Bulletin 202

PRESIDENT:
VICE PRESIDENT: Judith Goodman
CHAIR: Keith Penny
BULLETIN No. 202 JUNE 2017

This Crocodile play sculpture for the playground of Malmesbury First School, Morden, (demolished in 2003) was
commissioned from the Wimbledon School of Art in 1993. An open pavilion held low level benches, pillars for plant supports,
and this long wooden crocodile. (Photo: Liverpool University Press) See p.6.

CONTENTS
Programme June – November 2017 2
‘Artists, Antiquarians and Collectors’ 3
‘London Road Bridges’ 4
Local History Workshops:
3 March: Public Sculpture; Cemetery land in Long Thornton; Morden history panels;
Mitcham workhouse wall 6
21 April: West Barnes air-raid shelter; works by Richard Crutcher; Mitcham workhouse wall;
Lonesome Cemetery; WW1 recruitment register; channel through priory wall; Liberty’s buildings;
Nelson’s sideboard 7
Book Reviews 9
Four More Pharmacies in the London Borough of Merton – Norma Cox 10
The Two Wives of Sir Gregory Lovell – Peter Hopkins 13
More Memories of Eric Montague – Charles Toase & Pat Robins 16

PROGRAMME JUNE – NOVEMBER 2017
Members who wish to join a visit, and who have not yet booked their place, please contact Bea Oliver
Thursday 8 June 10.30am Walk along the Wandle with Mick Taylor
Meet at Mitcham Tram Stop, walk to Merton Abbey Mills (c.2.5 miles)
Thursday 6 July 11.00am Visit to Museum of London Archives
Mortimer Wheeler House, Eagle Wharf, London N1
Underground Northern Line to Moorgate, then bus 141 or 76 to Eagle Wharf Road.
Tour lasts 60-90 minutes, at £15 per person, to be paid on booking with Bea Oliver
Thursday 10 August 2.15pm Tour of the Charterhouse
Charterhouse Square, London EC1M 6AN
Northern Line to Kings Cross or Moorgate then Circle or Bakerloo Line to Farringdon or Barbican.
OR Thameslink to Farringdon
Tour lasts up to 2 hours, at £15 per person, to be paid on booking with Bea Oliver
Thursday 14 September 11.00am Visit to Wyvern Bindery
56-58 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1
A tour lasting about 1hr round a traditional book-binding establishment
Northern Line to Kings Cross or Moorgate then Circle or Bakerloo Line to Farringdon or Barbican
OR Thameslink to Farringdon
Saturday 14 October 2.30pm Christchurch Hall, Colliers Wood
‘Archaeology of Merton (mainly Merton Priory)’
An illustrated talk by David Saxby, Senior Archaeologist, Museum of London Archaeology
Saturday 11 November 2.30pm Christchurch Hall, Colliers Wood
AGM followed by
‘There’s More to Morden’
An illustrated talk by Sarah Gould, LBM Heritage
Visitors are welcome to attend our talks. Entry £2.
Christ Church Hall is next to the church, in Christchurch Road, 250m from Colliers Wood
Underground station. Limited parking at the hall, but plenty in nearby streets or at the Tandem
Centre, 200m south. Buses 152, 200 and 470 pass the door.
FROM AN OBITUARY in The Times: Alan Simpson (b.27 November 1929 d.8 February 2017) was one
half of the comedy writing duo of Galton and Simpson (Hancock’s Half Hour, Steptoe and Son, etc). He
attended ‘Mitcham Grammar School, but hated it and left at 16 to take up a clerical job in a shipping office’.
NEW SUBSCRIPTION RATES – EARLY REMINDER

Members are reminded that new subscription rates were approved at the Annual General Meeting.

From 1 October 2017 rates will be:
Single membership £12 Additional member of same household £5 Full-time student £5
An early change to your Standing Order would be appreciated by the Membership Secretary.

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 202 – JUNE 2017 – PAGE 2

‘ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIANS AND COLLECTORS’

On Saturday 11 March, Julian Pooley, archivist at Surrey History Centre (SHC) spoke about the huge collection
of illustrations of Surrey amassed around the year 1800 by Robert Barclay of Bury Hill, Dorking, and now
curated at the Centre.

The 18th century saw the emergence of Romanticism, an interest in the study of landscape and the beauty of the
‘picturesque’, at the expense of Classicism. The idea of purely scenic pleasure touring began to take hold, the
new idea disregarding the principles of symmetry and perfect proportions while focusing more on ‘accidental
irregularity’. William Gilpin (1724–1804), a schoolmaster and artist, is one of the originators of the idea of the
picturesque. His Essay on Prints (1768) defined it as ‘a term expressive of that peculiar kind of beauty, which
is agreeable in a picture’, while his theories of artistry stressed the importance of shape and variety of texture in
a picture, particularly in scenery. In contrast, antiquarian patrons such as Richard Gough demanded that artists
working on commissioned pictures made a most accurate record of the scene.

The techniques employed to illustrate the subjects were water-colour, pen and ink (with or without washes of
colour), and prints – engravings and etchings. Inevitably some people began to collect illustrations, and, to take
advantage of this, in 1769 James Grainger published a Biographical History of England with blank leaves for
the addition of portraits, etc. to the taste of the purchaser. The success of this gave rise to publishers offering
books in an unbound state, as well as the bound state, the unbound sheets being protected only by ‘card boards’.
The purchaser was expected to add his own choice of pictures, and ultimately his own choice of binding, this
practice becoming known as ‘graingerising’ or ‘extra-illustrating’. Owen Manning and William Bray’s History
and Antiquities of the County of Surrey (1804–1814) was a much admired work offered thus.

One such purchaser was Robert Barclay, the wealthy owner of Thrales Brewery, Southwark, who lived on
an estate at Bury Hill. Secure and rich, he indulged his interests in astronomy and gardening, collecting rare
plants, and developed an interest in topography. He subscribed for all three volumes of Manning and Bray and
proceeded to extra-illustrate them with some assiduity. He lived in Surrey before the coming of the railways,
when the landscape contained villages, market towns and isolated dwellings, connected by a very few roads,1
so his collection mostly pictured single buildings – big houses, parsonages, churches, etc. He bought prints
(some with prices marked in pencil, so directly from the dealers), but also commissioned artists to depict views
that had not been previously available. As well as topographical pictures, his collection includes artefacts and
portraits of Surrey people, to a total of 2142 pictures.

