Bulletin 209

CONTENTS
Programme March – July 2019 2
Annual Report for 2017-2018 – Keith Penny 3
Local History Workshop:
30 November 2018: LAARC data; Lodge Farm boundaries; looking for Romans;
Leach connections in Bookham; Betty Beal engaged; Mary Chambers, earlyphotographer? 4
From Our Postbag – John Pile 5
‘Elys Store’ 6
‘From Punch to Warhorse’ 7
Members’ Meeting: Shannon Corner; Pillar Boxes & Telephone Kiosks; A PrioryFounded;
the Thomas brothers 8
Some thoughts on John of Tynemouth – Katie Hawks 10
Archaeology in Merton 2017 12
Recent Books 12, 16
Hawes Bros Department Store in Morden – Norma Cox 13
PRESIDENT:
VICE PRESIDENT: Judith Goodman
Chair: Keith Penny
BULLETIN No. 209 MARCH 2019
Cheese labels
from The
Creameries,
part of the
collection of
Michael Pollock
(Memories
coming soon).
Were all boys
such magpies?MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 209 – MARCH 2019 – PAGE 2
PROGRAMME MARCH – JULY 2019
Saturday 9 March 2.30pm St James’ Church Hall, Merton
‘Local History by Bus: sites and sights from Raynes Park to Pollards Hill’
An illustrated talk by our Chair, Keith Penny
Please note change of speaker, due to circumstances beyond our control
Saturday 13 April 2.30pm St James’ Church Hall, Merton
‘History of Sutton Villages’
An illustrated talk by local historian John Phillips
No visit is planned for May
Thursday 6 June 11am A Visit to Merton Priory Chapter House
led by John Hawks
Thursday 18 July 11am Secret Rivers Exhibition at Museum of London Docklands
Hertsmere Road E14 4AL. This is a free exhibition
No need to pre-book, but meet at the museum so that we can go round together
Dockland Light Railway to West India Quay
Note also our Local History Workshops at Wandle Industrial Museum, London

Road
2.30pm on Fridays 15 March, 10 May, 21 June 2019. All Members are welcome
+
MARTIN WAY
MARTIN WAY
+
St James’ Church Hall is in
Martin Way, next to the church
(officially in Beaford Grove).
Buses 164 and 413 stop in
Martin Way (in both directions)
immediately outside.
The church has a tiny car
park, but parking in adjacent
streets is free.
Visitors are welcome to attend our talks. Entry £2.
MEMBERS’ MEETING (continued from page 9)
Keith Penny gave us a short exposition on our (soon to be) forthcoming

publication
A Priory Founded, a translation into modern English of four 12th-century

Latin texts
about the foundation of Merton priory and its founder, Gilbert the sheriff

(right).
Not an easy task, as the handwriting is much compressed in a sort of

shorthand:
something that looks like ñiñ turns out to be the Latin word ‘omnium’ =

‘everything’.
Bea Oliver showed us a collection of items she and her dog had gathered

while
walking along the banks of the Pyl Brooks (‘future archaeology’). In Morden
cemetery she had noted a stone commemorating the poet [Philip] Edward Thomas
(d.1917) and his brother Reginald (d.1918). This prompted her to read to us

the
evocative description of a leisurely cycle ride through part of Merton and

Morden
in Thomas’ In Pursuit of Spring (written c.1913), reproduced in Bulletin

127,
September 1998.
1
A PRIORY FOUNDED
Sheriff Gilbert at Merton
Translated from original documents
MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY 2019
Wimbledon Community Orchestra will be playing some classical pieces, and a

little popular music, at St
James’ Church Hall at 7.00pm on Sunday 24 March 2019. Free entry; a

collection will be taken at the end.

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 209 – MARCH 2019 – PAGE 3
ANNUAL REPORT FOR 2017-2018
Madam Vice President, Ladies and Gentlemen:
I am pleased to present to you my fourth report on the activities of the

Society and its committee. This time
there are no enforced removals of artefacts or audiences. We have continued

to use the hall here at St James,
Merton, for our talks, and through the good offices of Alan Martyn and David

Luff the initial troubles with
audio and visual technologies have mostly been resolved, whilst David has

regularly asked for comments from
those who attend, with a view to providing the best show that we can.

Moreover, though none of our doing, the
hall has a new heating system, so looking cold is no longer allowed.
One lesson from this hall is that speakers perhaps need to be more skilled

as performers than was necessary
in the confines of the Christ Church hall. John Hawks, who began our new

season, is, of course, an example
of what succeeds. The programme of talks has again been varied and

interesting, thanks to the efforts of Bea
Oliver. Visitors spoke about the coach roads to Brighton, the conservation

of Wimbledon Common (a good
mix of history and the conservation of heritage) and about the lives (and

often the deaths) of recipients of the
Victoria Cross who had connections with Merton. Our own members contributed

at varying lengths with the
listed buildings of Mitcham, other World War One biographies, a local

temperance society and the changing
fortunes of retailing in Morden, by courtesy of the Bill Rudd slide

collection. Outside, we have walked the
Wandle with Mick Taylor (again! but another part of it), toured Ham House

and Kingston, guided by MHS
member Charlotte Morrison, and enjoyed the mix of tradition and modernity

that thrives in Kneller Hall, the
home of Army music.
Our latest publication is probably the last we shall produce that is related

to the First World War, now that all
the anniversaries of that dreadful era (except that of the Armistice to be

observed tomorrow) have passed. Our
Convict Son is about a Merton man who was a conscientious objector to

conscription – not a subject popular at
war memorials, but nevertheless part of the deeply complex history of that

war, nationally and locally. Coming
shortly, or moderately so, are the accounts of the foundation of Merton

Priory written soon after the event, which
I think will be well worth reading – don’t be put off because they were

originally written in Latin – and some
reminiscences of boyhood in St Helier before and during the war, which go on

to describe the distant world of
a gentlemen’s outfitter’s, something that may chime with our talk after this

AGM today. As ever we must thank
Peter Hopkins, who continues to manage our publications and to update the

website.
In May we had our stall at the very successful Heritage Day at Morden

Library. This was another example of
the organisational skill of Sarah Gould, and the day is always a good

opportunity to meet the public, sell books,
and (even) recruit members. We are still asked to give talks elsewhere: I

presented pictures of Mitcham and
Morden to a church supper club in Morden, and a society in Tooting has asked

for speakers, so it is possible
that Sindy in her various guises will yet have an evening out.
The February lunch this year will not be at South Thames College: the

management there has changed and could
not offer a choice that we considered adequate, so we are going to try, more

expensively, but not unreasonably
so, Gino’s Restaurant in the centre of Mitcham, convenient for public

transport and car parking. Our new
Treasurer, Janet Holdsworth, will be organising it, and details will be in

the next Bulletin. Sheila Harris, who is
today presiding over the teapot, felt it was time to hand over to someone

with internet access. We thank Sheila
for her meticulous organisation of this event over many years and her

necessary pursuit of those neglectful of
the stamped addressed envelope.
Last year I invited offers to join our committee and to make some other

contributions to the functioning of the
Society. I mention this again, not to lament the limited response, but to

bring me to my last topic, our future.
Last year I reported that the Museum of London was going to accept three

skeletons found during excavations.
A year later, and the Museum is still going to accept them, so some

administrative progress has been made,
and at least these items will go to a secure home. Dave Haunton, who edits

our ever-brimming Bulletin, has
recently started the Committee thinking further about what to do with items

and papers offered to the Society
(often as a consequence of the clearance of a person’s effects after death).

