsibility of the Department of Industry. The latter merged with the Department of Trade in 1983 to become the Department of Trade and Industry.
In 1981 the telecommunications business of The Post Office became a separate public corporation, trading as British Telecom. In 1984, British Telecom was privatised and since 1991 has traded as BT. Following the 1981 split, the Post Office was then reorganised into two distinct businesses; Post and Parcels. In 1987, there was a further separation of Post Office business as Girobank was transferred to the private sector, eventually being acquired by Alliance and Leicester in 1994.
In late 1986 The Post Office was restructured to create three businesses; SSL (Subscription Services Limited), Royal Mail and Parcelforce. A year later the network of post offices was established as Post Office Counters Limited; a limited company which was a wholly owned subsidiary of The Post Office. Although each of the above had their own Managing Directors and headquarters functions, what was now the Post Office group of businesses retained a headquarters function for group policy. Additionally this Group function continued to provide the rest of the businesses with services and support.
In 1993 the positions of Deputy Chairman and Chief Executive became two separate roles. The position of Chairman as the 'head' of the Post Office remained. The White Paper on Post Office Reform was published in 1999, with the objective of giving greater commercial freedom to the Post Office to enable it to compete and respond to changes in the market place. The paper reduces the governments' financial demands on the business and allows it to borrow from the Government at commercial rates to pay for acquisitions and joint ventures with private companies. This White Paper was followed by the Postal Services Act 2000, which put the recommendations of the White paper into action, giving the postal service the necessary greater commercial freedom. It also established Postcomm as the independent regulator of the postal service, and Postwatch as a national consumer body, which replaced the old Post Office Users National Council (POUNC).
The name Consignia was taken in Spring 2001 as part of an attempt to position the business globally. However, since November 2002, the business that carries letters and parcels and runs the mail has been known as Royal Mail.
Robert Allan Fitzgerald was born in Purley House, Berkshire on 1 October 1834. He was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge.
A right-handed batsman and round arm right-arm fast bowler, Fitzgerald participated in 46 first-class matches between 1854 and 1874, scoring over 1,000 runs. He later became Secretary of MCC from 1863 to 1876, during which time MCC purchased the freehold of the ground from Isaac Moses Marsden thanks to money advanced from William Nicholson, built the ground's first Grand Stand, and in 1872 Fitzgerald led a team of cricketers including Lord Harris and W G Grace on a tour of North America.
This tour is documented at length in one of the scrapbooks in this collection. Fitzgerald was also a keen amateur dramatist and plays written by him are included in one of the other scrapbooks, alongside accounts of MCC, I Zingari and Quidnunc matches, as well as newspaper articles on cricket and lawn tennis.
Sir Frederick Augustus Abel (1827-1902) was an English chemist and became the 15th President of the Chemical Society (1875-1877) and the 2nd President of the Royal Institute of Chemistry (1880-1883). His area of expertise was in explosives and in 1889 invented Cordite with Sir James Dewar.
Colonel Frederick Nathan joined the Royal Artillery in 1879 and in 1886 took up an appointment at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich. Colonel Nathan worked in the explosives industry.
Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe (1833-1915) was the 17th President of the Chemical Society (1880-1882) and went to University College London in 1848 where Thomas Graham was the Professor of Chemistry. Roscoe was a student of German chemist Robert Bunsen at Heidelberg; they later became collaborators in research and lifelong friends.
James Pettigrew Ogilvie (1881-1953) was the son of a well-known sugar refiner and became an authority on the subject of sugar himself, authoring many books and journal titles in the area as well as working within the sugar industry. He became a Fellow of the Chemical Society in 1912 and later presented a number of valuable books on sugar chemistry to the Society.
Sir Pelham Francis Warner was born in The Hall, Port of Spain, Trinidad, on 2 October 1873. He was the son of Charles William Warner, Attorney General of Trinidad. He married Agnes Blyth in 1904 and they had three children, two boys Esmond and John and a daughter Elizabeth.
Warner was educated at Rugby School and Oxford University, where he played in the varsity match against Cambridge. He made his first-class debut for Middlesex in 1894 and in 1897 was called up to play for Lord Hawke's XI in the West Indies. He then made his debut for England vs. South Africa in Johannesburg in 1899.
In 1903 Warner had the honour of being the first captain of an MCC touring side following the decision to make MCC the governing body responsible for England cricket tours overseas. The tour was to Australia and England won the series 3-2, thus bringing back the Ashes. Warner was rewarded with a place on the MCC Committee, and captained the first ever MCC tour of South Africa. During the First World War, Warner served with the Inns of Court and the Ministry of Information at the Foreign Office. After the war he returned to play first-class cricket in Middlesex and helped them to win the championship in 1920, scoring 79 and being led off the pitch by spectators - a framed picture of which is included in this collection.
After he retired from cricket Warner remained active in the game. He became manager of the MCC touring team during the infamous Bodyline series of 1932-1933. Warner was knighted in 1937 and during the Second World War he became Deputy Secretary of MCC. In 1950-1951 Warner was President of MCC and celebrated his 80th birthday with a dinner in the Long Room - two events that make up the bulk of correspondence and telegrams included in this collection. Warner died at West Lavington, near Midhurst, Sussex, on January 30, 1963.
This collection was bequeathed to MCC by Marina Warner, Warner's granddaughter, in 2009. The collection focuses on Warner's achievements away from the game - his MBE, his knighthood, his election as MCC President in 1950-1951, the release of his book 'Lord's 1787-1945' and his 80th birthday. The collection also includes material acquired during the course of Warner's life, including poetry, menu cards, orders of service and certificates. The material was held in a Louis Vuitton trunk with one sticker with 'The Grand Hotel, Melbourne' written on it, and with the scarlet and gold colours of MCC. MCC has retained the trunk.