Barclay commissioned John Hassell (1767–1825) and his son
Edward, two highly skilled draughtsmen, to produce no fewer
than 560 water-colours documenting the county of Surrey –
a huge source of history (unfortunately no correspondence

survives). John was influenced by Romanticism – his views

may be picturesque, but he produced accurate drawings of the
buildings, to satisfy the antiquarian demand. His picture and plan
of demolished Cracklade church is the best historical record of
what it looked like. By contrast, his notebooks (at SHC) contain
an atmospheric picturesque drawing of the ‘temple of Bacchus’
folly in the garden at Painshill. In 1804 he published Views of
Gentleman’s Seats, a series done in aquatint, directly onto the
copper, as colour prints reproducing lithographical effects. This is possibly how he met Barclay, through a
common network of antiquarians, booksellers and printers. His work for Barclay has its emphasis on the exteriors

of buildings; cottages, schools, occasional street scenes (empty of all human and animal life and traffic!), even
institutions, such as asylums, a prison and a workhouse. Nutfield Church is viewed through a gateway, but other

drawings show the font and the church interior. John’s son Edward Hassell, practising 1820s–1840s, excelled
at interiors, particularly church interiors and details of church furniture. All this work had to be produced under
the constraints of transport of men and materials by horse and foot.

Barclay collected pictures by other artists, of course; his collection includes four by John Carter (1748–1817)
(possibly later engraved by Basier), thirteen very large pictures by Henry Furnis Dolant, and a handful of
anonymous ones in grey and black tones, not in the style of either Hassell. The SHC website (via www.surreycc.
gov.uk) contains a wealth of information (and pictures) about the Hassells and the Barclay collection.

[The Editor cannot resist this quote from Surrey Roads (see p.9) ‘For … years, Surrey was merely a place that travellers passed through on their
way from London to important towns …’]

Cassiobury Hall, Berks, from J Hassell’s 1804 Views

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 202 – JUNE 2017 – PAGE 3

‘LONDON ROAD BRIDGES’

On the drear and snowy Saturday 11 February, no fewer than 38 members and guests assembled to hear this

very well-illustrated talk by Richard Fitch, of Carshalton and District Historical and Archaeological Society.
As a civil engineer with the GLC and its successors, the bodies responsible for most of the structures he
discussed, Richard had examined each bridge from very close quarters. He took us through the sequence in
which the bridges had been built, starting, of course, with London Bridge. A very nice feature of his talk was
a map of the Thames from Tower Bridge up to Teddington, showing the position of all 20 bridges. This was
unlabelled to start with, and as he mentioned each bridge, Richard showed the map again, with the new bridge
arrowed, and all previous ones named, so we could visualise the context.

Taking the bridges in chronological order, we started with (1) London Bridge: initially Roman, then medieval

‘Old London Bridge’ with its 12ft roadway for 600 years (1176-1831), whose pier bases restricted water flow,

acting almost as a weir, allowing the river to freeze above the bridge (used for the Frost Fairs). The new bridge
is upstream of the old, building delayed because of concern that trade would leave, as much took place on the
bridge itself. ‘New London Bridge’, a Victorian stone arch, was mostly moved to Arizona after the modern

flyover opened 1973.

A necessarily swift summary follows:

(2) Kingston Bridge: various wooden ones (as early as the 13th century) until a stone replacement opened in
1828, as a toll bridge until 1870, subsequently widened twice.
(3) Putney Bridge: a wooden bridge built by Thomas Phillips in 1729, with a tollbooth on each bank and uniquely
a church on the end. A new stone one in 1886, widened in 1933 on the downstream side only.
(4) Westminster Bridge: built 1750 against much opposition (eg. from the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had
horse ferry rights), replaced 1862 by a cast-iron one supporting trams 1916. Painted green to mark the House
of Commons due south, ornamented with gothic lanterns by Charles Barry to reflect his Parliament.

(5) Hampton Court Bridge: the 1753 notably humped wooden bridge, made slippery in rain so horses really
did not like it, was replaced in 1865 by a cast iron one, that required the River Mole to be redirected to allow
proper abutments. Replaced in 1933 by a reinforced concrete bridge, decorated with hand made red bricks.
(6) Kew Bridge: a 1759 wooden bridge, to replace a ferry, in turn replaced by a stone one in 1903.
(7) Blackfriars Bridge: a 1769 wooden one for the City was replaced in 1869 by a wrought-iron structure. With
a railway bridge alongside, the spans and piers had to be aligned with its pontoons so boats had a clear passage
through both obstacles.
(8) Battersea Bridge: replaced a long-existing ferry service in 1771. The
sharp bend of the river made problems for shipping, resulting in many
collisions. This was another wooden hump, again horses didn’t like it,
but it was the last surviving wooden bridge on the Thames in London.
Replaced 1885 by the existing cast iron and granite bridge, designed by
Bazalgette, the engineer of the Metropolitan Board of Works (right), it is
narrow, but has never been widened.
(9) Richmond Bridge: the only one where the river flows north-west,
opened 1777. To preserve the Georgian appearance, when the bridge was
widened on the upstream side, the engineers took off the stone facing,
inserted an extra bay, and put the facing back. Today this is the oldest
surviving London bridge.

(10) Vauxhall Bridge: opened in 1816 this cast iron bridge was the first
to carry trams. The Board of Works bought it up and condemned it. The
1906 replacement is decorated with eight 12ft statues of ‘arts and sciences’,
which are only visible from the river.

(11) Waterloo Bridge: originally to be called the Strand, but it was renamed and opened in 1817 on the second
anniversary of the Battle. The brick piers started to sink, so that a bailey bridge and support were temporarily
in use in the 1920s, until the replacement design by Sir Gilbert Scott was opened in 1942. Because many of
the war-time construction workers were women, it is still often known as the ‘ladies bridge’.
(12) Southwark Bridge: opened in 1819, featuring the largest cast iron spans in the world at the time, it was
narrow and steep, with high tolls. In 1921 it was replaced by a new iron structure, which is probably the least
used London bridge.
MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 202 – JUNE 2017 – PAGE 4

(13) Hammersmith Bridge: this was a massive suspension bridge, opened in 1827, but later boat race crowds
produced a wobble, so it was replaced by Bazalgette in 1887, using the original stone piers. The footway is
separated from the road, the roadway itself being timber!

(14) Chelsea Bridge: opened in 1858 as a suspension bridge, but it was not strong enough for increases in road
traffic and was replaced in 1937 by the ‘present elegant structure'(Richard’s appreciation). Unusually, the deck

takes the strain of the cables, so the bridge is not ground anchored at all.

(15) Lambeth Bridge: built in 1862 as a cheap suspension bridge for investment (from toll charges), to replace
a Horse Ferry, it proved insecure, and unpopular with horse-drawn traffic because of its steep approaches.
Demand dwindled to foot traffic only, so it was replaced in 1933 with a steel-arch bridge, ornamented with

obelisks and painted red for the House of Lords immediately north.

(16) Albert Bridge: twice modified (by Bazalgette and the GLC) after its 1873 opening, it now incorporates
three types of construction in one structure – cable, suspension, and supported (below). The original toll booths

are still there, and because of increasing traffic restrictions it is now one of the least busy. Richard noted that

on hot days you can hear a loud click a little after midday as the metal expands.

(17) Windsor Bridge: a cast iron bridge replaced a succession of wooden ones, but it was restricted to foot
traffic in 1973. Traffic now crosses on the new 1966 steel Queen Elizabeth bridge on the west of the town.