It is a serious matter for all history
societies, and local authorities that run archives are increasingly mean in

spirit and money, just when the supply
of free private storage is becoming more uncertain, with the aging of

members. I don’t wish to steal from the
forthcoming Treasurer’s Report, but your Committee is uncomfortably aware

that the subscriptions collected
from members no longer cover the basics of what we do: the talks here and

the quarterly Bulletin. These two
matters may well be the substance of the Committee’s work during the next

year, barring any nasty surprise
events. So, a quieter year than some, but one with some increasingly urgent

challenges for the future activity
of the Society.
Keith Penny, Chair, Merton Historical Society

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 209 – MARCH 2019 – PAGE 4
LOCAL HISTORY WORKSHOP
Friday 30 November 2018. Six present – Keith Penny in the chair
. When Rosemary Turner went with Keith to collected some boxes from LAARC

she was surprised how
limited the information was on the boxes. When Rosemary is working with

Carshalton Archaeology, as well
as a standardised way to set out the detailed information, they have to

comply with specified bags, boxes,
labels and even the type of pen used to write on the labels.
Peter had scanned some more of Bill Rudd’s slides and emailed Rosemary

photographs relating to the area
which was previously Lodge Farm. When Bill took the photos, 1974/5, the area

was Morden Recreation
Ground. Some of his photos are labelled trees, relating to field boundaries.

Rosemary is going to work out
where in the park the photos were taken, so that she can try to link them to

Lodge Farm field boundaries. One
of the photographs shows the number of trees that were removed from the area

known as the bird sanctuary
to make room for an adventure playground. Another photo shows that there was

already one in the park and
it is not known why so much destruction was needed to build another.
. Christine Pittman has been an enthusiastic volunteer digger, mostly Roman

and medieval, but has now
re-directed her energies to recording and writing up excavations. She had

volunteered to help David Bird,
one-time Surrey Archaeological Officer, to extend and write up his notes on

Romans in Surrey, and he had
directed her to us (among others) as ‘useful people’ to ask for assistance.

Christine was showered with
suggestions as where to look, with the hope that she may eventually be able

to produce for us a map of all
Roman locations in Merton. It appears we were helpful, as Christine joined

the Society there and then.
. Judith Goodman had some literary ideas: she had wondered if her Mr and Mrs

Leach (of Coal and Calico
fame), after they retired from Merton to Bookham, had ever met Jane Austen

there, as the vicar was her
godfather, and she is on record as staying at the vicarage. Furthermore, the

house taken by the Leaches had
previously been the home of Fanny Burney (1752-1830) and her husband, who

had moved only a little way
away. We wonder again, did Jane ever meet Fanny? Incidentally, Samuel Crisp

(?1706-1783), a close friend
of the Burney family, was the gentleman Fanny referred to as ‘Daddy’. He had

Merton connections, as he
was a great-great-grandson of Ro(w)land Wilson, who took over the Merton

Grange estates in 1624. Samuel
inherited some of Wilson’s original Merton holdings, but apparently sold

them.
. David Haunton Checking over the Betty Beal documents used for the
article in Bulletin 207, Dave discovered a tiny, previously overlooked,
slip of paper, tucked between pages of Betty’s wartime diary. Clipped
from a local paper, it was a personal advertisement: ‘MRS BEAL, 195
Tudor-drive, Morden, has pleasure in announcing the engagement of
her youngest daughter, Betty, to Keith, elder son of Mr and Mrs H
C Bucksey, 40 Durnsford-rd, Wimbledon.’ There is no date, but we
now know that the Beal family (George, Ethel and Betty) had moved
to Tudor Drive by June 1948. The notice must have been placed in
the newspaper between the deaths of George in 1952, and of Ethel in
1957. This photo (right) dates from c.1948 and shows Betty, Keith
and young Barfoots (one niece and twin nephews). Dave suspects that
it was taken at the 17 Botsford Road address mentioned in Bulletin
207. This is where the Barfoot family lived until 1951, after they came
back from Prestatyn, Robin’s mother mysteriously saying she ‘would
rather face Hitler’s bombs than the Welsh!’ Robin does not recall if
Betty ever lived there permanently, though she and her sister Joan
often appeared at the house with American and Canadian servicemen.
Alas, it appears that Keith Bucksey did not in fact marry Betty Beal. Robin

Barfoot can only guess that he
‘didn’t measure up, financially and/or socially’. (He shifted his attentions

to Margaret Ivy Reed, (married
1964, died 1984) and then Eileen D Higgins (married 1988, when he was 60).

He died, still married to Eileen,
in 1997.) Betty stayed on in the house in Tudor Drive, frequently sharing

with two or three people, until
1979, when she retired and moved to Coniston Close, with Keith Jackson, and

then in 1996 to 74 Westway,
where she lived with Reg Sadler for some 13 years. After he died she

continued to live in the house until
she moved into the Lodore Nursing Home in Sutton, where she died in October

2014.
. Keith Penny liked the drawing of Mitcham County Grammar School in Bulletin

208, and plans to investigate
the architects employed by Surrey County Education Committee, and their

school designs, in the period up
to 1965. This will be complicated by the numerous name changes to which

schools seem to be subject.

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 209 – MARCH 2019 – PAGE 5
. Peter Hopkins had received an enquiry from Rose Teanby, a historian of

early women photographers, about
Morden resident Mary Chambers (née Barrett), wife of Lancelot Chambers. She

designed the replacement
glass (1828) for the east window of St Lawrence’s church. Peter responded

with, of course, copies of his
two recent Bulletin articles, noting that Lancelot was a churchwarden, so it

is difficult to tell whether he was
paying the bills on his own behalf or that of the parish. Peter also sent

her the text of a memorial inscription
in the church to Lancelot, Mary and two of their three children, and

residency information, as follows.
The family first appear in the Morden land tax records, which show that from

1780 to 1803 or 1804 Christopher
Chambers was leasing from the manor of Morden ‘Chambers Farm’, later known

as Hill House on the corner
of Central Road and Epsom Road, Morden, where The Sanctuary now occupies the

house site. The valuation
increased from £90 to £135 in 1804. From 1805 to 1817 the occupier was

Frances Chambers, presumably
Christopher’s widow. Lancelot occupied the property from 1818, and is the

occupier listed in the 1837/38
Tithe Apportionment as holding the lands only, the mansion then being in the

hands of the lord of the manor.
Lancelot had purchased the freehold estate in Central Road, Morden, later

known as Hazelwood, in 1836,
holding it until his death, when it was sold, so he was presumably living

here. (Christopher had also leased
one of the two Morden farms within the neighbouring manor of Ravensbury in

1787.)
Rose responded that she did not know of the church inscription, and that it

omits a third child – Rosamund
Elizabeth, baptised 10 January 1808. She had traced Lancelot’s marriage to

Mary in October 1802 with John
Francis arriving in March 1803. (Yes.. you do the maths!) Rose has found a

letter from Mary Chambers
written five days after William Henry Fox Talbot explained his new invention

of photogenic drawing to
the Royal Society, which marked the birth of photography. The letter is in

reply to the Royal Society Vice
President John William Lubbock, with whom she is on very friendly terms.

Rose suspects their paths may
have crossed via the Royal Society of Arts. This correspondence may mean

that Mary was one of the first
women ever to take a photograph! She clearly knew Fox Talbot.
To which Peter replied that the Lubbock connection could have been local, as

John William Lubbock purchased
the neighbouring Mitcham Grove estate in 1828, and also leased the adjoining

part of the Ravensbury Manor
estate. The house was demolished soon after his death, when his son

inherited the estate.
David Haunton
FROM OUR POSTBAG: JOHN PILE answers a BUS QUESTION
Mr Hodgins’ photo of the line of buses thought to be on Derby Day 1937

(Bulletin 208, p.9) was a challenge I
couldn’t resist. The clue is that the road is obviously recently built, as

it cuts through an earlier street pattern,
though that cannot be much older. I recalled that in the immediate post-war

years the Sutton bypass was used by
London Transport buses taking racegoers to and from Epsom. The buses in the

photo appear to be parked on St
Dunstan’s Hill, Cheam, to return to Tattenham Corner to pick up passengers

after the race meeting, either on Derby
Day or The Oaks day. The part of the A217 shown in the photo is between