Henry Weston Elder was a bristlemerchant. He held the manor of Topsfield in Crouch End from 1855. He died in 1882 and his widow sold the property in 1894.
From: 'Hornsey, including Highgate: Manors', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 6: Friern Barnet, Finchley, Hornsey with Highgate (1980), pp. 140-146.
The first registers of voters were lists of those owing land tax, since the right to vote depended on the amount of property a man owned.
It was not until the 1832 Reform Act that the creation of electoral registers became a requirement. At first these were the responsibility of the Quarter Sessions, although from 1888 they were compiled by County Councils and from 1974 by District Councils. The registers mainly list those eligible to vote for parliamentary elections although they often double as lists for local government elections.
A turnpike was barrier placed across a road to stop traffic passing until a toll was paid.
The Manor of Isleworth Syon was in the hands of Walter de St. Valery in 1086, having been granted to him by William the Conqueror as a reward for his support during the conquest of England. The family retained possession of the manor until 1227 when it escheated to the crown. In 1229 a full grant of the manor was made by Henry III to his brother, Richard, Earl of Cornwall, whose son Edward inherited it in 1272. In 1301, Edward's widow Margaret was assigned the manor by Edward I as part of her dower, but it reverted to the crown on her death in 1312. The manor was eventually granted for life by Edward III to his wife Queen Philippa in 1330. The reversion was included in a grant of lands to Edward, Duke of Cornwall, in 1337. In 1390 Queen Anne the wife of Richard II was given a life interest in the manor. Henry V held the manor, as Prince of Wales, but when king, separated the manor from the duchy of Cornwall by Act of Parliament in 1421 in order to bestow it upon his newly founded convent of Syon. It remained as part of the convent's possessions until the dissolution in 1539 when it fell into the hands of the Crown and was added to the Honour of Hampton Court. In 1604 James I granted the manor to Henry, Earl of Northumberland, in whose family it remained.
Strawberry Hill was the residence of writer Horace Walpole (1717-1797). Situated in Twickenham, it was described as a 'little Gothic castle'. The building eventually came into the ownership of George, Earl of Waldegrave, who sold the contents in 1842 in order to pay off his debts.
Under the Education Act of 1876 Ealing Educational Association was formed instead of a school board to meet current deficits and pay for building extensions to existing local schools, which were mostly church schools. Apart from an unsuccessful voluntary rate in 1880, funds were raised by subscription until 1895. Rates levied for the Association by Ealing council from 1896 were criticized because the demands did not indicate that they were voluntary, and by 1901 only one-third was collected. Average attendance at local schools under the management of the Association rose from 754 in 1878 to 2,388 in 1902 at Ealing. By the late 1890s there may have been overcrowding but a request by the Board of Education for extra places in 1901 was ignored, as responsibility under the Education Act of 1902 was to pass to Ealing Metropolitan Borough (M.B.), which duly became an autonomous part III authority.
Ealing had too few places in 1903, when the population was growing rapidly. In addition to temporary schools, permanent ones were built by the borough engineer Charles Jones: Little Ealing, Northfields, Drayton Grove, Lammas, and North Ealing, the first four containing large boys', girls', and infants' schools on a single site. Few places were needed in North Ealing, where most children were educated privately, and elsewhere the council charged fees, which at Drayton Grove were higher than the Board of Education would permit. After the First World War only Grange school replaced the voluntary schools as they closed. From 1931 school building was concentrated in the expanding north and west parts of the borough; although Jones's buildings were seen as outmoded by 1938, it was only from 1952 that they were replaced.
The county council established secondary schools for boys in 1913 and girls in 1926 at Ealing, where a selective central school was opened in 1925. Following the Hadow report, four of Ealing's council schools acquired a single-sex senior department and after the Education Act of 1944 the former central school became a grammar school. Secondary classes elsewhere used converted premises and the only change before the introduction of the comprehensive system was the transfer of two of the smaller secondary schools to the new Ealing Mead school in 1962. At Brentford the boys' and girls' senior schools and Gunnersbury Roman Catholic grammar school were the only secondary schools. Under the Act of 1944 Ealing M.B. became an 'excepted district', responsible for primary and secondary education. From 1965 they lay within Ealing and Hounslow London Boroughs.
From: 'Ealing and Brentford: Education', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 7: Acton, Chiswick, Ealing and Brentford, West Twyford, Willesden (1982), pp. 162-170.
The administration of roads and bridges was one of the very earliest functions of County administration. In 1555 an Act of Parliament was passed which made parishes responsible for the maintenance of the roads running through it, including supply of materials and labour for repairs. In 1663 Parliament first authorised the erection of turnpikes or toll barriers to raise funds for the maintenance of roads. By 1770 there were 7800 toll gates, despite the system being so unpopular it caused riots.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century the Industrial Revolution led to a large increase in traffic. In 1808 a Parliamentary Committee to consider the administration of roads was established. This Committee appointed paid county surveyors to examine the roads and produced a plan for the consolidation of the turnpike system around London, which led to improvement to the Middlesex turnpikes in 1826. It was not until the Local Government Act of 1888 that responsibility for the maintenance and repair of main roads was passed to county councils, while the care of smaller roads was passed to the local councils.
The Standing Joint Committee of most counties was responsible for control of the local police force. However, Middlesex was within the Metropolitan Police Area controlled by the Home Office, so the Standing Joint Committee was given other duties. These included matters relating to the accommodation of the quarter sessions and all property, appointment and control of officers and the provision of petty sessional court houses.