(18) Tower Bridge: opened in 1894, with a steel core encased in stone. Initially the hydraulics to raise the
bascules were steam driven, but nowadays electric pumps are used.
(19) Chiswick Bridge: this bridge, Twickenham Bridge and the Hampton Court Bridge replacement were all
opened on the same day in 1933, by the same dignitaries. Chiswick is made of reinforced concrete, faced with
protective Portland stone, and carries the Great West Road.
(20) Twickenham Bridge: reinforced concrete with interesting Art Deco ornament.
Richard finished with a quick look at Dartford

bridge far downstream, and the various tunnels
under the Thames – Blackwall road tunnel (1897),
slightly curved so as not frighten draught horses
with a sudden burst of light, later demanding
special buses with pitched roofs; Greenwich foot
tunnel (1902), still in use; Rotherhithe road tunnel
(1908); Woolwich foot tunnel (1912), under the

still-running Woolwich Ferry; finally the second

Vauxhall road tunnel of 1967, one of whose
ventilation shafts had to be accommodated in the
design of the Dome.

Richard’s talk stimulated many questions and
memories, and he was roundly applauded.

Woolwich Tunnel north entrance

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 202 – JUNE 2017 – PAGE 5

LOCAL HISTORY WORKSHOPS

Friday 3 March 2017 – Six present, Rosemary Turner in the Chair

.
Judith Goodman had bought a remaindered copy of Public
Sculpture of Outer South and West London (2011, Liverpool
University Press), a substantial volume of pictures and information
that listed both recent works and ones which had been removed,
temporarily or otherwise. Several products of Wimbledon School
of Art are (or were) to be seen at schools and on playing fields, such
as Pavilion and Crocodile, a play sculpture for the now demolished
Malmesbury First School (see cover), and the fibreglass Jacquard
(right), which was commissioned for Merton Abbey Mills, but
was damaged and removed into storage to await restoration.

.
Dave Haunton reported on behalf of his wife and daughter:
Katharina had been examining the monuments mentioned by
Peter Hopkins in his recent Bulletin article and thought they were
likely to be from the Crutcher workshop, whilst Melinda’s review
of the Emma Hamilton exhibition at the Royal Maritime Museum
had been circulated by Cyril Maidment to a party intending to
see it. Dave had been further investigating the ownership of the
pharmacies in Kingston Road that he had mentioned in his January
talk.
.
Keith Penny had revisited some notes and maps provided in 1999
by Robert Dunning on land ownership in Long Thornton. Keith showed a Land Registry map of the area of
his house that was no longer included with his updated title deeds and wondered why the conveyance was
three-way, between Henry Clemence (landowner and vendor), The Great Southern Cemetery and Crematorium
Company Limited (the company) and The Crematorium Company Limited (Purchasers). A fourth party
was the Manor Estate Company who actually built the house. The same map showed parcels of land that
were bought by the Crematorium Company in 1923 from Charles Blake (see Bulletin 190), some of which
were sold on to Fulford’s, a local building company. Keith showed a spreadsheet that demonstrated that the
landowning and building companies of Long Thornton had many directors in common. The Crematorium
Company seemed to deal solely in land, and its purchase in 1923 was well timed to anticipate the Housing
Act of that year that enabled private companies to build subsidised housing. Keith recommended that people
who had original title deeds should photocopy the maps and conveyances, since the Land Registry removed
all such from their new-style deeds, and a valuable source of land and housing history was being lost to the
researcher.
.
David Luff mentioned the planning application to build a large office block in the Liberty/Abbey Mills
complex. This was discussed with the aid of a plan and elevations taken from the application, and Keith
wanted to be clear on what grounds the Society might object, since the buildings proposed for demolition
were not of historical interest.

.
Peter Hopkins showed samples of the seventeen panels of local history, both photographs and reminiscences,
that he had produced for the anniversary of St Martin, Lower Morden. Others present were very impressed
at the quantity of material he had assembled, and he was encouraged to produce a booklet version, perhaps
for the Heritage Centre.
.
Rosemary Turner had before and after photos of the former Mitcham parish workhouse wall, one as a wall
and the other as a pile of rubble. Rosemary said that when the first development was built they seemed to
be preserving the wall and the developers said that they were going to put up a plaque about the history of
the site. The second development is virtually touching the wall and there is building material leant against
it. There was only a small portion of the wall remaining (less now) as it has gradually disappeared over
its long history. Keith had looked at the planning application and there was no mention of the wall being
protected. English Heritage had said that the site was of no archaeological interest. No one seems to have
been concerned about it.

Rosemary had contacted the builders who said that ‘the wall fell down of its own accord’. There was no
mention of it in their remit and the wall was nothing to do with them. Their website however shows the
development surrounded by a crenellated wall, so maybe a new one is to be built.

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 202 – JUNE 2017 – PAGE 6

There has been some suggestion that it may not have been the workhouse wall but was built by Mrs Wood
to surround her house. Eric Montague refers to it as the workhouse wall but also refers to a crenellated
wall surrounding Mrs Wood’s house so maybe she added the crenellations. EM mentioned that the ‘grim
old building’ was surmounted by a clock which was visible across the common. None of the paintings or
photographs show a clock and the building was built sideways on to the common.

Unfortunately the description in the Mitcham 1910 valuation records is not as detailed as the Morden ones.
It just says ‘the greater portion of the premises are a very old building.’ There is no mention of the wall.
There is also no mention of Mrs Wood’s Gothic-style house and chapel at the other end of the site. All three
buildings were destroyed by bombing in World War II. Mrs Marshall in her MHS publication The Mitcham
that I Remember mentioned a line of trees and a ditch running along Windmill Road, and these are still there.
Rosemary hoped to get to see a plan of the workhouse site dated 1840 at the Surrey History Centre.

Keith Penny

21 April 2017 – Six present, Keith Penny in the chair

.
David Haunton referred to an article in the Spring 2017 issue of London Archaeologist about the Iron Age
and Romano-British site at Queen Mary’s Hospital, Carshalton, containing a report on the curious burials

of animals and artefacts mentioned by Jon Cotton, our speaker on ‘Vanished People of the Wandle’.
Dave read a letter from member Hilary
Nethersole about her family’s private air-
raid shelter in West Barnes Lane, and its
post-war uses: Catherine wheel support
(leaving a rather charred door), gardening
equipment, bean-stick support and hanging
bike storage for Father, skipping-rope record
notes and lone tennis practice for Hilary.
Her 1948 picture (right) shows a solid

window-less brick structure, very close to
the conservatory at the rear of the house.
Dave passed round for inspection his

presentation copy of a new book, FROG
‘Penguin’ Plastic Scale Model Kits 19361950
(see p.), whose author uses several
Bulletin articles.