Abbotts Road at the top and Westfield
Road at the bottom of the photo. The prominent house on Westfield Road is

no.15 and the middle one of the
three bungalows on St Dunstan’s Hill is no.54. The map is slightly reduced

from OS 1:1,250 Sheet TQ 2464 NE.
Dates of next Workshops: Fridays 15 March, 10 May, 21 June 2019.
2.30pm at Wandle Industrial Museum. All are welcome.
15
54

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 209 – MARCH 2019 – PAGE 6
‘ELYS STORE’
Following our AGM on Saturday 10 November 2018, Mike Norman-Smith gave an

appreciative audience an
engaging talk on the history of the Wimbledon department store.
Elys store is largely the result of the efforts of three
generations of the same family. The founder, Joseph
Bird Ely (named for the Bird in Hand pub kept by his
father in Halstead, Essex), walked to London at age 16,
to work in a drapery in Camberwell. With the experience
thus gained in the retail trade, on 19 May 1876 he opened
a small tailoring, haberdashery and drapery shop in
Alexandra Road, opposite the site of today’s Argos. He
chose the site after noting the station and counting the
‘footfall’ of 20 persons passing in an hour. At first the
staff comprised three people – himself, his wife, and an
assistant. After 10 years of successful trading, Joseph
moved to larger premises across the road, to the corner
of Worple Road (right). The coming of the trams in 1907
saw some real growth, bringing in custom from New
Malden and Raynes Park. Joseph even persuaded conductors to shout ‘Elys

corner!’ before the tram stopped
outside the store. He died in 1910, a prominent citizen, with some 20 to 30

horse-drawn cabs attending his funeral.
Joseph’s eldest son, Bernard, grew up to take over the
reins from the 1920s until his death in 1957, celebrating
the 50th anniversary in 1926 with a banquet. Elys grew
steadily, becoming a Limited Company during 1936,
and raising enough money from shareholders to put up
a new shop front. During Bernard’s time in charge the
range of goods increased to include sports goods. A colour
catalogue appeared in 1938, and the staff grew from 40 to
more than 200. Their employment conditions were good,
and included three-year indentures for new starters, and
a staff canteen for all (left, © Elys Ltd). He was a kindly
and philanthropic man, supporting more than 500 appeals
by local residents on their rating assessments.
The next Ely, Vernon, learned much about the retail trade by spending time

as a floorwalker at Selfridges.
He had ideas that did not always work out – there was the customer approval

system, which was abused and
abandoned – but he did introduce a successful furniture department. During

his time some members of staff
became well known, including the long-serving Mr Kersey, in charge of

Maintenance, whose hobby was building
toy thatched cottages, and the formidable Miss C M Cook, Counting House

Manager, who publicly upbraided
Vernon when he forgot to renew the store’s insurance. During WW2 Vernon

accounted AVM ‘Stuffy’ Dowding
as a friend. He went to Delhi for several years’ war
service, but returned to rejoin Elys. He became
a board member in 1948, and was essentially in
charge of the store for the next 30 years. He started
the expansion into adjoining vacant properties in
the 60s and in 1966 as a new priority converted a
vacant post office in Epsom as an outside branch
(right). The Wimbledon store underwent a major
rebuild and increased its range to more than 100
departments. Vernon had many outside interests,
resulting in the award of an OBE in 1990.
NB, Elys is still expanding physically – as at January
2019 they are taking over Ryman’s premises.
Elys of Epsom (formerly Wheelers), 1953, after rebuilding.
© Elys Ltd
Courtesy LB Merton

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 209 – MARCH 2019 – PAGE 7
‘FROM PUNCH TO WARHORSE’
On Saturday 8 December, Dr Chris Abbott gave us a delightful pre-
Christmas afternoon with his talk about puppets, bringing some of
his own extensive collection for our inspection. This report can select
only a few points from a wide-ranging presentation. Puppets may be
classified as: String, as marionettes; Hand or Glove, using one hand;
or Rod, an Asian tradition imposing slow and stately movement.
Asia is also home to the Shadow tradition, where coloured puppets
are viewed directly from one side by the male audience, while the
female audience views the show from the other side, looking at the
shadows cast on a screen between them, and thus only see the story
in black and white. Chris showed us one (right).
St Simeon ‘el Salo’ is the patron saint of puppeteers;
he was an austere 4th-5th century Syrian hermit of
strange behaviour. ‘Salus’ means ‘crazy’, and he
is always shown with a traditional glove puppet,
made to mock himself (lef). The earliest European
illustration is in a twelfth-century German book,
showing the figure of a knight moved by a rope
or rods, while a glove puppet is mentioned by
Chaucer. Early puppet plays were used as a
teaching aid, especially by the Spanish and Italian
churches, who permitted them to continue even
when human plays were stopped.
The traditional English puppet show is of course Punch and
Judy (right), with its links to pantomime and ventriloquism.
The first English mention is in Pepys’ diary for 9 May 1662,
of an ‘Italian puppet play’ with several characters, ‘one called
Punchinello, prettier than the others’. This was a performance
of string puppets, though the use of glove puppets shown from
a booth soon became normal. There is always only one person
in the booth so only two characters may be shown at a time.
Regular scripts for the action are still in print, some dating
from the 19th century (others appeared even earlier). Mayhew
interviewed puppeteers in 1851 and documented the methods
of trick voice production, such as speaking with a whistle in the mouth, or

with a ‘swazzle’ in the roof of the
mouth. Punch himself is a hand puppet but has wooden legs, demonstrating his

beginnings as a marionette: his
head is mobile, but there are two hand grips for further movement. The head

is wooden, usually of pear wood
to withstand the physical bashing it receives during a performance. The

story is flexible – originally Punch got
away with killing everyone, in a scurrilous story for adults, sometimes with

additional characters such as Joey
the clown (named after Grimaldi), the Devil, or a Ghost. The original Joan

became Judy, a Force of Evil or
even Mrs Thatcher. Now the tale has declined to a children’s entertainment,

with very few practitioners (Chris
knows of only those in Weymouth, Swanage and Weston Super Mare).
Victorian times saw the advent of the toy paper theatre (‘penny plain,

tuppence coloured’), still on sale at
Pollocks toy shop and museum. Families such as the Wildings and the Clowes

developed travelling marionette
shows in the 19th century, but the Clowes family puppets are now in the V&A.

By the mid-20th century only
one family was still practising, documented in An East Anglian Odyssey by

Chris Abbott (2007, The Friends of
Wisbech and Fenland Museum). Post-War the firm of Pelham made some eight

million toy puppets of various
types in the 1940s, -50s and -60s, using recycled wartime materials.
Television gave puppets a new lease of life – Muffin the Mule dates from

1934, on TV 1946-56. Watch with Mother
brought us Andy Pandy in 1950 (only 26 episodes), Bill and Ben, Rag Tag and

Bobtail, and the Woodentops.
Sooty arrived in 1948 and still appears in theatres. The later Muppets and

Kermit are both glove and rod handled.
Audrey, the plant in the Little Shop of Horrors, is a frequent pantomime

character. Modern puppetry appears
in satire (Spitting Image) and drama (Warhorse), while theatres include the

Little Angel Theatre in Dagmar
Passage. Chris reckons that Paul Zerdin, of Merton, is one of the most

famous and eminent puppeteers.
Photos by David Haunton

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 209 – MARCH 2019 – PAGE 8
MEMBERS’ MEETING
On Saturday 12 January several members gave us short talks, which have been

drastically summarised here.
Norma Cox had a look at Shannon Limited at Shannon Corner. This is not

really a corner, but the area around
the extended junction of Burlington Road, Bushey Road and the Kingston