A burial board appointed for Ealing and Old Brentford in 1858 acquired 8 acres east of South Ealing Road in 1860, which were laid out as a cemetery in 1861. Chapels for Anglicans and dissenters, forming a single building, had been built by 1873 and the area had been extended to 21 acres by 1890.
The Burial Acts of 1852-1857 gave parishes and town councils the power to establish Burial Boards which would be responsible for providing suitable arrangments for the dead of the parish. This was usually in the form of a cemetery. The Board was responsible for the management of the cemetery, usually providing chapels consecrated for the use of different denominations. The expense of setting up the cemetery would be charges to the Poor Rate or the Borough Rate.
From: 'Ealing and Brentford: Public services', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 7: Acton, Chiswick, Ealing and Brentford, West Twyford, Willesden (1982), pp. 147-149.
Poor rates were administered by parishes, and were levied to assist the poor of that parish. The duty of relieving the poor was given to parish overseers. The 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act established Boards of Guardians which were responsible for the care of poor persons in a group of parishes, known as Poor Law Unions. Hendon Poor Law Union was formed in 1835, and comprised the parishes of Hendon, Harrow, Pinner, Edgware, Kingsbury, Great and Little Stanmore, and Willesden. A red-brick workhouse was built at Redhill, Edgware Road, in 1835 to hold 350 inmates; a union school for 150 children was erected near by in 1859 and the workhouse itself was extended in 1889.
The turnpike system dated from 1663 when Parliament authorised the erection of toll barriers along the Great North Road. The principle was that each person should contribute to the repair of the roads in proportion to the use he made of them. A barrier was placed across a road and a toll taken from each road user except pedestrians; the monies were then used to support the maintenance and improvement of the road. Turnpikes were placed under the control of bodies known as Turnpike Trusts. By 1770 there were over 1100 Trusts, administering 23,000 miles of road, with 7800 toll gates.
The "Great Essex Road" from London to Harwich followed what was is now the A12 as far as Colchester and then followed the same route as the A137 and B1352 to Harwich. The original starting point in London was from The Standard in Cornhill, but later measurements were taken from Whitechapel Church on the eastern boundary of the City of London. As Middlesex encircled the north of the City the first milestone in Essex along the route was placed at Stratford.
In 1780 Matthias Peter Dupont, an innkeeper from Aldersgate in the City of London, opened the Zion Chapel in Chase Side, Enfield. In 1791 a controversial ministerial appointment caused a split in the congregation and a second chapel was begun, called the Independent Chapel or the Chase Side Chapel. John Stribling became minister of the Zion Chapel in 1832 and retired in 1871. In 1865 the community voted to reunite and the Zion Chapel was demolished in order to make way for a new building, Christ Church. The Independent Chapel became a lecture hall. The church still stands as the Christ Church United Reformed Church.
Pinner for some time depended upon fire hydrants but there was a fire brigade by 1881 and in the 1890s a manual engine was kept at Pinner Hall and later at the George Inn. A fire station was opened in 1903 at the Red Lion Inn to house a steam fire engine. New fire brigade headquarters were opened in 1938 in Pinner Road.
From: A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 4: Harmondsworth, Hayes, Norwood with Southall, Hillingdon with Uxbridge, Ickenham, Northolt, Perivale, Ruislip, Edgware, Harrow with Pinner (1971), pp. 237-249.
A Presbyterian congregation was established in Uxbridge in 1753. By 1833 they had adopted Congregational Church practices and the name Uxbridge Old Meeting Congregational Church. They joined the London Congregational Union in 1922. A second Congregational body was established in Uxbridge in 1777, called the Providence Congregational Church. The two churches were united in 1962 as the Uxbridge Congregational Church, worshipping at the Old Meeting premises.
Edgware and Little Stanmore Lighting Committee
Edgware Parish Council
Little Stanmore Parish Council
The parish of Edgware lay on the northern boundary of Middlesex, bordered on the north by Elstree, on the west by Little Stanmore, and on the east by Hendon. The parish of Little Stanmore was bounded on the north by Bushey Heath, on the east by Watling Street, separating Little Stanmore from Edgware and Hendon, on the south by Kingsbury and on the west by Great Stanmore.
Parish officers were elected annually and were responsible for various aspects of local administration. Because of their proximity Little Stanmore and Edgware always shared their main areas of settlement. The north of both parishes included parts of the village of Elstree. This closeness meant that the two parishes formed various joint administrative bodies and shared some staff and facilities. For example in 1767 a punishment cage was built and used jointly by Edgware and Little Stanmore.
Maintenance of county roads and bridges was supervised by the County Engineer and Surveyor's Department.
The County Council's Architectural Service was concerned with the diverse types of building required for the education, health, welfare, legal, administrative and fire and ambulance services run by the County, each with special requirements affecting their design.
John Wilkes was born in Clerkenwell in 1725. He was educated at the University of Leiden from 1744, where he developed life-long habits of vice and profligacy. In 1747 he returned to England to enter into an arranged marriage. The dowry was the manor of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. In London Wilkes was admitted to several clubs and moved in intellectual circles, while in Aylesbury he participated in local administration as a magistrate. In 1757 he stood for the Aylesbury Parliamentary seat in an uncontested by-election. In 1761 he again won the seat by bribing the voters. Wilkes began to write anonymous political pamphlets and in 1762 he established a political weekly, the North Briton which was highly critical of the Prime Minister Lord Bute and his successor, George Greville. In November 1763 the North Briton was declared to be seditious libel, leaving Wilkes exposed to punitive legal action. At the same time he was badly injured in a pistol duel with another MP. Wilkes fled to Paris to escape legal proceedings and was expelled from Parliament.