.
Katharina Mayer Haunton examined, with a wealth of comparative illustration, Peter Hopkins’ speculation
(Bulletin 201) that the Roland memorial in St Lawrence Church is the work of Richard Crutcher. She agreed,
and further concluded that the Gardiner memorial there is likely to be either by Richard or his son Michael,
while the later Baines memorial in St Mary’s, Merton Park, may well be from the same workshop. (Article
forthcoming)
.
Rosemary Turner has found in SHC a plan of the land of Mitcham workhouse, dated 1840. Twin thin black
lines, with the space between them coloured light grey, surround part of the property. The inner one has tiny
conventional drawings of shrubs along much of its length (a hedge?). Walls within the property are shown
in light grey, so Rosemary thinks the drawing shows an external property wall, particularly since the feature
is present at the corner where she has photographed a recently collapsed wall (see March Workshop). Not
everyone was convinced. [It was later suggested that it might represent a grass verge.]
.
Keith Penny had read the file in The National Archives on the early days of the Great Southern Cemetery
and Crematorium Company (see March Workshop). Application for a cemetery at Lonesome was first made
by Henry Ough in 1889, but the Mitcham Vestry objected that no cemetery land was needed in Mitcham,
that funeral processions would ‘deteriorate the value of residential properties’ and that the clay soil was
unsuitable. The Croydon Rural Sanitary Authority made stipulations about the pumping and filtration of

water from graves, and the Secretary of State approved the plans, but nothing happened until 1907, when
the Company was formed by a group of funeral directors to acquire 40 acres of land and raise capital of

£40,000, with a profit of 10% expected. Four acres were sold in 1915 to form a Jewish cemetery, though the

date of that is sometimes quoted as 1936 because of the inscription on the chapel. There were some early

difficulties: Croydon RDC objected that burials had begun too soon, to which the company replied that they

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 202 – JUNE 2017 – PAGE 7

were only burials of remains from a school of anatomy, and the Bishop of Southwark refused to consecrate
the cemetery, but 20,000 interments had taken place by 1915. The company and cemetery are described
in London Cemeteries: An Illustrated Guide & Gazetteer by Hugh Meller and Brian Parsons, available in
Wimbledon Library.

Keith showed a sample of work done by Wade Brice, a volunteer at the Heritage Centre, who had transcribed
parts of the Surrey recruitment registers from the First World War. Such registers are rare, but Surrey History
Centre has one that covers the Croydon (and therefore Mitcham) recruiting area. The register contains
personal information of physique, address and occupation for each recruit. The sample, for Church Road,
Mitcham, showed that 38 men had volunteered and 28 had been conscripted.

.
David Luff has cleared both sides of
part of the priory wall and clarified the
site of a channel under the wall, some
11ft 7in wide. The channel is on the
maps of Merton priory, to the north of
the priory buildings and down river,
so was probably the Priory’s sewage
outlet. Later used by bleachers, it is now
blocked, but was still open and flowing
in 1910, as there are photographs in the
Merton Memories collection. David’s
photo (right) shows the top of the
concrete blocking slab, at the bottom of
the wall. Who filled it in? And when?

David corrected his previous statement about the Abbey
Mills air-raid shelter immediately beside the Colour
House, as he now knows that there was a lean-to next to
the House, with the air raid shelter completely separate.
David had come across a folder, apparently unopened
since 1984, of surveyor’s drawings of the water mill, the
cottage, the Front Shop, and the Colour House.A sample
of the latter is shown here (left). He showed us the plan
of a fortunately failed project to tear down the whole
Abbey Mills area and replace it with a leisure centre, and
then produced an artefact from block printing days – a
wooden ruler more than three feet long, with two pointers
attached, one sliding, whose exact purpose is unknown.

. Clive Whichelow had shown Peter Hopkins a
website, brereton.org.uk/brinton/mertonplace.htm,
with collected transcriptions of advertisements in
The Times relating to Merton Place and its estate in
1800–1824. They are mostly concerned with sales of
property, building materials and house contents, but one
includes details of ‘Nelson’s new Patent SIDEBOARD
and DINING-TABLE united in one handsome piece
of furniture’ by Morgans & Sanders, ‘Inventors and
Manufacturers’. Peter hopes to pursue this when he
gets around to revising his Merton Place booklet, but
he would not be offended if someone were to beat him
to it.

David Haunton

Dates of next Workshops: Fridays 23 June, 25 August and 27 October 2017
2.30pm at Wandle Industrial Museum. All are welcome.

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 202 – JUNE 2017 – PAGE 8

BOOK REVIEWS

Peter van Lune FROG ‘Penguin’ Plastic Scale Model Kits 1936-1950 (2016) €30, plus p&p (€7-€10)
From the author at Evertsenstraat 611, 0023 VA Zwolle, Holland, or borrow the MHS editor’s copy.

Peter van Lune is a man with a mission – to find, photograph and document
examples of every single one of the ‘Penguin’ range of plastic non-flying

aircraft models produced by International Model Aircraft Ltd (IMA) at the
Lines Bros Tri-ang factory. He has succeeded: these splendidly-produced 256
pages contain all you ever wanted to know about IMA, its origins, directors,
designers and products. A kit collector himself, the Dutch author has consulted
the Lines family, IMA employees and numerous other kit collectors to produce an
astonishingly comprehensive volume on what was quite a small part of the Triang
factory output. His book is packed with pictures, many in colour, of plastic
kits, advertisements, packaging, newspaper articles and factory interiors. It was
something of a surprise to see an entire front page of the Daily Mail devoted to
a single Lines Bros advert. An exhaustive listing of the entire ‘Penguin’ range of
kits and their packaging includes a tentative price guide, should you be stimulated
into searching car boot sales. There are discussions of the brand name and the

history of plastic kit modelling, anecdotes from IMA designers, sidelights on other IMA products – FROG flying

models, the wartime glider targets, etc. – and comments on prices (‘toys for rich boys’), design faults, plastic
decay, and even a photo of a stuffed toy dog with an IMA label from 1941, when there was a war on. (Peter
comments ‘Curious people, the British…’) A short epilogue relates Peter’s own story of his growing fascination
with plastic kits, while an extensive bibliography includes references to some Bulletin articles.

Edgar Holroyd-Doveton Turnpike Roads for Local and Family Historians

Digger Press, Holmfirth (2016) £4-99

This interesting little book (128 A5 pages, wide margins) comprises two
sections: a clear historical introduction and a guide to the sources which may
be consulted if researching your local turnpike road. Starting with the atrocious
state of Britain’s roads in the mid-16th century, when in theory each parish
maintained its own roads, the author covers the rise of the turnpike as a solution
to the improvement and maintenance of roads, essentially by the privatisation of
what had hitherto been in public ownership. A group of self-selected worthies

were authorised by individual Acts of Parliament to collect tolls for traffic using

each stretch of road (or new road) and were supposed thereafter to keep the
road in good repair. After a slow beginning, the pace of turnpike establishment
accelerated, the high point being 1790-1830. The author is clear and informative
on the successive development of canals, turnpikes and railways. After 1840 the
railways prospered to the detriment of the turnpikes, so that between 1873 and 1878 general Acts of Parliament
abolished most turnpike trusts. In 1888 the Local Government Act established County Councils and passed the
responsibility for all road maintenance to the new local authorities.