Bypass. The name comes from the
Shannon Typewriter Company, founded 1882, which may have established the

first factory in what is now an area
of light industry. The Ordnance Survey map for 1883 shows the roads, but

with no sign of factories. Later maps
are similar until 1935, which has the name, while in 1936 the factory

building appeared (below centre, courtesy
Judy Goodman), north of Burlington Road, west of the Kingston Bypass,

opposite the Odeon cinema. It remained
Shannon’s until 1960, after which it was used by Decca to make pressings,

until it was demolished in 1985.
Shannon’s was quite successful as a business: it had a Head
Office as well as two factories, and exhibited at trade fairs. It
developed two special products (left, right) but was taken over
by Twinlock in 1973, with a last appearance in 1975. Losses
forced the sale of the site to B&Q, who subsequently built a
flagship store there, with advanced features such as a wind
turbine and a rainwater recovery system.
Charlotte Morrison investigated the separate histories of pillar boxes and

telephone kiosks. Before the
introduction of Pillar Boxes in the UK, one took outgoing mail to the

nearest letter-receiving house or post office,
where the Royal Mail coach would stop to pick up and set down mails and

passengers. Anthony Trollope (the
author, then a General Post Office official) noticed that in Europe locked

cast-iron pillar boxes were placed in
convenient locations with regular collection times. Trollope first

introduced this efficient scheme to the Channel
Islands in 1852, and pillar boxes emerged on the mainland the following

year. By 1860, over 2,000 boxes were
established: by the 1890s, this had increased to 33,500. Until 1859, when a

design was standardised, local
foundries were contracted to both manufacture and paint pillar boxes, so

they varied by region. Many of the
earliest boxes were painted green, but were repainted the famous ‘pillar box

red’ by 1884 to increase visibility.
The country’s oldest remaining example, with its vertical letter slot, is in

Holwell, near Sherborne in Dorset,
installed in 1853 (below, left). Note that every pillar box ever made has a

unique key, meaning a postman has
to carry a large bunch.
The most famous early design is the 1866 hexagonal Penfold, named for John

Penfold, the architect who designed
it (below, second from left, Beeches Avenue, Carshalton). It introduced the

VR cypher, which was omitted by the
‘Anonymous’ box of 1879 (below, second from right, Kingston Road). This was

replaced
in 1887, when the words ‘Post Office’ were added. About 6 per cent of UK

boxes have
the ER VII cypher, which also introduced the crown. The main change is the

posting slot
in the door to stop mail getting caught up in the top. The aperture was now

rainproof, and
this same design has continued to the present
day. Mysteriously there is no ‘V’ in George
V’s cypher. Perhaps
15 Edward VIII boxes
still exist in London,
while George VI’s time
is notable only for some
changes to the design of
lamp boxes, which are
attached to lampposts or
even embedded in a wall.
The current ‘National
Standard K’ box was
designed in 1978 by Tony
Gibbs. Modern materials

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 209 – MARCH 2019 – PAGE 9
were studied but cast iron remains the best choice for durability. The

cipher is recessed, so the boxes can be
rolled without damage. More than half the UK’s 115,000 boxes bear the EiiR

cypher (foot of page 8, right).
Division into First and Second Class mail slots dates from 1968, while

rebranding from ‘Post Office’ to ‘Royal
Mail’ occurred in 1991.
Telephone Kiosks: Following the 1868 Telegraph Act the General Post Office

(GPO) gradually absorbed
most of the private public telephone companies in Britain. By 1912 there

were just the GPO and two others:
the States Telephone Department in Guernsey and Kingston upon Hull

Corporation. Telephone kiosks were
in a variety of styles, varying from simple wooden ‘sentry’ boxes to

ornamental octagonal domed kiosks. The
GPO began to standardise its networks, and looked for a single design of

national kiosk. The outbreak of the
First World War stalled these plans. When it finally appeared in 1921 the

lineage of the K1 Mk 234 was clear
(‘K’ for ‘Kiosk’) (below, left). The K1 followed the earlier designs with

its traditional appearance, based on the
‘Birmingham’ kiosk. However, it appeared outdated in 1920s Britain, and was

unpopular with local authorities:
the Metropolitan Boroughs of central London were particularly hostile. The

K1 Mk 234 was installed in very
small numbers and the GPO re-worked its design, producing the K1 Mk 235.

Between 1925 and 1980 about
73,000 kiosks were installed in the UK, of which the K6 was by far the most

prolific at about 70,000.
The K2 kiosk was Britain’s first red Telephone Box, the result of a 1924

design competition, won by architect
Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. The colour red for these kiosks was not originally

all that popular and in many places
the Post Office was forced to adopt a different colour to tone in with local

conditions. They have appeared in
yellow, black, blue, green and grey. The K2 was introduced in 1926 and over

the next nine years some 1,700
examples were installed, mostly in London. Its design features many

influences of classical architecture, as
shown in the tomb of Sir John Soane (below, second from left).
The K3 kiosk was introduced in 1929. It was again designed by Sir Giles

Gilbert Scott, based on his K2 design,
but with less classical architectural styling. Though some 12,000 examples

were installed by 1935, K3 kiosks
are now very rare. The K4 kiosk was designed by the Engineering Department

of the GPO, expanded from the
K2 to include a post box and stamp machine. It was half as big again as the

K2 kiosk, and was only introduced
in limited numbers. The K5 appears to have been lost forever. Only a small

number were manufactured, and no
trace of these remains. The K6 was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott to

commemorate the Silver Jubilee of the
coronation of King George V in 1935: compare K2 and K6 (below, second from

right). Some 60,000 examples
were installed across Britain, of which over 11,000 remain. Many communities

are now using a redundant K6
adapted to house an automated external defibrillator (AED) with spoken

prompts to provide guidance to an
untrained operator, which can be vital in remote, rural locations. The K7

was a revolutionary design and radical
in the use of materials, but the GPO was unconvinced by it, so it never went

into final production. The K8 was
the final GPO design, a replacement for the K6, which never matched the

success of the K6. Some 11,000
examples were installed across Britain, but only 54 surviving K8s have been

identified.
In 1985 the recently privatised British Telecom (BT) announced a

modernisation of the telephone network. BT’s
first kiosk, the KX100 (below, right), was the most commonly installed

variant of a new series, introduced at a
rate of 5,000 a year. Yet even the number of these kiosks has reduced with

the rise in mobile phone ownership.
(continued on page 2)
photos by Charlotte Morrison

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 209 – MARCH 2019 – PAGE 10
KATIE HAWKS has been pondering
SOME THOUGHTS ON JOHN OF TYNEMOUTH
In 1228, a Merton priory deed records:
‘Be it known that the whole of our Chapter by unanimous consent and will,

filled with Charity, and at the petition
of Master Thomas de Tinemwe, have granted and given to John de Tinemwe,

Clerk, for sixteen complete years,
two marks per annum for studying in the Schools in England, paid at the term

from the feast of St. Michael 10s.,
at the Nativity 10s., and at Easter half a mark. In Eastertime and autumn,

or other times if the said John wishes
to reside in the House within the sixteen years, we will receive him and

give him an allowance as one of our
own, and provide him with requisite clothing. If it happen within the said

term that the said John wishes to go
abroad for study, we will give him an exhibition of three marks for a whole

year.’1
Forty years ago, Gareth Morgan wrote a short article on this entry, noting

the bequest of law books that went
with John:
‘The legal books, Decreta and Decretales, of Master Thomas of Tinemwe, with

all his legal texts, after the said
Master Thomas of Tinemwe no longer wishes to use them, shall be given to the

said John for all his life; provided
that he swear an oath that he will not let them pass from him, and will keep

them faithfully for his own use. And
should it come about that he wishes to go from us or depart, he shall

restore these books in their entirety to the
House of Merton, and, as the Chapter of Merton sees fit, they shall be

handed over under the same conditions
to some good poor scholar who is diligent in his learning; and as long as

they last, the said books are to be kept
in this way on the same conditions.’2
Morgan noted, also, that 1228 was a good time to be a legal scholar, as

Gratian’s Decretum was shortly to become
the Corpus Juris Canonici (ie. Body of Canon Law).
Several things are of interest here. First of all, who were these ‘de

Tinemwes’, and how did John come to be at
Merton priory? Secondly, we may presume that John studied at Oxford or