In January 1764 Wilkes was convicted for publishing the North Briton. He was summoned to appear at the court of the King's Bench and when he failed to appear was outlawed. Wilkes therefore stayed abroad for four years as returning to England would mean imprisonment. In Paris he moved in intellectual circles and was praised as a champion of freedom, however, he was accruing serious debts. Between 1766 and 1767 he made brief return visits to London, hoping to be pardoned. In 1768 he returned permanently, living under a false name. He announced that he would attend the King's Bench when the court next met, and declared his intention to run for Parliament. He contested for the Middlesex seat and ran a superbly organised campaign backed by popular enthusiasm, winning the seat in March by 1292 votes to 827.
Wilkes was immediately expelled from Parliament as it was assumed he would be imprisoned when he attended court in April. The decision was reversed as it was feared that Wilkes' supporters would riot. In June Wilkes was sentenced to two years imprisonment in the King's Bench Prison. On 3 February 1769 he was again expelled from Parliament, only to be re-elected on 16 February in a by-election. He was expelled again but again re-elected in March, only to be expelled. At the April by-election Parliament produced a rival candidate who was soundly defeated, but nevertheless was awarded the Parliamentary seat. The resulting controversy forced the Prime Minister to resign.
Released in 1770 Wilkes stood for election as alderman for the Ward of Farringdon Without in the City of London. In 1771 he was elected Sheriff and in 1774 Lord Mayor. In the same year he was again elected to the Parliamentary seat for Middlesex. He held this seat until 1790. In 1779 he became the City of London Chamberlain and after leaving Parliament concentrated on this post until his death in 1797.
The origins of the Staines Congregational Church, Thames Street, are in a small congregation of independents formed in 1789. A minister was appointed by the group in the same year, but no meeting house was constructed until 1802. This was situated on Tilley's Lane. In 1837 a new chapel was constructed at Thames Street. Designed by W Higgins, it was brick with an Ionic portico looking towards the High Street. In 1956 this chapel was demolished to allow road widening and a third constructed, designed by J P Blake. The present day church is situated on Stainash Crescent, off Kingston Road.
Major W H Morgan appears to have served with the 711 (Middlesex County Council) Company, Royal Engineers, during the First World War.
Iceland was occupied by British forces in May 1940 despite its neutrality. It was considered strategically important for control of the Atlantic and the battle against U-boat attacks on convoys.
John Wilkes was born in Clerkenwell in 1725. He was educated at the University of Leiden from 1744, where he developed life-long habits of vice and profligacy. In 1747 he returned to England to enter into an arranged marriage. The dowry was the manor of Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. In London Wilkes was admitted to several clubs and moved in intellectual circles, while in Aylesbury he participated in local administration as a magistrate. In 1757 he stood for the Aylesbury Parliamentary seat in an uncontested by-election. In 1761 he again won the seat by bribing the voters. Wilkes began to write anonymous political pamphlets and in 1762 he established a political weekly, the North Briton which was highly critical of the Prime Minister Lord Bute and his successor, George Greville. In November 1763 the North Briton was declared to be seditious libel, leaving Wilkes exposed to punitive legal action. At the same time he was badly injured in a pistol duel with another MP. Wilkes fled to Paris to escape legal proceedings and was expelled from Parliament.
In January 1764 Wilkes was convicted for publishing the North Briton. He was summoned to appear at the court of the King's Bench and when he failed to appear was outlawed. Wilkes therefore stayed abroad for four years as returning to England would mean imprisonment. In Paris he moved in intellectual circles and was praised as a champion of freedom, however, he was accruing serious debts. Between 1766 and 1767 he made brief return visits to London, hoping to be pardoned. In 1768 he returned permanently, living under a false name. He announced that he would attend the King's Bench when the court next met, and declared his intention to run for Parliament. He contested for the Middlesex seat and ran a superbly organised campaign backed by popular enthusiasm, winning the seat in March by 1292 votes to 827.
Wilkes was immediately expelled from Parliament as it was assumed he would be imprisoned when he attended court in April. The decision was reversed as it was feared that Wilkes' supporters would riot. In June Wilkes was sentenced to two years imprisonment in the King's Bench Prison. On 3 February 1769 he was again expelled from Parliament, only to be re-elected on 16 February in a by-election. He was expelled again but again re-elected in March, only to be expelled. At the April by-election Parliament produced a rival candidate who was soundly defeated, but nevertheless was awarded the Parliamentary seat. The resulting controversy forced the Prime Minister to resign.
Released in 1770 Wilkes stood for election as alderman for the Ward of Farringdon Without in the City of London. In 1771 he was elected Sheriff and in 1774 Lord Mayor. In the same year he was again elected to the Parliamentary seat for Middlesex. He held this seat until 1790. In 1779 he became the City of London Chamberlain and after leaving Parliament concentrated on this post until his death in 1797.
For most of the 19th century local government in Edmonton was divided among several bodies, although membership often overlapped. At the time of the cholera outbreak in 1853, the vestry appointed a committee to consider the sanitary state of the parish. There was a watching and lighting committee, presumably set up after the Act of 1833, and the overseers collected a lighting rate. A board of the surveyors of the highway was responsible for the roads in the parish by 1841. In 1837 Edmonton parish became a medical district within the poor law union and in 1842 it was divided into three, each with its own medical officer.
Edmonton local board of health was set up in 1850 under the Public Health Act of 1848. It immediately replaced the highway board and took over responsibility for street lighting under the Local Government Act of 1858. It consisted of 12 members who met twice a month at the watch-house in Church Street. Its salaried officials were a clerk, a combined inspector of nuisances and surveyor, and a collector of rates, who later received a percentage of the collected rates in place of a salary. The board was financed by a general district rate, although sometimes there was a separate highway-rate. Expenditure on highways was nearly always considerably greater than on sanitary improvements.