The book covers surveyors, engineers, road construction, and buildings (coaching inns as well as toll booths)
and has some enlightening literary quotes describing the traveller’s experience – notably Defoe, Dickens
and Jane Austen. The author has many examples from his own area of interest in north-central England, and
discusses a useful list of the scattered sources of information on turnpike owners, trustees, common carriers,
passengers and stage-coaches.

Agood proof-reader would have corrected several typos, inserted the odd missing word, and strenuously objected
to the drawing of a railway engine with elliptical wheels. But otherwise it’s a good read.
And if you enjoyed that one, you may also be interested in:

Gordon Knowles Surrey Roads from Turnpike to Motorway Surrey Industrial History Group (2015) £3-00
This small volume (48 A5 pages) considers a much larger timescale in less detail than the above. It covers only
the modern post-1965 Surrey, so does not touch on our area, but it is recommended for its wealth of illustrations,
particularly the map of turnpikes within, and a little outside, the county. Available from www.sihg.org.uk, or
via the East Surrey Family History Society.

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 202 – JUNE 2017 – PAGE 9

Norma Cox, BPharm, MSc, MRPharmS is thoughtful about
FOUR MORE PHARMACIES IN THE LONDON BOROUGH OF MERTON

I returned to the borough of Merton recently, to look at four pharmacies where I worked as a locum pharmacist

between 1984 and 2009. A locum pharmacist temporarily fulfils the duties of another pharmacist. They contract

to work a few hours or days (or longer), and may do so in either community or hospital. The word locum is

short for the Latin phrase locum tenens, which means ‘place holder’.
To my dismay three of the four pharmacies had gone and this seemed a comparatively high proportion to
lose. I had studied five other Merton pharmacies in 2016 and had found that only one of them had gone.1 I felt
compelled to record the details of these four pharmacies, to include the years that the pharmacies operated,
new owners, the pharmacists who worked in them, along with my memories of the shops. I wanted to see if the
three lost pharmacies had caused areas of Merton to be without any pharmacy services. This study would also
add to the pharmaceutical history of Merton.

I chose 1937 as a baseline for the shops’ beginnings, as this was the first year that chemists’ premises were

registered. I studied the annual registers of pharmacists and their premises,2 from 1937 up until 2009, the year
that the registers of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society ceased. Beyond 2009, I used other references to bring
the data up to 2017.

172b Church Road, Mitcham, Surrey

This pharmacy was situated in a row of five shops, between Lewis Road and Hawthorne Avenue. The dispensary

at the back of the shop was very small and behind this was a scullery which had a very large sink; both dispensary
and scullery were in need of modernisation. I worked there on one occasion in September 1984. The building
dates from after 1916, for it was not listed in the street directory of that year.3 There were large gaps in the

street numbers in the 1916 directory; these gaps were the sites of fields and of japan and varnish factories, as

shown in the Ordnance Survey map of 1894.4 Today the area is a mixture of residential houses, light industry
and business parks. From the 1937-1951 registers, there was a registered pharmacy at this address called R
W Fawthrop, the pharmacist Ronald Wilfred Fawthrop having registered on 24 September 1921. In the 1952
register, the pharmacy’s name changed to Ashbrooks Chemists Ltd, a company whose registered address was

335 Whitehorse Road, Croydon. The first company superintendent pharmacist was Victor George Rideout, who

was also a director of the company; this information was registered on 30 November 1949. Ashbrooks Chemists
Ltd remained the owners of the pharmacy at 172b Church Road until 1977. The last company superintendent
pharmacist of Ashbrooks Chemists Ltd was Colin
Bernard Cliff, who was also a company director
and this information was registered on 14 June
1948. From the 1978-1993 registers, the pharmacy
was owned by N R D Mawani. From 1994-1997,
the pharmacy was listed as Rahad Ltd, the name
Ashbrooks Chemists Ltd being shown in brackets
in the registers, to show the change in ownership.
The company Rahad Ltd had N R D Mawani
as the superintendent and as director and this
was registered on 1 September 1993. Although
Ashbrooks Chemists Ltd was still listed in the
1998 Thompson local directory,5 the pharmacy
had in fact gone. Today 172b Church Road is a
grocery (right).

All photographs by Norma Cox, March 2017

103 High Street, Colliers Wood, SW19

This pharmacy, where I worked on at least seventeen occasions during 1996 and 1997, enjoyed the corner plot
between Cavendish Road and the High Street. It had two large windows, one in each street with a door between
them. Known as Cavendish Pharmacy, it was small and a little cluttered. The building is Victorian, as seen
from the 1894 OS map, where Cavendish Road is shown as partially built up. The area featured some industry,
with several mills on the nearby river Wandle. Today the area is residential and the High Street has many small
shops. In the 1937 register this pharmacy was registered as The Cavendish Road Pharmacy Ltd. The company’s
pharmacist superintendent was Susannah Fletcher Thompson, who was a director, this registration being dated

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 202 – JUNE 2017 – PAGE 10

1July 1931. The name Cavendish Road Pharmacy Ltd changed in the 1948 register to S F Dennis, denoting
Sydney Frank Dennis the new pharmacist, registered on 20 July 1932. In the 1949 register, the shop was listed
as The Cavendish Pharmacy, with two registered pharmacists, J G F and John Sim. J G F Sim registered on
31July 1935 and John Sim registered on 6 April 1915. In the registers for 1950-1979 for the Cavendish Pharmacy,
the two pharmacists remained the same. From the 1980-1994 registers, N R D Mawani was registered as the
pharmacist and the pharmacy was still called the
Cavendish Pharmacy. In the 1995-1997 registers
the pharmacy was listed as Rahad Ltd and the
name Cavendish Pharmacy was in brackets,
suggesting a change of owner. As above for the
172b Church Road pharmacy, N R D Mawani was
the superintendent and director of Rahad Ltd. In
the 1998 register the company had a new director
called S H Valijee, who was the superintendent
and director, the date of this registration being
November 1995. In the 1999 register the name
Rahad Ltd and Cavendish Pharmacy were gone.
Today the Cavendish Pharmacy building is an
estate agents named Cross and Prior (right).

34-36 Church Road, Mitcham, Surrey

This pharmacy was situated further eastwards along Church Road, near Mitcham parish church and in today’s
conservation area. I worked in this pharmacy on many occasions from September 1993 to December 2005, when
it was a Lloyds Chemist. The pharmacy was not listed in the 1937 register. The buildings were early nineteenth
century6 and there had been a butcher’s shop at no.34 from 1832. Edwin Birch & Son, butchers, were shown
at no.36 in the 1916 street directory and continued up until the late
1950s. The owners were later Frazer and then Stenning, both being
grocers and provisions merchants. In the 1916 directory no.34 was
a grocers owned by Misses L & A Chantler. When I started working
at Lloyds Chemist in September 1993, the shop and dispensary were
new premises and had been newly refurbished. The Lloyds staff said
the shop had been a butchers shop before. The chemist’s shop at 34-36

Church Road was first registered in 1994 as Lloyds Chemist, yet I had

worked at this pharmacy in September 1993, which suggests that there
was a delay between the registration of premises and the publication
of the registers. The company Lloyds Chemist later became AAH
Retail Pharmacy Ltd and then LloydsPharmacy, after being purchased
by Celesio in 1997.7 LloydsPharmacy was still registered as at this
address in the 2009 register, but today it has gone and the building is
vacant (right). An internet search showed a LloydsPharmacy close by
at 75-79 Miles Road,8 this being the same address as the new Cricket
Green Medical Practice, which opened in 2009.9 This pharmacy had
the same telephone number as the one for the 34-36 Church Road

premises, confirming that it was the same one.