Cambridge; did he also teach there?
In which case, was there any further relationship between Merton priory and

Oxford or Cambridge? And finally,
given the very specific bequest of books, can we infer that Merton had a

reputation for legal scholarship?
Thomas and John de Tinemwe
‘Tinemwe’, not an English-sounding name, is also spelled ‘Tinemue’ or

Tynemue’. It is, in fact, Tynemouth.3
A John of Tynemouth (d.1221) was a canon lawyer, and former student at

Oxford.4 He was by the late 1190s in
the household of Archbishop Hubert Walter. Before becoming archbishop,

Hubert Walter had taken on the habit
of Merton priory, so we already have a link, however weak, between a clerk

of Tynemouth and Merton. Clearly,
however, he is not our John, who entered the priory in 1228. As medieval

toponyms are only an indicator of
place of origin, and not familial relationship, this John of Tynemouth could

have had absolutely no connection
with our John of Tynemouth whatever.
On the other hand, Thomas of Tynemouth clearly did have some sort of

relationship to our John. Morgan, not
unreasonably, presumed that Thomas was John’s father, given the generosity

of the bequest. But Thomas is
described as ‘magister’, an appellation indicating a university degree and

clerical orders. This Thomas also
bequeathed money to the priory to pay for a (secular) chaplain, presumably

to pray for his soul. This chaplain
was ‘our beloved’ Sir Richard de Bandon, and he was to receive ‘the corrody

of a canon and two marks per
annum.’5 A search for a Thomas de Tynemue of about the right period finds

one that was witness to a charter of
the Bishop of St Andrews before 1250; the connection is only toponymic, and

he is not likely to be any relation,
let alone the same person; neither is the Thomas de Tinemue who occurs as a

benefactor to Durham Cathedral.6
But an intriguing mention is from W S Gibson’s History of the Monastery

Founded at Tynemouth:
‘John [of Hertford] elected Abbat of S. Alban’s A.D.1235, called to a

council with the monks of his convent,
Richard Mores, Prior of Dunstaple, and Thomas of Thinemue, Canon of Meriton,

masters of fame in Canon
and Civil Law, who had presided at Bologna and other places.’7
Dunstable is near St Albans. Tynemouth priory was a daughter house of St

Albans, although Thomas’ connection
with it, if any, may have lapsed, for he was by then a canon of Merton (a

different order). Presumably John’s
reason for calling Thomas and Richard to his council was because he needed

legal advice – perhaps about the
newly-enforced regulation about papal confirmation.8 Richard de Morins (or

Mores) was prior of Dunstable
from 1202, but he was one of the greatest English canonists of the period.

He had also been a canon of Merton.
The extract calls ‘Thomas of Thinemue, Canon of Meriton [i.e. Merton]’ a

‘master of fame in Canon and Civil
Law’ as well. This Thomas must be our Thomas.

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 209 – MARCH 2019 – PAGE 11
Canon law and the canons of Merton
Richard de Morins was a lawyer who studied at Paris and Bologna, teaching

law at the latter till the late 1190s.9
He was back in England in 1198, and could have been lecturing at Oxford.

Sometime around then, he became
a canon of Merton, before becoming prior of Dunstable, and taking holy

orders in September 1202. In 1198,
he also became part of Archbishop Hubert Walter’s household. That year,

Hubert decided that he needed
some top legal advice, and persuaded John of Tynemouth and Simon of

Southwell to leave Oxford and join
his household – alongside Richard de Morins.10 De Morins was the author of

several law books, including his
well-known Apparatus.
Charles Lewis suggested that perhaps Richard had been lecturing at Oxford

with John of Tynemouth and Simon
of Southwell when they were poached by Hubert Walter. But if Richard became

a canon of Merton about then,
it is just possible that Hubert Walter acquired him from there, and not

Oxford. Another possibility must be
considered, however – that Hubert persuaded the priory to take Richard as a

canon in order that he might be
elected prior of Dunstable. Evidence for either may come from Thomas de

Tinemue.
The 1235 St Albans entry describes not just Richard but Thomas, ‘Canon of

Meriton’, as ‘masters of fame in
Canon and Civil Law.’ If so, he was not so famous a canon lawyer as to be

courted by Hubert: but perhaps an
Augustinian canon could not be part of a noble household – in which case,

this would suggest that Richard
became a canon following his association with Hubert. We have therefore, two

possibilities. The first is that
Merton priory itself may have been a centre for canon law studies, where

Thomas was a teacher and student.
Richard, on his return from Bologna, took orders at Merton, whence he joined

Hubert’s household and then
became prior of Dunstable, keeping up an acquaintance with Thomas. The

second is that Richard returned from
Bologna, joined Hubert’s household, wished to join the Augustinians, and was

introduced by Hubert to Merton
– possibly knowing Thomas already. In either case, we have a connection

between Merton and the study of
canon/ Roman law in the early thirteenth century.11
Thomas de Tinemue seems, therefore, to have been a canon of Merton and a

canon lawyer. John de Tinemue
was not Thomas’ son, but his student. This makes much more sense of the line

‘the legal books, Decreta and
Decretales, of Master Thomas of Tinemwe, with all his legal texts, after the

said Master Thomas of Tinemwe
no longer wishes to use them, shall be given to the said John for all his

life.’ It would also make perfect sense
of John’s having to give the books back to the priory when he had finished

with them: being a canon’s books,
they were the priory’s books. If Thomas had been a contemporary of Richard

de Morins, then he could well
have died sometime during the 1240s (Richard died in 1242); the appointment

of a chaplain could therefore
have been on his death.
John of Tynemouth could perhaps be identified with the author of the

Euclidian De curvis superficiebus, which
was cited by Robert Grosseteste in the early 1230s. Wilbur Knorr12 suggested

that this John was also the ‘John
of London’ that Roger Bacon mentioned in his Opus Tertium as being one of

the best mathematicians of his
generation. In another book, the Communia Mathematica, Roger mentions a

‘master John Bandoun’, linking
his name with Robert Grosseteste and Adam Marsh as good mathematics

teachers. Knorr proposed that all
three Johns were, in fact, one. However, George Molland was rather sceptical

about this conflation.13 John of
Tynemouth could well have been also called John of London. However, they

could equally have been two entirely
separate people. According to M R James, John of London was at some point a

monk of St Augustine’s Abbey,
Canterbury, to which he gave a large number of books and manuscripts,

chiefly on astronomy and mathematics.
Knorr notes an astronomer John of London in Paris in 1246.14 The John of

London who became a monk at
Canterbury could have been the John of London in Paris: the former left

books on maths and astronomy; the
latter was an astronomer.
Neither of these Johns is likely to be our John of Tynemouth, however: he

was at an Augustinian priory, not
a Benedictine, and although there was the possibility of his going overseas

to study, that was for law, and not
astronomy. Moreover, our John would not have been called ‘of London’ – if

not ‘of Tynemouth’, he would
have been ‘of Merton’. However, our John could have been John Bandoun:

Thomas de Tinemue left money to
employ Richard de Bandon as a chaplain; he and John could have been related.

If John of Tynemouth is indeed
our John, perhaps mathematics, rather than law, was his first, although not

his only, love – he would not have
been the only polymath around at the time. John de Tynemue appears as a

witness in several deeds (Cart. 251
and Cart. 266, 1230s-1240s), suggesting some sort of residency at Merton,

even if only between Oxford or
Cambridge terms.15 It could be that John of Tynemouth was, like Thomas of

Tynemouth, a Merton canon; in any
case, he was a clerk who spent 16 years attached to Merton in pursuit of

legal studies; it could also be that he
followed in something of a tradition of canon law studies, and possibly

pursued mathematical studies as well.