There were many complaints about sewerage, especially from Southgate, where in 1879 a petition for separation from Edmonton was drawn up by the leading landholders and signed by more than 500 people. In 1881 Southgate was granted its own local board (under the Edmonton Local Board (Division of District) Act 1881) and Edmonton local board was reduced to 9 members. Although the loss of the large houses in Southgate deprived it of valuable rates, the Edmonton board seems to have been more active after the separation. Jerry-builders were vigorously prosecuted during the 1880s. During the 1880s and 1890s there were committees for the town hall, cemetery, works, finance, farms, engines, sanitation, and the library. A town hall 'in municipal Perpendicular' was built facing Fore Street in 1884 and enlarged in 1903.
Southgate local board had 9 members, whose first chairman was John Walker of Arnos Grove. The board met twice a month in Ash Lodge and in the village hall until 1893, when council offices were erected to a design by A. Rowland Barker, a Southgate resident; they were enlarged in 1914. Salaried officials were a clerk, treasurer, rate collector, sanitary inspector, medical officer of health, and a combined surveyor and engineer.
Under the Act of 1894 the two local boards became urban districts (U.D.). Edmonton local board of health had used the traditional wards of Bury Street, Church Street, and Fore Street. There had been proposals to add two new wards, Angel Road and Silver Street, and the new U.D. was organized accordingly, with three councillors for each of the five wards. After an inquiry in 1903 the district again consisted of three wards, with nine councillors each. In 1933 the area was divided into Bury Street, Church Street, Angel Road, and Silver Street wards, with seven councillors for each. Southgate U.D. had nine councillors in 1894 and twelve from 1900. In 1906 it was divided into four wards: Middle, South, North-east, and Northwest. Swimming baths and a refuse destructor were erected but the most important achievement was control over the development of the area. Although the number of houses increased eightfold between 1881 and 1931, Southgate remained one of the 'most agreeable of the northern suburbs', largely because of the council's regulations and its acquisition of 287 acres of park-land.
Southgate was incorporated in 1933, retaining its four wards. The council, consisting of a mayor, 7 aldermen, and 21 councillors, was enlarged. Edmonton was incorporated in 1937, after which it had four wards, a mayor, 8 aldermen and 24 councillors. Southgate Borough Council was consistently dominated by opponents of the Labour party, while Edmonton, at least after the Second World War, was controlled by Labour councillors.
In 1965 Edmonton and Southgate were united in Enfield London Borough, created under the London Government Act of 1963. The names of three Edmonton wards, Angel Road, Church Street, and Silver Street, survived among the 30 wards of the new authority. Edmonton and Southgate town halls were retained to house the borough treasurer, architect, engineer and surveyor, area housing and town planning offices. The education department was housed in Church Street, Edmonton.
From: A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 5: Hendon, Kingsbury, Great Stanmore, Little Stanmore, Edmonton Enfield, Monken Hadley, South Mimms, Tottenham (1976), pp. 175-179.
Joanna Southcott was born in Devon in April 1750, the daughter of a farmer. She promised her dying mother that she would devote her life to piety, and rejected all her suitors to work as a maid or labourer in households in and around Exeter. It was not until she was 42 years old, in 1792, that she began to experience the voices and visions which were to make her a celebrated public figure. She was spoken to by a voice which predicted future events. Joanna attempted to interest clergy of several denominations in her prophesies, sending them sealed copies of her predictions to be opened after a certain date - thus proving her foreknowledge of events. In 1801, spurred by the correct predictions she had made for 1796-1800, she spent her life savings and published a book of her prophesy entitled "The Strange Effects of Faith". Her publication was a success and began to attract followers. Joanna moved to London and received the patronage of Jane Townley, who promoted her cause, welcomed Joanna into her household and provided her with a maid to act as her amanuensis. Between 1801 and 1814 Joanna published 65 pamphlets outlining her prophesy and spiritual vision, becoming one of the most popular writers of her time. In 1815 it is estimated that her followers numbered 20,000.
At the age of 64 she claimed to be pregnant with Shiloh, the second coming of Christ. She was due to give birth in November 1814 but despite experiencing labour pains no child was forthcoming and instead Joanna died in London on 27 December 1814. An autopsy found no foetus, although the doctor noted swelling in the abdomen which could have mimicked the symptoms of pregnancy and caused pain similar to labour.
After Joanna's death a core of her inner circle kept the faith quietly, and protected the 'great box', which contained sealed prophecies that were to be opened some time in the unspecified future. In 1816 the box was passed to Jane Townley, and upon her death in 1825 to Thomas Philip Foley, and finally in 1835 to Foley's son, the Revd Richard Foley. In 1839, in order to gain control of Southcott's legacy, Lavinia Taylor Jones (niece of Lucy Taylor, one of Joanna's Exeter employers) dressed as a man to enter Richard Foley's rectory, where she tried to steal the box. Soon after that, rival boxes began to appear. As recently as 1977, the Panacea Society, a twentieth-century millenarian group dedicated to Southcott, claimed to know the secret whereabouts of the true box.
Source: Sylvia Bowerbank, 'Southcott, Joanna (1750-1814)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In 1819 there were two Methodist meeting houses in Edmonton, (W Robinson, The History and Antiquities of Edmonton, 1819, p 186). One of these was probably replaced by the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel in Fore Street, built in 1860. In 1909 the trustees purchased the freehold of the "Manor House", a site adjoining the chapel, for the building of the Edmonton Wesleyan Mission or Central Hall, which was opened in 1911. The old chapel and school were demolished and new Sunday school premises erected on the site in 1929. The Edmonton Methodist Church was part of the Stoke Newington Methodist Circuit until about 1896 when it joined the Tottenham Circuit. In 1941 Edmonton was one of the churches which constituted the Enfield Circuit.
