The Project Gutenberg eBook ofAll about BatterseaThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: All about BatterseaAuthor: Henry S. SimmondsRelease date: July 4, 2017 [eBook #55045]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Clare Graham and Marc D'Hooghe at FreeLiterature (online soon in an extended version, also linkingto free sources for education worldwide ... MOOC's,educational materials,...) Images generously made availableby the Internet Archive.*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALL ABOUT BATTERSEA ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: All about BatterseaAuthor: Henry S. SimmondsRelease date: July 4, 2017 [eBook #55045]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Clare Graham and Marc D'Hooghe at FreeLiterature (online soon in an extended version, also linkingto free sources for education worldwide ... MOOC's,educational materials,...) Images generously made availableby the Internet Archive.
Title: All about Battersea
Author: Henry S. Simmonds
Author: Henry S. Simmonds
Release date: July 4, 2017 [eBook #55045]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Clare Graham and Marc D'Hooghe at FreeLiterature (online soon in an extended version, also linkingto free sources for education worldwide ... MOOC's,educational materials,...) Images generously made availableby the Internet Archive.
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALL ABOUT BATTERSEA ***
S. MARY'S, built according to Act of Parliament, 14. Geo. III. Opened Nov. 17, 1777. About 1823 an Entrance Portico of the Doric Order was added.
S. MARY'S, built according to Act of Parliament, 14. Geo. III. Opened Nov. 17, 1777. About 1823 an Entrance Portico of the Doric Order was added.
This small volumeIS MOSTRESPECTFULLY DEDICATED (by permission)TOTHE REV. JOHN ERSKINE CLARKE, M.A.,Honorary Canon of Winchester, Vicar of Battersea;AND TO THEINHABITANTS IN GENERAL.
Page.Introduction.ivNine Elms Lane.—The King's Champion.3Thorne's Brewery.—What Battersea has been called.4London and South Western Railway Company's Goods Station andLocomotive Works.4-7Mill-Pond Bridge.—New Road.8A Royal Sturgeon caught in the wheel of the Mill at Mill-Pond Bridge.9Wallace's Vitriol Works.10Sleaford Street.—Coal.11Street Lighting.12-13London Gas-Light Company's Works and Vauxhall Gardens.14-23On a recently-exposed Section at Battersea.23-24Phillips' Fire Annihilating Machine FactoryDestroyed.—Brayne's Pottery.—The Old LimeKilns.—Laver's Cement & Whiting Works.25The Southwark and Vauxhall Water Works.26Water Carriers and Water Companies.27-29The Village of Battersea.—Growth of the Parish.30-31Boundaries.—A Legal Contest between Battersea andClapham Parishes. Clapham Common.32-33Lavender Hill.—The Seat of WilliamWilberforce.—Eminent Supporters of theAnti-Slavery Movement.—Frances Elizabeth LevesonGower. Mr. Thornton.—Philip Cazenove.—CharlesCurling, Lady George Pollock, and others.34-36Battersea Market Gardens and Gardeners.36-37Stages set out for Battersea from the City.—AnnualFair.—Inhabitants supplied with Water fromSprings.—The Manor of Battersea before the Conquest.38Battersea and its association with the St. Johns.39Henry St. John Lord Viscount Bolingbroke.40-42A Horizontal Air Mill.43St. Mary's Church.44-46The Indenture.47-48Epitaphs and Sepulchral Monuments.49-51Rectory and Vicarage.52A Petition or Curious Document.53Dr. Thomas Temple.—Dr. Thomas Church.54Cases of Longevity.—The Plague.—The ThreePlague Years.—Deaths in Battersea.55-56Vicars of Battersea from Olden Times.56-57Thomas Lord Stanley.—Lawrence Booth.57York House.58Battersea Enamel Works.—Porcelain.—Jens Wolfe,Esq.—Sherwood Lodge.—Price's Patent CandleFactory.59-62Candlemas.63-64The Saw.—Mark Isambard Brunel's Premises atBattersea.—Establishment for the preservation oftimber from the dry rot burnt down.65History of the Ferry.—The Old Wooden Bridge.66-67Albert Suspension Bridge.68-69Chelsea Suspension Bridge.70The Prince of Wales.—Freeing the Bridges "For Ever."71-73The Stupendous Railway Bridge across the Thames.74The spot where Cæsar and his legions are stated by someantiquarians to have crossed the river.75A haunted house.—Battersea Fields.—Duel betweenthe Duke of Wellington and Lord Winchelsea.76The Red House.77"Gyp" the Raven.—Billy the Nutman.—Sports.78"The Old House at Home."—Sabbath Desecration.79Her Majesty's Commissioners empowered by Act of Parliamentto form a Royal Park in Battersea Fields.—WildFlowers.—Battersea Park.80-84London, Brighton and South-Coast Railway Company's twoCircular Engine Sheds and West-End Goods Traffic Department.85-86Long-Hedge Farm.