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 209 – MARCH 2019 – PAGE 12
Merton priory: a centre for law studies?
If Thomas of Tynemouth were both a Merton canon and a canon lawyer, and

Richard de Morins too, and John of
Tynemouth a clerical law student after them, then we have the real

possibility of Merton as a place for studying
and teaching law.16 And we have some candidates for the books in Merton’s

library. One of those books, the
Decreta, was probably Gratian’s Decretum. The Decretales is more of a

mystery, for 1228 was too early for
Gregory IX’s Decretals.17 The Decretales could have been a gloss on the

Decretum, or, more likely, a compilation
of decretals since Gratian. It might even have been one of Richard de

Morins’ books, and it would be nice to think
that the priory library also contained his Apparatus, Generalia,

Distinctiones decretorum, and Ordo judicarius.
1 British Library Cotton MS Cleopatra C vii f.cxxxij v: Cartulary of Merton

Priory charter 294; Alfred Heales, The Records of Merton Priory (1898),
translates this twice, on pp.90 and 117-8. He also gives a transcript of the

Latin text on p.xxxiv. He interprets the prior, who is named merely by the
initial ‘E’, as Eustace (1249-62) but it was in fact, as Peter Hopkins has

pointed out, Egidius or Giles (1222-31).
2 Gareth Morgan, ‘Textbooks in 1228′, The Journal of Library History 14, no.

1 (1979), p.56.
3 See, for example, Matthew Paris’ map,

http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item99771.html. The way the map is laid

out suggests a great deal of
communication between North and South.
4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_of_Tynemouth_(canon_lawyer)
5 British Library Cotton MS Cleopatra C vii f.cxxxij charter 303; Heales,

p.118.
6 Norman F Shead, ‘Compassed about with so Great a Cloud: The Witnesses of

Scottish Episcopal Acta before ca.1250’, The Scottish Historical
Review, Vol. 86, No. 222, Part 2 (Oct., 2007), pp. 160, 171; J Stevenson

(ed.), Liber Vitae Ecclesiae Dunelmensis: Nec Non Obituaria Duo Ejusdem
Ecclesiae (London, 1841), p.96.
7 W S Gibson, History of the Monastery Founded at Tynemouth, in the Diocese

of Durham, Volume 2 (1846), p.clxxi
8 https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/herts/vol4/pp372-416#fnn189
9 Charles E Lewis, ‘Ricardus Anglicus: a ‘Familiaris’ of Archbishop Hubert

Walter’ in Institute Of Medieval Canon Law: Bulletin (1966) in Traditio
22 (1966), pp.469-71; https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/beds/vol1/pp371

-377; http://www.dunstableparish.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/
richard-de-morins.pdf
10 Charles E Lewis, ‘Canonists And Law Clerks In The Household Of Archbishop

Hubert Walter’, Colloquia Germanica 4 (1970): 192-201.
11 The John of Tynemouth (d.1221) who was lecturing in law could have had

something to do with Thomas.
12 Wilbur Knorr, ‘John of Tynemouth alias John of London: Emerging Portrait

of a Singular Medieval Mathematician,’ The British Journal for the
History of Science, 23 (no.3, 1990)
13 George Molland, ‘Roger Bacon’s Knowledge of Mathematics’, in Jeremiah

Hackett (ed.), Roger Bacon and the Sciences: Commemorative Essays
(Leiden, 1996), p.158.
14 Ibid.; Knorr, p.309.
15 I am grateful to Peter Hopkins for pointing this out.
16 The 1228 grant talks of poor scholars having Thomas’ books ‘so long as

they will last,’ suggesting well-used textbooks.
17 In the Holy Roman Empire, a bishop who was assassinated in 1233 left

three books to the cathedral at Chur. These were ‘decreta’, ‘decretales’,
and ‘relationes super his.’ Paul B Pixton, The German Episcopacy and the

Implementation of the Decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council 1216-45,
Volume 1215 (Leiden 1995).
ARCHAEOLOGY IN MERTON 2017
This is summarised from ‘London Fieldwork and Publication Round-up 2017’ as

London Archaeologist Vol.15
Supplement 2 (2018). Though a number of evaluations occurred, involving

trial trenches and/or watching briefs,
there is very little to report in the way of archaeological finds for the

year.
Trial trenches at 2-6 High Street, Colliers Wood, found only geology,

probably relating to the nearby River
Graveney, while 2A Valley Gardens, Colliers Wood, yielded ‘nothing of

archaeological significance’. The
Cricketers’ Arms, 340 London Road, Mitcham, revealed only post-medieval and

modern make-up layers, as did
100-102 Morden Road, Mitcham. At the Queen’s Head public house, 70 The

Cricket Green, Mitcham, a large
18th/19th-century pit and chalk foundation might be an earlier phase or an

unrecorded outbuilding.
However, two buildings were carefully recorded before their recent

demolition or drastic alteration, to Historic
Building Recording Level 3 (requiring a systematic account of the building’s

origins, development and use,
including the evidence). These were the swimming pools at Morden Leisure

Centre, Morden Park, and Thales
Avionics Offices 84-86 Bushey Road, Raynes Park, ‘The principal southern

elevation, of two storeys and six
bays about a central clock tower, is an embodiment of the Art Deco style

…’
Vanda Cain Life after Nelson Amazon (2016) £8-99: Ms Cain is an art

historian and lecturer, specialising in
British painting and costume. This is the second of her carefully researched

‘Nelsonian’ novels, dealing with the
final years of the life of Emma Hamilton, in which eight of the chapters are

set in Merton Place. The first novel
(The Hamilton Bitch) is also available in paperback at £8-99. Could someone

please review either or both?
TWO RECENT BOOKS WITH LOCAL LINKS
Evacuation Stories and Childhood Memories from World War Two (2018, Colliers

Wood Residents Association,
£3-50): Produced by HYPER, the acronym for Heritage, Young People, Elderly

Residents, the contents are well
summarised by the title and publisher; the interviews were conducted by

local teenagers, and these are properly
acknowledged within. The photos are from the people being interviewed and

the collections of the London
Borough of Merton and Colliers Wood Community Centre. Available from Morden

Local Studies Centre.

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 209 – MARCH 2019 – PAGE 13
NORMA COX has been looking for
HAWES BROS DEPARTMENT STORE IN MORDEN
At the MHS Workshop on 31 August 2018, the conversation circled for a while

around the subject of retailing.
There was mention of an assistant’s apprenticeship at Elys, the Wimbledon

department store, and then a question
about Hawes, a department store in Morden, which no longer existed. I had

not heard of Hawes before; I was
interested in the retail industry, having worked in retail pharmacy, now

called community pharmacy, for many
years. I therefore decided to find out about Hawes Bros of Morden.
A department store is defined as ‘a retail
establishment offering a wide range of consumer
goods in different product categories known as
departments’.1 Department stores often gave a
town or city a sense of identity as many were
unique to that place.2 Merton Memories yielded
an undated photograph of Hawes department
store in Abbotsbury Road, Morden (right).3
Another internet site said that Hawes department
store in Morden used the wire-system until the
1960s.4 The wire-system was a cash-railway,
which was high above the heads of the shoppers
and staff and allowed money to reach the
cashiers’ department. A third site showed that
Hawes Brothers (Morden) had been bought by
United Drapery Stores and that Hawes was now
closed.5 These three references painted a picture
of the Morden store from the past.
To find out when Hawes Bros first started in business in Morden, a study of

the Kelly’s Directories of Wimbledon,
Merton and Morden for 1925-1930 confirmed that Abbotsbury Road had not been

built by 1930. Morden town
was in its infancy, for the Underground station was not built until 1926.6