A Methodist place of worship was first registered in the Tottenham area in 1765. Numbers grew slowly until a period of rapid expansion in the 1860s which encouraged the building of new chapels. The original 1765 chapel was rebuilt on a larger scale in 1867 and an ambitious construction project - to build 50 new chapels - was begin in Wood Green in 1871. In 1896 Tottenham became the head of a large circuit stretching from Seven Sisters Road to Cheshunt and had one of the most active communities in North London. A 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.
In 1882 a Roman Catholic chapel was opened in Hampton Wick, and in 1884 a Roman Catholic school was built in Fairfax Road, South Teddington. The ground floor served as a school and the upper floor as a chapel until the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Kingston Road was opened in 1893. Built of red brick in the classical style, this consisted at first of five bays and was extended westwards in 1935 by another two bays. The church was consecrated in 1944.
Source: 'Teddington: Roman catholicism', 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. 79.
The Teddington Methodist Circuit comprises the churches at Teddington, Sunbury, East Molesey, Hampton and Hanworth. These were originally part of the Richmond Circuit, but in 1887 were removed to form the new Hampton Court Circuit. This became known as the Teddington Circuit in 1892. A 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.
Shepperton lies on the north bank of the Thames opposite Walton and Weybridge on the Surrey bank. Until 1930 it consisted of 1,492 acres and formed a rough triangle, with the winding river as the base and the east and west sides meeting at the apex about two miles north of the village. In 1930 the parish was incorporated in Sunbury urban district, but 77 acres in the north (nearly all lying in the Queen Mary Reservoir) were transferred to Littleton civil parish, in the same urban district.
In the early 19th century the vestry of Shepperton usually met once or twice a month and the rector was normally in the chair. Voting power was related to the amount of property held, so that in 1845 49 people had 81 votes, of which 41 belonged to 9 persons. With rare exceptions there were under a dozen people at the vestries and half or more were parish officers. By 1820 the officers appointed by the vestry included the constable and headborough, who continued to be appointed after the parish was included in the Metropolitan Police District in 1840. From 1822 there was a salaried assistant overseer and from 1826 there were one or two poundsmen. There was a parish fire-engine by 1819. The chief preoccupation of the vestry before 1836 was of course the administration of the poor law. From 1796, and possibly from 1776, there was a regular workhouse. This stood in 1834 in Watersplash Road and was held by the parish on lease.
The parish council which existed from 1895 until 1930, when the parish was absorbed by Sunbury urban district, met in the Shepperton church school. At first there were nine councillors who met seven times a year, but by the 1920's there was a monthly council meeting. In 1895 the council appointed one of its members to be unpaid clerk. Until 1929 its servants included a poundsman. The parish property which the council took over included not only the pound and a farren right in Cowey for the poundsman, but a small piece of land in Ferry Lane and the allotments and recreation ground set out under the 1862 inclosure, which had been managed by the vestry. From about 1907 the council managed Lower Halliford Green and Walton Bridge Green. A lighting committee was formed in 1906 but the first lighting scheme, which came into force a year or two later, was supported by voluntary subscriptions. It lapsed in 1915, and in 1922 the council took over the 30 lamps. By 1930 the Staines rural district council had built 110 houses in the parish. Others have since been provided by the Sunbury urban district council.
William Schaw Lindsay (1816-1877) purchased the manor of Shepperton in 1856, and was succeeded by his grandson William Herbert Lindsay (died 1949). W. S. Lindsay usually lived at the manor-house and died at Shepperton. He was a ship-owner and member of Parliament and wrote a history of merchant shipping as well as one of Shepperton. He was largely responsible for the construction of the Thames Valley Railway. In 1954 W. H. Lindsay's widow transferred the estate to her husband's nephew, Mr. P. A. R. Lindsay, who was the owner in 1958.
From: 'Shepperton: The hundred of Spelthorne (continued)', 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. 1-12 (available online).
Enfield Urban District was incorporated in 1955, by which date it was the second largest urban district in the country, with a population exceeding those of 39 of the 83 county boroughs. The borough had 10 wards: Bush Hill Park, Cambridge Road, Chase, Enfield Wash, Green Street, Ordnance, Ponders End, Town, West, and Willow, each electing three councillors. In 1965 the borough became part of Enfield London Borough, under the London Government Act of 1963.
The local board met in the Town until 1888, when Little Park, Gentleman's Row, was bought as council offices. Land for a new town hall in Church Street was purchased in 1902 but the Urban District Council remained at Little Park until 1961, when the first part of a new civic centre in Silver Street, designed by Eric G. Boughton, was opened. The uncompleted building was the administrative centre of Enfield London Borough in 1971, when the old offices in Little Park served as the health department. In 1972 work began on extensions to the civic centre, also designed by Boughton and including an eleven-storeyed tower block.
From: 'Enfield: Local government', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 5: Hendon, Kingsbury, Great Stanmore, Little Stanmore, Edmonton Enfield, Monken Hadley, South Mimms, Tottenham (1976), pp. 241-243 (available online).
Princess Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel was born on 17 May 1768 at Brunswick, the second daughter of Karl II, duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, and Princess Augusta, sister of George III. She was married to George, Prince of Wales on 8 April. The Prince was reportedly the worse for alcohol and had to be supported to go through the ceremony. This inauspicious beginning heralded a series of quarrels between the royal couple. Caroline alleged that throughout the honeymoon the Prince consorted with his drunken cronies and ignored her. On his part, the Prince took offence at Caroline's accusation that he had mistresses, refused to change his social and domestic habits for her benefit, and demanded that she should submit to his authority, which she refused to do.