151 Cannon Hill Lane, Morden, SW20

This pharmacy was on the corner plot between Cannon Hill Lane and Monkleigh Road. It was built in the
1930s for the Cannon Hill Lane estate, which was built in the 1920s and 1930s on estate land and farmland.10
I worked here on many occasions between 1999 and 2009, and it is still a pharmacy today. Nowadays it is a
LloydsPharmacy (see overleaf). In the 1937 register the pharmacy was called Martins, J (Cash Chemists) Ltd

and the first pharmacy superintendent was George Owen Harryman who was registered on 5 October 1932.

He was a director of the company, which was registered on 6 January 1936. The pharmacy remained Martins,
J (Cash Chemists) until 1960, when the name of the pharmacist changed to T G McDonagh. The name Martins
was shown in brackets to indicate the old name of the business but T G McDonagh was independent and not part
of Martins, J (which company was no longer listed in the registers). These details remained the same until 1974,

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 202 – JUNE 2017 – PAGE 11

when the pharmacy became owned by Almeric. In
the 1975-1978 registers, the pharmacy was called
Prarvale Ltd, and subsequently J D Jenkins Ltd. In
the 1979-1993 registers, the pharmacy was owned
by Booker Pharmaceuticals Ltd (Kingswood) and
the pharmacy was called Kingswood Chemists,
now part of a chain pharmacy. By 1995 the
pharmacy became known as Lloyds Chemist, after
Alan Lloyd had bought out Kingswood Chemists,
the company later becoming AAH Pharmacy
Ltd. From 1997 the pharmacy was known as
LloydsPharmacy after being bought by Celesio in
that year. It was still registered as LloydsPharmacy
in the 2009 register.

Discussion

The residents of Church Road, Mitcham, had not been without a pharmacy when the 172b Church Road pharmacy
closed in 1997, as the pharmacy at nos.34-36 had been opened in 1993, four years beforehand. Neither were
the residents of Colliers Wood without a pharmacy when the Cavendish Pharmacy closed in 1998. There was
another pharmacy at 37 High Street, Colliers Wood, called AP Chemists, as shown in the 1989 register. In
the 1996 register there was yet another pharmacy at 41 High Street, Colliers Wood, called AP Chemists and
Homeopathic Centre. Both were owned by A Pancholi. In the 1997 register only the premises at 41 High Street
Colliers Wood were listed. The AP Chemist and Homeopathic Centre moved to 122-129 High Street Colliers
Wood in 2012.11

Of the three long-established pharmacies that had gone, two were owned by the same company, Rahad Ltd,
while the third, the LloydsPharmacy, had relocated to a new build health-centre nearby. Only one pharmacy

had remained in their original premises, first registered in 1937. This was the one at 151 Cannon Hill Lane,

Morden, which has to date given 80 years of service. The pharmacy was fortunate in being very close to two
surgeries at 153 Cannon Hill Lane. However in April 2016 the two surgeries moved into the Nelson Medical
Centre on the Kingston Road, one kilometre away.12 Of the three pharmacies that had gone, that at 172b Church
Road, Mitcham, had given 60 years of service from 1937 and that at 103 High Street, Colliers Wood, had given
61 years from 1937. The LloydsPharmacy at 34-36 Church Road, Mitcham, which had moved in 2009 to the
Cricket Green Medical Practice, Miles Road, has given 24 years of service to date.

The loss of three pharmacy buildings has meant a loss of pharmaceutical history and a loss of street history.
Community pharmacy has always been subject to commercial competition and these pressures have resulted
in pharmacy closures. Many independent pharmacies have been lost. Today many established pharmacies
have relocated from the high streets into health centres, which are away from the high streets. In Merton, the
Savacentre which opened in 1989 contained a pharmacy, Sharps Chemists Ltd, which had moved from Merton
High Street into the ‘superstore’ in 1991. All of these factors have resulted in the loss of pharmaceutical history
and street history, as the small chemist shops disappear. There are more clouds on the horizon, such as the advent
of internet repeat dispensing, which, if successful, will affect pharmacies. More worryingly, the Government’s
intended pharmacy reforms, to cut money paid to community pharmacies, are estimated to result in one in four
pharmacies closing.13 Recording the details and memories of these small pharmacies is essential to safeguard
their history.

1 Norma Cox, Merton Historical Society Bulletin 197 (March 2016) pp.12-13.
2 Annual Register of Pharmacists and Registered Premises (1937-2009) The Pharmaceutical Society, Bloomsbury
3 Kelly’s Directory of Wimbledon, Merton, Mitcham and Morden (1916)
4 Ordnance Survey Maps of Merton (1894) Kind permission of Ordnance Survey
5 Thompson Local Directories, 1995-2005
6 E N Montague, Mitcham Histories 12 Church Street and Whitford Lane (2012) Merton Historical Society, p84
7 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LloydsPharmacy
8 www.allinlondon.co.uk
9 www.cricketgreen.co.uk
10 www.hidden-london.com/gazetteer/cannon-hill
11 www.alphega-pharmacy.co.uk/pharmacy/london/a.p.-chemist
12 www.cannonhilllane.co.uk
13 www.rpharms.com/landing-pages/community-pharmacy-reforms.asp

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 202 – JUNE 2017 – PAGE 12

PETER HOPKINS has discovered more details about
THE TWO WIVES OF SIR GREGORY LOVELL

St Mary’s church Merton Park is rightly proud of
its monument to Sir Gregory Lovell, his two wives
and nine children (right, photo D J Haunton 2017).
Gregory was cofferer, or household treasurer, to
Elizabeth I, and was for many years lessee of the site
of the former Merton priory.

At the time of the Dissolution, the site of the priory,
together with its demesne lands, was leased to Sir
Thomas Hennage, a courtier to Henry VIII.1 Hennage,
who had a mansion at Molesey, died without issue in
1553.2 He was described as the former lessee when
Mary I granted the property to her newly-founded
priory of Shene in 1558.3 On Mary’s death that same
year, the property reverted to the Crown.