Today’s shops and houses in Morden
centre were built in the early 1930s as part of the St Helier Estate. It was

this development that ‘Transformed
Morden from a village to a suburb’. Building work stopped at the beginning

of WW2 in 1939 and re-started
when the war ended.7
By 1935 there was a store at 1-9 Abbotsbury Road. This information came from

the files of the late Bill Rudd
who recorded that ‘On 4.January 1935 at 1-9 Abbotsbury Road there was a

store named ‘Phillips Walk-Around
Store’, which offered 21 departments on two floors and the store was having

a sale on 11 January 1935′.8 By
1938 further evidence that there was a large store at 1-9 Abbotsbury
Road was shown on the large scale Ordnance Survey map, in outline
rather than shaded.9 In addition, the name of Hawes appears in Kelly’s
Post Office Directory for Surrey, 1938, in the Commercial Section.10
However the Merton and Morden Official Guide Book for 1939-
40 11 did not mention Hawes Bros. An interesting piece of evidence
that Hawes was in business in the years 1942-1944 (ie. during WW2),
was seen in the memories of Albert Smith. He had left school in 1942
aged 14, when he started work at Hawes as an assistant in the carpet
department; he worked at Hawes until 1944.12
Details of Hawes Bros department store were not included in the
Merton and Morden Official Guide Book for 1948. A collection of
other Merton and Morden Official Guides and Merton and Morden
Chamber of Commerce Year Books did give evidence of Hawes
Bros. The Year Books for 1951-1952, 1953, 1959-60 and 1960-1961
had advertisements for Hawes which provide further evidence of
the store’s presence in Morden at 1-9 Abbotsbury Road.13 The size
of Hawes’ premises increased to 1-11 Abbotsbury Road, as seen in
the1962 Official Guide Book advert (right).14 In the 1964 Official
Guide Book advert, Hawes premises had increased further to also
include 5 London Road.15
Photo: Courtesy of London Borough of Merton

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 209 – MARCH 2019 – PAGE 14
The adverts in the Merton and Morden Chamber of Commerce Year Book from

1964, 1965, 1966-1967, and
1968 show Hawes’ address as 1-11 Abbotsbury Road and 5 London Road,16 while

the Year Books adverts for
1969, 1972-1973 and 1974-1975 give the address as London Road, Morden,

only.17
The Official Guide Book was published by Merton and Morden Council: the Year

Book was also published by
Merton and Morden Council through the Chamber of Commerce. Hawes Bros was a

member of the Chamber,
a non-political organisation which published an Official Directory of

Members. The Chamber’s members were
the traders and industrialists of Morden and the organisation sought to

protect their interests. This Chamber was
set up in order to promote the good of the town .The Chamber secured

adequate representation of the traders’
interests on all local issues, and by having regular meetings of its members

it provided a platform for discussion
and exchange of views on subjects concerning the trade, business and welfare

of the traders and industrialists
of Morden. This raised the status and influence of traders in the town.18
Goad maps show the size and location of shop sites. A series of Goad maps

for Morden for the years 1975-1977
provided further evidence of Hawes presence in the town. These indicated

that the Hawes Bros site covered a
large area along the North-Eastern parade of shops in Abbotsbury Road and

that the business was there up until
1977.19 A Goad map for 1975 was on display at an exhibition called ‘A

Century of Change in Lower Morden and
Cannon Hill’ curated by Peter Hopkins at St Martin’s Church, Camborne Road,

Morden, in 2017. 20 A similar
study of Goad maps from the files of the late Bill Rudd showed the Hawes

site was vacant for one year in the
late 1970s, while another Goad map for 1982 showed that Hawes Bros was still

in business then.21
What was it like in Hawes? What products did they sell? Albert Smith

recalled that Hawes Bros was on three
floors: the ground floor offered haberdashery, linens, gloves, underwear and

knitting-wools, the first floor was
Ladies Fashion and the second floor was Carpeting. The store had large

walk-around display-windows and an
arcade at the front.22 More information about the functioning of Hawes came

from posters depicting shopping
in Morden in earlier decades; these posters were from Peter Hopkins’

exhibition. One poster had conversation
bubbles for people to recall their work-place experiences. One worker was a

lady called Jeanne who said she
was 15 years old when she worked half a day on Saturdays at Hawes Department

Store. She said that she worked
in the baby clothes and children’s clothes department and that she loved it.

She spent her first Saturday’s wages
on a cream puff face powder which she purchased from the Co-op across the

road.23 Jeanne also recalled that
the glass-topped counter in the Hawes baby-clothes and children’s clothes

department had shallow drawers
so the baby clothes in the drawers would be displayed and viewed through the

glass counter. There was also
a cabinet with shallow drawers, which stood behind the assistant’s station

at the back of the department. This
cabinet contained more baby and children’s clothes. Jeanne worked at Hawes

in 1954.24
Further information about the products and services offered by Hawes Bros

comes from the adverts in the
Merton and Morden Official Guide Books and the Merton and Morden Chamber of

Commerce Year Books.
In the 1951/52 Year Book the advert claimed ‘Department store for all the

family / Always a large selection of
Household and Personal requirements / Our Fashion Showrooms and Personal

Attention assures your complete
satisfaction / Your home furnished throughout with great care and efficiency

/ Easy payment and club facilities
available / Prompt and courteous delivery of purchases / Morden’s Shopping

Centre’ and instructed ‘Telephone
Mitcham 2956/7.’ In the 1953 Year Book, the large boxed advert stated ‘Hawes

Bros Department Store for
Variety / Your smallest needs are our concern / For all the family household

or personal / Walk around – there
is much to interest all / Morden’s Shopping Centre’. The advert in the 1959

-1960 Year Book gave plenty of
information – ‘Always a large selection of Household and Personal Requisites

/ Your home furnished throughout
with care and efficiency / Easy payments / Personal Credit Accounts and Club

Facilities available / Prompt and
courteous delivery for all your purchases’.
In the advert contained in the 1962 Merton and Morden Official Guide, there

is a photograph of the store. The
name ‘Hawes of Morden’ is on the top of the building and the name ‘Hawes’ is

shown twice along the top of
the shop frontage. The wording of the advert was simple and more punchy –

‘Hawes of Morden / The store at
your door / Morden’s Leading Department Store’ (see page 13). The 1964

Merton and Morden Official Guide
advert had the same photograph and advertising as in the 1962 edition.25
For the 1964 Year Book, the advert was very verbose, offering ‘Hawes Bros of

Morden, Surrey / Invite you to
open a personal credit account! / A Sound and Simple Method of Enjoying All

your Personal and Household
needs while you pay for them / And all at Normal Store Prices / Make your

purchases now and open a Personal
Credit Account today at / The Store at Your Door.’ The advert in the 1968

Merton and Morden Year Book had
also returned to being more verbose. It had the same advertising wording as

the 1962 and 1963 Merton and
Morden Official Guide which was ‘The Store at Your Door’ but had these

additional words ‘Leading Specialists
in Carpets and Linoleum / Furniture and Bedding / Curtains and Loose

Covers.’

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 209 – MARCH 2019 – PAGE 15
In the 1969, 1972-1973, 1974-1975 Year Book adverts, there was
a change. The formal boxed advert had been replaced by a large
unboxed advert (right) which had a sketch of a smiling woman in
front of modern furniture on the left-hand side of the advert and three
smiling faces of a man, woman and child on the right- hand side of
the advert. The advertising wording was up-beat and punchy. ‘Yes!
Hawes have the answer to your problems / Bang, up-to-the-minute
furniture, all the latest in carpeting, plus the dreamiest in curtains
and linens / Go Local – go family shopping at Hawes’.
The address of Hawes Bros was now London Road, Morden, which
implied that the store had been reduced in size, hinting that there
was a down-turn in their fortunes. ‘In the 1970s storm clouds were gathering

over department stores due to
the growth of Trendy clothes shops and shopping-centres which enticed people

away from Department stores.
There were also out of town retail parks.’26
United Drapery Stores had bought Hawes Bros but it is not clear when the

purchase took place. United Drapery
Stores was a British retail group that dominated the British High Street

from the 1950s to the 1980s.27 It was
suggested that ‘Sir Arthur Wheeler promoted the formation of United Drapery

Stores from seven London stores,
one of which was Hawes’.28 Sir Arthur Wheeler was a man of working-class

origins who became a stock broker.
He became very rich and powerful and was a Director of United Drapery