The only child of this stormy marriage, Princess Charlotte Augusta (1796-1817), was born on 7 January 1796. Caroline had attempted to live on amicable terms with George, but he neglected her and she became increasingly lonely, bored, and resentful. The inevitable separation took place in 1796. Caroline left Carlton House in 1797 and went to live in a rented house near Blackheath. The Prince would have forbidden her access to her child, but King George III, who always favoured Caroline, insisted that she should be allowed to visit Charlotte.
Caroline made no attempt to exploit her situation politically. She remained prominent in society and entertained frequently at Blackheath, often in an informal and high-spirited atmosphere. During the Regency she was excluded from the court and only with difficulty could she obtain permission to see Charlotte, who was educated under the Prince of Wales's supervision. Caroline therefore decided to leave England, and set off on a series of travels, initially to Brunswick but shortly afterwards around the Mediterranean. Almost weekly reports came in of indiscreet and scandalous behaviour, improper entertainments in which she took part, and extravagant and theatrical behaviour which became a subject of scandal in the newspapers, providing further ammunition for her estranged husband in his efforts to divorce her.
As soon as George IV became king Caroline set off for England to claim her position as Queen. She was met at St Omer by Henry Brougham, whom she made her Attorney-General, and by Lord Hutchinson on behalf of the Cabinet who brought a proposal, reluctantly accepted by the King, to give her an annuity of £50,000 provided she would not cross the Channel nor claim the title of Queen. She refused, despite Brougham's plea to her to negotiate a settlement. She was now being advised by Matthew Wood, an alderman and former Lord Mayor of London, who represented a group of metropolitan radicals who wanted to use her to stir up opposition to the king and the government. The Queen's arrival became, as the government had feared, the occasion for widespread public rejoicings. She reached London on 6 June and went first to Alderman Wood's house in South Audley Street, later renting Brandenburg House at Hammersmith. Throughout the proceedings against her in the summer and autumn of 1820 she was the focus of many demonstrations, receiving over 350 addresses of support from all sections of the population, many from groups of women who saw her as a symbol of the oppression of their sex. She also had the support of The Times and many other opposition or radical newspapers. She herself had no interest in or sympathy with radicalism, but her cause was now overtly political as the nation divided into two camps.
The Cabinet, spurred on by the vengeful King, unwillingly prepared a bill of pains and penalties to strip Caroline of her title and to end her marriage by Act of Parliament. The bill was introduced into the House of Lords on 17 August. It was one of the most spectacular and dramatic events of the century. The Queen's progresses to and from Westminster to attend the 'trial', as it became known, were attended by cheering crowds; deputations by the dozen visited Brandenburg House to present addresses, the newspapers published verbatim accounts of the Lords' proceedings, and the caricaturists on both sides had a field day. So obscene were some of the prints against the King that over £2500 was spent in buying them up and suppressing their publication. Against this proof of public support for the Queen the 'trial' was doomed to failure. The witnesses were clearly unreliable and were discredited by the cross-examination of her counsel, Henry Brougham and Thomas Denman. Many of the witnesses were believed to have been bribed or intimidated, and the widespread knowledge that George himself had had several mistresses added to the belief that Caroline was a victim, if not an entirely innocent one, of royal and political persecution. In the end, though the circumstantial evidence against her was strong enough to convince many peers of her guilt, many also feared that her condemnation would spark off popular rioting or even revolution. Ministers realized that even if the Lords passed the bill the House of Commons would almost certainly reject it under intense pressure from their constituents. The bill passed its third reading in the Lords by only nine votes and Liverpool, the Prime Minister, announced on 10 November that it would proceed no further.
Caroline had not, strictly speaking, been acquitted of the charges against her, but the public verdict was in her favour as a wronged woman unjustly persecuted by a husband no better than she was. A great crowd turned out to witness her procession to a thanksgiving service organized by her supporters in St Paul's Cathedral on 29 November 1820, when the psalm ordered for the service was no. 140-'Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man'. Nevertheless, attempts to exploit her victory were unsuccessful. The Cabinet rejected her demand for a palace and the King refused to let her be crowned with him. He was supported by the Privy Council who declared that a Queen had no inherent right to coronation, which was at her husband's discretion. When she tried to force her way into the Abbey on coronation day, 20 July 1821, she was humiliated by being refused entry and she was jeered by the crowd that had so recently acclaimed her.
Caroline now accepted the Government's offer of an allowance of £50,000 a year if she went to live abroad, but less than a fortnight after the coronation she was taken ill at the theatre, and after a short but painful illness she died, apparently of an intestinal obstruction, on 7 August 1821. She wished to be buried beside her father at Brunswick, and the British government was only too anxious to get her corpse out of the country. Her funeral procession was intended to pass round to the north of the City of London to avoid public demonstrations. The cortège was intercepted by a crowd at Hyde Park Corner and forced to go through the city after a battle with the Life Guards in which two men were killed by the soldiers. The coffin was eventually embarked from Harwich, her supporters placing on it as it left British waters the inscription 'Caroline, the injured Queen of England'. Her body was taken to Brunswick and laid in the ducal vault on 24 August.
Source: E. A. Smith, 'Caroline (1768-1821)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004.
The first known Baptist Church in Crouch End was formed in 1807 and met in what was called the Broadway Hall, once part of the outbuildings of Old Crouch Hall. It continued until 1837. From 1879-1889 a second Baptist congregation met in the Broadway Hall, until the increasing urbanisation of the area, bringing an increased population, led to the erection of a more permanent chapel and the formation of the Ferme Park Baptist Church in 1889, located on the corner of Ferme Park Road and Weston Park. Ever growing congregations resulted in a new chapel being built adjacent to the old, between 1897-1900. The Baptist Chapel merged with the United Reformed Church in 1973 and opened on the same site as the Union Church in 1980.