However, according to a rental of the manor of Merton

from 1547/50:4

James Joskyn [sic], assign of Sir Thomas Hennege,
holds at farm, by Letters Patent of the King under
seal of the Court of Augmentations as stated, the
site of his mansion late the monastery of Merton
with all demesne lands pertaining, and he renders
in respect thereof per year £26 13s 4d

The Merton manorial court roll for 8 October 1546
cites James Hoskyn as responsible for scouring the
ditch that crossed the property known as Bakers, later
Bakers End Farm. This was part of the priory’s former demesne lands, so presumably he was already holding
the tenancy. At the court held 12 October 1549, his widow, Johanna, was cited as responsible for the work,
which had not yet been done. When her failure to scour the ditch was reported to the manor court on 11 April
1550, Johanna Hoskyn had become Johanna Lovell, and her new husband, Gregory Lovell, was cited at future
courts until 1592.5

Two leases of the priory site and demesne lands to Gregory Lovell survive among the patent rolls at The National
Archives. The first, for 21 years, was granted by Elizabeth I in January 1586/7.6 The second, for a further 21
years from the expiry of the first, was granted in February 1589/90.7 James Hoskyn may also have held under
a 21-year lease, possibly from January 1544/5 until 1565/6. It seems likely that the Lovells retained the lease
during its brief ownership by Shene priory, and were probably granted a further lease from 1565/6 to 1586/7,

but these earlier leases have not yet come to light.
Gregory Lovell also held the reversion of a copyhold property in Merton, from 1552 to 1572.5
The Lovells make several appearances in the Merton parish registers, as set out below,8 so presumably they had

a home in the parish, probably incorporating some of the former priory’s buildings. In later centuries there were
two substantial houses within the north-western corner of the site – Abbey House (marked on early Ordnance
Survey maps (overleaf, 1894) as Merton Abbey) and Abbey Gate House (marked as Abbey House).

MERTON BAPTISMS

25 Feb 1560 LOVELL Thomas son to Mr Gregory
7 Jan 1573 LOVELL Robert sonne to Mr Gregory
15 Feb 1575 LOVELL Henry sonne to Mr Gregorie
24 Jun 1577 LOVELL Thomas sonne to Mr Gregory
9? Aug 1579 LOVELL William sonne to Mr Gregory Esquire
24 Aug 1580 LOVELL Gregorie sonne of Gregorie Esquire

MERTON BURIALS

2 Apr 1570 LOVELL Jone Mrs wife of Mr Gregory
2 Jan 1576 LOVELL Francys Mr

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 202 – JUNE 2017 – PAGE 13

MERTON MARRIAGES
22 May 1570 LOVELL Elizabeth & LYON Poynning
4 Jan 1572 LOVELL Gregory & GREEN Dorothy
11 Jul 1595 LOVELL Robert & ROPER Jane
4 Aug 1595 LOVELL Henry & MILNER Ann widow
‘Jone’ died in 1570, 27 years
before Gregory. Their monument
in Merton parish church gives her
maiden name as Whithead. No
mention is made there of her former
marriage.
Gregory married again in January
1572 (probably 1573 in our modern
calendar), to a Dorothy Green,
who was still alive at his death
in 1597. Dorothy continued to
lease the priory precinct site after
Gregory’s death, though an efficient
county surveyor discovered that the
Lovells had been occupying some
additional small properties on the
periphery of the estate, for which
no rent had been paid – an error
that was quickly rectified by two
additional leases which still survive
at The National Archives.9
These included:
two cottages or tenements situate
and being outside the gate of
the Scite of the aforesaid late
Monastery of Merton [Marton]
now or late in the tenure or
occupation of Dorothy Lovell,
widow, or her assigns, and all

that vacc’ set’ et fund’ [?] at the same place where once a cottage now totally decayed and devastated
existed, now let at farm at a rent per year 13s 4d
To which is added a note
Yt appeareth both by Auncient Survey and Credible testimony that at the tyme after the dissolution of

the said late Monastery there were … standing without the gate of the Scite of the saide Monastery five

or six cottages which were houses for the Barber, Taylor, Shoemaker, Smith and other such Artizans
appertaining to the said house but after long tyme have not been inhabited nor rent answered for them after
the dissolution, of all which there ys only left standing the abovesaid cottages one of which is used by
the said Dorothy for a stable and both of them are only of use for the Tenant of the said Scite.

The other property was:
all that parcel of land containing by estimation one rood of land enclosed with mote and hedges and one
old dovehouse built and erected from of old upon the same parcel of land, lying and being in the parish
of Merton aforesaid and abutting against the north upon the royal way leading from Merton aforesaid
towards Tooting now newly rented per year 6s 8d
To which is added the note:
Yt seemeth by Auncient Surveye that the said parcel of grounde was inclosed owt of the waist on purpose
to build the said dovehouse thereuppon for the provision of the said late Monastery and a mote cast aboute
the said dovehouse within the said inclosed grounde for the saffe keeping of the doves. But the same
was never in charge or hitherto rented. And in regard of the dekeye of the said house and such quantitie

of grounde I hould the rent above and sufficient.

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 202 – JUNE 2017 – PAGE 14

(The location of this moated dovehouse on former roadside waste south of the High Street perfectly fits that

of Nelson’s Merton Place, formerly called Moat House Farm. I had already traced the descent of a moated
dovehouse to Rowland Wilson, whose grandson is known to have sold the site on which Moat House Farm was

to be built, but he held several properties in the area, so this final piece of evidence is most welcome.)

The site of the priory and the demesne lands were ‘granted’ (sold) by the Crown to Nicholas Zouche and others
on 17 February 1600,10 and passed through several owners in the next few years. The estate was broken up in
1607, with the sale of parcels of the former demesne land. When it was sold to Thomas Marbury in 1610, only
the 67 acres relating to Canondowne Hill remained with the priory site.11

A document of 15 May 1607,12 whereby the then owners of the precinct and demesne lands, Sir Thomas Cornwall
of Burford, Salop and Sir Edmond and Dame Elizabeth Harwell of Marten, sold meadow lands to Robert Garth
of Morden, refers to earlier unexpired leases. A lease of Twyrymead had been granted to Nicholas Lane by the
late Gregory Lovell, and another lease, of Hobbalds Mead, had been granted to Martin Cottey ‘by the said Lady
Dorothy by the name of Dorothy Mastersonn widow’. Thus it would appear that after Gregory’s death Dorothy
had married again, to someone called Masterson, and had been widowed once more.

But by 1623 Dorothy had been widowed a third time. In her will of that year, Lady Dorothy Cross, widow of
Sir Robert Cross, left bequests to her son Henry Lovell and his children Richard, William and Elizabeth. She
requested burial ‘in a Tombe already prepared for me at Martin Abbey’, presumably referring to a Lovell tomb
at St Mary’s Merton Park, associated with the memorial.13 Listed among debts owed to her were ‘divers other
debts and duties due unto me from the heirs, executors and administrators of Thomas Marbury esquire’. In
1612 she had sold a freehold property in Wimbledon to Thomas ‘Merbury’,14 who, as we have seen, owned the
former priory precinct estate from 1610 to 1613.