Stores.29 It is difficult to work out
how Hawes Bros were involved in the origins of United Drapery Stores in

1927, when their premises at 1-9
Abbotsbury Road were not built until 1935. Another reference stated that

United Drapery Stores was founded
in 1927 with five department stores in London but by 1931 had grown to

112.30 There was an increase in the
number of department stores by WW2, many of which were situated in the

suburbs of large cities. These new
department stores were relatively small in size with less than 500 staff.31
Major developments by three large companies, to acquire groups of department

stores, started in the late 1920s
and early 1930s. ‘A large company would acquire control of a number of

separate department stores primarily
for financial reasons. There would be little or no change made in the

trading or buying policies of the individual
department stores’. United Drapery Stores worked in this way.32 The United

Drapery Stores business grew by
acquiring many department stores. However, in 1983 United Drapery Stores was

itself acquired by the Hanson
Trust and broken up.33
The decline of Hawes Bros of Morden started in the late 1970s and was

probably caused by market pressures. This
is seen in the Morden News 13 July 1979, when the front page stated that

‘Store Giant to try again. Supermarket
Giant ASDA seeking planning application approval to build a hypermarket in

Merton’s Garth Road’. Also in
this newspaper edition, there were aggressive sales adverts for other

department stores near to Morden, such
as Elys of Wimbledon, Smiths Brothers of Tooting, and Arding and Hobbs of

Clapham Junction. There was no
advert for Hawes Bros.34
The Merton and Morden Chamber of Commerce and Trade Official Year Book for

1981-1982 featured a ‘Walkabout
Guide to Shops in Our Area’. It showed that no.1 Abbotsbury Road was vacant

and in London Road nos. 1-5 were
occupied by Wheatlands Ltd, a furniture store.35 Hawes Bros department store

had gone. The photo (below) shows
the site of the department store today. The Retail Industry today is a very

brittle market and traders are feeling
the pressure even more
with increased business
rates and competition
from internet shopping. It
is no surprise that many
well-known High Street
names have gone. There
is still a lasting affection
felt for department stores
such as Hawes, which is
probably due to nostalgia
and happy childhood
memories of the days
when Hawes and Morden
developed together. Photo: David Haunton, December 2018

MERTON HISTORICAL SOCIETY – BULLETIN 209 – MARCH 2019 – PAGE 16
Letters and contributions for the Bulletin should be sent to
the Hon. Editor at 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
MHS is bound by the EU General Data Protection Regulation.
Please see the MHS website regarding how this concerns your personal data.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Peter Hopkins for his help with this paper, in

particular with the lists of the late Bill Rudd.
I would also like to thank the MHS Committee for allowing me to use the as

yet unpublished work of Albert A
J Smith. And add a special ‘Thank-you’ to Jeanne Claridge for contacting me

with more Hawes information.
1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department store. Accessed 22 September 2018
2 https://www.express.co.uk>Nov7uk. Accessed 22 September 2018
3 www.photoarchive/merton.gov.uk/collections/work-and-industry/shops-

retail/34275-london-road-morden-junction-at-abbotsbury. Accessed 22
September 2018
4 www.cashrailway.co.uk/locations/eng-surrey.html. Accessed 27 September

2018
5

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_department_stores_of_the_United_Kingdo

m. Accessed 22 September 2018
6 An extension of the City and South London Railway was opened in 1926 with

a terminus at Morden. See Kelly’s
7 www.mertonhistoricalsociety.org.uk/morden/20th-century-morden. Accessed 22

September 2018
8 List of Morden History compiled by the late Bill Rudd. Held by Peter

Hopkins of Merton Historical Society
9 OS Map of Morden at 6in to the mile https://maps.nls.uk/view/101725229

Accessed 27 September 2018
10 Kelly’s
11 Published by Merton and Morden Urban District Council, the Official Guide

Books are available on the open shelves of the Local Studies Library,
Morden.
12 Albert A J Smith Memories, Merton Historical Society (forthcoming)
13 Merton and Morden Chamber of Commerce Year Book 1951-2 p.28; 1953 p.28;

1959-60 p.16; 1960-1 p.17
The Year Books are available on the open shelves of the Local Studies

Library, Morden.
14 Official Guide Book of Merton and Morden 1962 p.44
15 Official Guide Book of Merton and Morden (nd, 1964 or 1965, probably

1964) p.32
16 Merton and Morden Chamber of Commerce Year Book 1964 p.12; 1965 p.46;

1966-7 p.42; 1968 p.42
17 Merton and Morden Chamber of Commerce Year Book 1969 p.46; 1972-3 p.4;

1974-5 p.4
18 Definition of Merton and Morden Chamber of Commerce, in their Year Book

1960-1 p.17
19 Goad maps showing Morden shops, 1975-1977 Local Studies Library, Civic

Centre, Morden
20 1975 Goad map from an Exhibition by Peter Hopkins (2017) ‘A Century of

Change in Lower Morden and Cannon Hill’ www.mertonhistoricalsociety.
org.uk/3-a-century-of-change Accessed 27 September 2018
21 Goad maps of Morden shops, 1970s and 1982 from Bill Rudd’s Lists. See

note 8.
22 The ‘departments’ plan of Hawes Bros in 1942-1944, Albert Smith Memories.

See note 12.
23 Morden Shopping Posters, ‘Jeanne’s Conversation Bubble’. See note 20.
24 More details of Hawes Baby and Children’s Clothing Department. Jeanne,

pers comm 22 September 2018
25 Official Guide Book of Merton and Morden (nd, 1964 or 1965, probably1964)
26 Decline of department stores in the 1970s. See note 2.
27 https://www.revolvy.com/page/United-Drapery-Stores. Accessed 27 September

2018
28 Corina, Maurice, Fine Silks and Oak Counters: Debenhams 1778-1978 (1978,

first edition, London, Hutchins Benkins), p.94
29 https://www.woodhouseparishcouncil.org.uk/uploads/roundabout-oct-2007.pdf

Accessed 27 September 2018
30 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Drapery_Stores Accessed 27 September

2018
31 Jeffery, James B Retail Trading in Britain 1850-1950. A study of trends

in retailing with special references to the development of Co-operative,
multiple shop and department store methods of trading (1954, Cambridge

University Press) p.344 Full text. https://archive.org/stream/retailtrading
in 030623mpb/retailtradingb030623mbp-djvutext.Accessed 27 September 2018
32 Jeffery, James B (op. cit.) p.345 Acquisition of small department stores

by a large company
33 Acquisition of United Drapery Stores by Hanson Trust in 1983 (As note 27)
34 Morden News (Merton Borough News) Friday 13 July 13 1979, pp.1-11
35 Merton and Morden Chamber of Commerce and Trade Official Year Book and

Directory, 1981-1982, p.57
NEW BOOK: AN A-Z OF WIMBLEDON, A History of the Village and the Town,
by Charles Toase (2018, Wimbledon Society Museum Press, £14-50)
Are you looking for a Wimbledon fact or a Wimbledon date? Look no further,

but enquire within. Charles
Toase, MHS member and for many years a local Reference Librarian, has

scoured almost every issue of the
Wimbledon Boro’ News and a wide variety of other sources to produce this

comprehensive survey. The many
subject headings include Emigration, Geology, Ghosts, Irish and India

Connections, Lakes and Ponds, Pigs,
Public Houses, Servants, Sewage and Vineyards. The 58 pictures in the body

of the book are an interesting
mixture of photographs, advertisements, prints, paintings and drawings. They

are fully described in the ‘List
of Illustrations’, but this reviewer was puzzled that the captions below the

pictures omit some of their dates,
and all of the artists’ names. Unexpected discoveries include the Wimbledon

Paradox (in international shipping
law), the Retaliation League (anti-suffragettes), the ‘squshie, cuereso and

wislear’ in the Spencer’s menagerie,
and that 1946 was a ‘busy year for murderers in Wimbledon’ (Haigh, Heath and

Ley). Recommended.