Once established, the church membership met as a whole at the Church Meeting and the leaders of the church met as the Deacons' Meetings. An unbroken series of minute books for both meetings survive.
The parish of Southgate constituted a local government district under the provisions of the Edmonton Local Board (Division of District) Act, 1881. The area was extended in 1892 and, by 1908, it comprised Southgate and Palmer's Green, Winchmore Hill, part of New Southgate and part of Bowes Park. Under the provisions of the Local Government Act, 1894 (56 and 57 Vict c.73) the district was controlled by an Urban District Council.
For a detailed history please see the entries for each individual chapel (ACC/1388-01, ACC/1388-02 and so on).
In Northwood, Hillingdon, Primitive Methodists first met in a house called 'Elthorne' from about 1896. In that year a school chapel was built on the corner of the High Street and Hallowell Road. The present church next to the school chapel was completed in 1903, with further extensions made in 1910 and 1927. Enemy action caused considerable damage to the building in 1944.
John Wesley frequently visited Brentford, where a Methodist group existed in 1745. Congregations met in a large building, perhaps near St. George's Church. The former Presbyterian chapel at Ferry Lane, Old Brentford, was used from 1783. In 1811 a new meeting house north of the High Street was opened. As attendance grew the church was expanded and in 1890 it was replaced by an ornate Gothic building at the corner of Windmill and Clifden Roads. The church was restored in 1951 after bomb damage sustained during the Second World War. In 1964, after union with the Jubilee Chapel, the current Clifden Road Methodist Church, was built on part of site in Clifden Road, off Windmill Road, and has been used ever since. The church is part of the Richmond and Hounslow Methodist Circuit.
Ealing Broadway Wesleyan Methodist church originated in services at 1 Milford Villas, the Mall, 1864. A new chapel seating 300 was built in Windsor Road in 1865 while an adjoining church seating 1,000 was added on the corner with the Mall in 1869. The chapel was replaced by a hall in 1925. This building was compulsorily sold in 1970 and the church members moved to Ealing Green United Reformed Church in 1972.
The Ealing Dean or West Ealing Primitive Methodist church on Uxbridge Road was built in 1900 with seating for 450. The congregation had been housed in a temporary chapel since 1861. The church was closed in 1959, when the congregation moved to the Kingsdown Methodist church. The buildings were sold in 1963.
The area of West Ealing was known as "Ealing Dean" until the late nineteenth century.
In 1819 there were two Methodist meeting houses in Edmonton, (W. Robinson, The History and Antiquities of Edmonton, 1819, p 186). One of these was probably replaced by the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel in Fore Street, built in 1860. In 1909 the trustees purchased the freehold of the "Manor House", a site adjoining the chapel, for the building of the Edmonton Wesleyan Mission or Central Hall, which was opened in 1911. The old chapel and school were demolished and new Sunday school premises erected on the site in 1929. The Edmonton Methodist Church was part of the Stoke Newington Methodist Circuit until about 1896 when it joined the Tottenham Circuit. In 1941 Edmonton was one of the churches which constituted the Enfield Circuit.
A Wesleyan chapel was first erected in 1810 on the eastern side of Lower Road, Roxeth, and accommodated 218 people. The chapel was registered in 1856, but was replaced in 1905 by a red brick Gothic building, with room for 650, in Bessborough Road. The chapel was closed in 1972 and the congregation joined the North Harrow Methodist Church.
A Primitive Methodist chapel was opened in Welldon Crescent, Greenhill, in 1904. The church has closed and the buildings are now used as a community centre.
Methodists were the largest non-established denomination in the Harrow and Wembley area, with the first of many chapels in this area erected in 1810. Several churches were built in the 1920s including the chapel on Park Lane, Wembley, which was first called the Wesleyan Church. From 20 September 1932 (when the different branches of Methodism united) the name was changed to the Methodist Church. It was closed in 1961.
Methodists were the largest non-established denomination in the Harrow and Wembley area, with the first of many chapels in this area erected in 1810. The Methodist church on East Lane, North Wembley, was opened in 1938.
John and Charles Wesley preached in Hayes church on at least ten occasions between 1748 and 1753. By 1816 the Methodists had erected a chapel in Hayes, but nothing else is known of the Methodist congregation in Hayes until 1906, when the Hayes Tabernacle at Wood End Green was registered by Wesleyan Methodists. Hayes Methodist Church began in Station Road, in 1907. It was registered at that address in 1927. In 1930 the registered name was changed to Queen's Hall Methodist Church, Station Road. In 1973 Queen's Hall closed and work began on a new church, which opened in September 1977, and was renamed Hayes Methodist Church.
In 1878 the Primitive Methodists registered a chapel in Western Road, Southall. A new chapel building, standing on the corner of Western and Sussex Roads, was erected in 1876-1877. This was the first Methodist building in the Southall area.
Trinity church, Wood Green, had its origins in open-air services which had begun in 1864. In 1869 a site on the north side of Southgate (later Trinity) Road was purchased and a chapel was constructed, dedicated in 1872. The building was designed by the Reverend J. N. Johnson, a steward of the Highbury circuit; it was of greyish brick with stone dressings, in the Early English style. A new school was built to the rear of the chapel in 1880, and in 1900 three halls were opened. In 1903, with nearly 700 worshippers on Sunday morning and 800 in the evening, there was a larger attendance than at any other nonconformist church in Tottenham or Wood Green. The former Baptist chapel of Saint George, Bowes Park (Edmonton), was placed under the care of Trinity church, and was eventually purchased by the Methodists in 1901. Trinity church itself was sold to the Greek Orthodox Church in 1970.
Source: A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 5.
The Wesley Central Hall was constructed in 1930.