Judith Goodman has discovered that Dorothy Lovell was a recusant, from evidence in a 1587 letter from the
Privy Council, directed:15

to Mr. Coffrer [Sir Gregory] and Mr. Levesey [not identified], esquires, that forasmuch as Dorothie

Lovell, wife to the said Mr. Coffrer of her Majesties Householde, remaining at this presente at her house
at Martin in the countie of Surrey, refused to conforme her selfe in matters of Relligion, and nevertheless
for certaine good consideracions was forborne to be restrained of her libertie and permitted to remaine
still at her said house, they are required to have dilligent regard and over sight that she should not at
anie time resorte to the houses of anie other Recusauntes thereabouts, or suffer anie Jesuites, Seminary
Preistes, or others of like disposicion to have acces or conference with her, and that in their Lordships.
names they should require her neither to retaine in her house, as servauntes or otherwise, anie personnes
not conformable in Relligion, or to weare or use, either openlie or secreatelie, anie tokens or reliques for
shewes of her Religion; and if notwithstanding their advertisement from their Lordships given unto her

as aforesaid she should therein offend, then to signifie the same, that their Lordships might take such

farther order with her as they should think meete.
Although she seems to have conformed during Gregory’s lifetime, in July 1605, as ‘Dorothy Crosse of Merton,
wife of Sir Robert Crosse’, she was indicted for recusancy, and ‘proclaimed according to statute’. Also from
Merton were Mary White, spinster, and John Smythson, yeoman.16 In her will she commended her ‘soule into
the hands of God my maker hoping by the merits, death and passion of Jesus Christ my Saviour, and at the
intercession of the glorious company of Angells and Saints in heaven to be made partaker of life everlasting’.
Such intercession of the saints would have been unacceptable during the reign of Elizabeth, but presumably
the situation had changed by 1623.

1
The National Archives (TNA) SC 6/HENVIII/3463 m.18r: Ministers Accounts, Co. Surrey, 29–30 Henry VIII

2
A Heales The Records of Merton Priory (1898) pp.323–4 citing Land Rev. Survey, Surrey, 43v; Manning and Bray (M&B) The History and Antiquities
of Surrey II (1809) pp.781–2 and Victoria County History Surrey (VCH) III (1911) p.453, both citing Pat. 22 Hen. VIII, pt. ii, m. 22 and L. and P.
Hen. VIII, xiii (2), 1104

3
M&B I (1804) p.254 citing Pat. 5, 6 Ph. and M. p.4

4 TNA LR2/190 f.154r
5 London Metropolitan Archives Guildhall Library ms 34,100/205 rolls 3 & 4

6 M&B I (1804) p.254; VCH IV (1912) p.66 citing Pat. 29 Eliz. pt.i, m. 42
7 M&B I (1804) p.254; VCH IV (1912) p.66 citing Pat. 32 Eliz. pt. xvii, m. 43
8 Transcriptions by Stephen Turner for East Surrey Family History Society

9 TNA E 367/1030
10 TNA C.66/1535 m.36 (Transcribed by John Wallace)
11 TNA A 4/9 ff.176v,178, 197; A 4/11 ff.181v, 312
12 Surrey History Centre 2575/2/4/1
13 TNA PROB 11/142/282
14 TNA CP 25/2/360/10JASIMICH

15 Acts of the Privy Council XV 1587–1588 (HMSO London 1897) p.400; MHS Bulletin 154 (June 2005) p.16
16 Calendar of Assize Records: Surrey Indictments James I ed. J S Cockburn (HMSO London 1982) p.89

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 202 – JUNE 2017 – PAGE 15

MORE MEMORIES OF ERIC MONTAGUE

Charles Toase emails:
I was sorry to read in the Bulletin of the death of Eric Montague. We were both senior officers of Merton Council,
Eric as Chief Environmental Health Officer and me as Borough Reference Librarian, and our paths crossed at

times. He represented the Surrey Archaeological Society on the original Wandle Group in the 1970s, while I

represented the London Borough of Merton.
On one occasion he rang me to say that he had just discovered that the Borough Treasurer’s Department was
throwing out all the old rate books – a primary historical source. He commandeered a lorry, loaded it up, and
brought them to me. I managed to find space at Morden Park Library (on the ground floor, where the MHS
collection was upstairs), but they had to be stored piled up floor to ceiling – not very good for conservation.
Eventually I managed to get them to the Surrey Record Office (now the Surrey History Centre). They covered
all four parts of the Borough for the early part of the 20th century.
Pat Robins writes:
Although I never had the pleasure of meeting him, Mr Eric Montague was a great help in my research of my
Arthur ancestors, who were Mitcham lavender growers back in the 19th century, providing me with written
information. He also telephoned me on one occasion in this connection and, during the conversation, it transpired
that we had something in common. I mentioned that my father met my mother during the course of his duties
as a Sanitary Inspector in the late 1920s. Mr Montague told me that he was also employed, at a later date, by
the Council in the same capacity, by then known as Public Health Inspectors. A small world!

The Editor apologises that the photo on p.16 of the March Bulletin attributed to Keith Penny is in fact one of
Eric Montague’s that the Society now owns.

MERTON HERITAGE DISCOVERY DAY

On Saturday 13 May this annual event, excellently organised by Sarah Gould (an Honorary Member of MHS,
when not being a Manager), may well have been busier than in previous years. More than 1700 people visited
during the four-hour Day. MHS mounted a display of photographs and publications, for which we usually
had three members in attendance. For much of the time at least two of us were speaking to visitors. Our ever-
changing slide show of some 80 photos of local buildings, past and present, attracted a good deal of attention
and comment. On this occasion, we had restricted our display of publications to the smaller and prettier ones in
the main, which seemed to encourage more visitors to leaf through them – and ask questions. All to the good,
as we sold no fewer than 20 books and booklets for a total of more than £50. For further, painless, publicity
about MHS, we offered a pile of surplus Bulletins (more than five years old) to be taken away for free, and
almost all disappeared. With several visitors enquiring about joining the Society, this has to be adjudged a most
successful day.

PUB SIGNS – THEIR HISTORY AND STORIES

David Roe, the Editor of the Journal of the Inn Sign Society, and leader of the Merton Historical
Society’s photographic record, will give an illustrated presentation covering a selection of pubs in
LBM. The talk is on 18 July, 10.30 am to 12 noon, at West Barnes Library, Station Road, Motspur Park.

A CENTURY OF CHANGE IN LOWER MORDEN AND CANNON HILL

If you missed Peter Hopkins’ exhibition at St Martin’s Church in March and then at Merton Local Studies
& Heritage Centre in April, it will be transferring to Emmanuel Church, Stonecot Hill, on Saturday 1
July from 2.30 to 4.30pm, for one day only.

Letters and contributions for the Bulletin should be sent to
editor@mertonhistoricalsociety.org.uk. The views expressed in this Bulletin are those

of the contributors concerned and not necessarily those of the Society or its Officers.

website: www.mertonhistoricalsociety.org.uk email: mhs@mertonhistoricalsociety.org.uk

Printed by Peter Hopkins

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 202 – JUNE 2017 – PAGE 16