—London, Chatham and Dover RailwayLocomotive Works.87-90A Canvas Cathedral.91H.P. Horse Nail Company's Factory.94St. George's Church, its clergy, its graveyard, epitaphsand inscriptions (St. Andrew's Temporary Iron Church96).95-99Christ Church, its clergy.100St. John's Church.101St. Paul's Church.102St. Philip's Church.103St. Mark's Church.104St. Luke's Chapel-of-Ease.105St. Saviour's Church.106St. Peter's Church.107Temporary Church of the Ascension.—St.Michael's Church.108All Saints' Temporary Iron Church.—Rochester DiocesanMission, St. James', Nine Elms.111St. Aldwin's Mission Chapel.—The Church of our Ladyof Mount Carmel and St. Joseph.112Church of the Sacred Heart.—The Old Baptist MeetingHouse, Revs. Mr. Browne, Joseph Hughes, M.A., (John Foster),Edmund Clark, Enoch Crook, I. M. Soule, Charles Kirtland.113-116Baptist Temporary Chapel, Surrey Lane.116Battersea Park Temporary Baptist Chapel.117Baptist (Providence) Chapel.118Baptist Chapel, Chatham Road.—Wesleyan MethodistMission Room and Sunday School.—United MethodistFree Church, Church Road, Battersea.—The UnitedMethodist Free Church, Battersea Park Road.119Primitive Methodist Chapel, New Road.119Primitive Methodist Chapel, Grayshott Road.—PrimitiveMethodist Chapel, Plough Lane.121St. George's Mission Hall.—Battersea CongregationalChurch, (Independent), Bridge Road.122Stormont Road Congregational Church, Lavender Hill.123Wesleyan Methodism in Battersea.124-126Methodist Chronology.127Wesleyan Chapel, Queen's Road.128Free Christian Church, Queen's Road.129Trinity Mission Hall, Stewart's Lane.—PlymouthBrethren.130"The Little Tabernacle."—Thomas Blood.131Battersea Priory.—Alien Priories.132Ursulines.132-134Battersea Grammar School, St. John's Hill.134The Southlands Practising Model Schools.—St. Peter'sSchools.—St. Saviour's Infant.136Christ Church National Schools.—St. George's NationalSchools.—Voluntary Schools.136London Board Schools.137London School Board, Lambeth Division.138The Elementary Education Acts.—Regulations affectingParent and Child.139-140A Coffee Palace.—Latchmere Grove.—PlagueSpots.—The Shaftesbury Park Estate.141-142The Metropolitan Artizans' and Labourers' DwellingsAssociation.143-144Latchmere Allotments.—Dove Dale Place.—An OldBoiler.—Lammas Hall.—The Union Workhouse.145Old Battersea Workhouse.—The "Cage."—The"Stocks."146The Falcon Tavern.—A Cantata.147Origin of Bottled Ale in England.—"Ye PloughInn."—"The Old House."—Stump of an Old Oak Tree.148"Lawn House," Lombard Road.—The Prizes for the Kean'sSovereigns and the Funny Boat Race.—The Old SwanTavern.—Royal Victoria Patriotic Schools.149St. James' Industrial Schools.—Royal MasonicInstitution for Girls.150Clapham Junction.—Battersea Provident Dispensary.151Wandsworth Common Provident Dispensary.—CharityOrganization Society.—The Penny Bank.—No.54 Metropolitan Fire Brigade Station.—Origin ofFire Brigades.152The Metropolitan Police.—Police Stations,Battersea.—St. John's College of the National Society.153The Vicarage House School.—Various Wharves andFactories.154Mr. George Chadwin.—T. Gaines.—Tow's PrivateMad House.—The Patent Plumbago Crucible Company'sWorks.155Silicated Carbon Filter Company's Works.156Condy's Manufactory.—Citizen Steamboat Company's Works.157Orlando Jones & Co.'s Starch Works.157-159Battersea Laundries.—Spiers andPond's.—Propert's Factory.—The London andProvincial Steam Laundry.159-160St. Mary's (Battersea) Cemetery.—Numerous Epitaphsand Inscriptions. Scale of Fees, etc.161-175The Battersea Charities.175Parish Officers.—Vestrymen.176-178Battersea Tradesmen's Club.—Temporary Home for Lostand Starving Dogs.179-180London, Chatham and Dover Railway—Battersea ParkStation—York Road Station (Brighton Line).—WestLondon Commercial Bank. London and South WesternBank.—Temperance and Band of HopeMeetings.—South London Tramways inBattersea—Fares.180-181
[Transcriber's Note.—A list of illustrations has been added in below. Some obvious errors in spelling and punctuation have also been silently corrected.]
Page.St. Mary's Church.44Price's Patent Candle Company.59St George's Church.95St. John's Church.101St. Mark's Church.104St. Luke's Chapel-of-Ease.105St. Saviour's Church.106Baptist Temporary Chapel, Surrey Lane.116Battersea Park Temporary Baptist Chapel.117The New Baptist Chapel.119Battersea Congregational Church.122Orlando Jones & Co.'s Starch Works.157
London, after the lapse of centuries, has been compared to an old ship that has been repaired and rebuilt till not one of its original timbers can be found; so marvellous are the changes and transmutations which have come over the "town upon the lake" or,harbour for shipsas London was anciently called, that if a Celt, or a Roman, or a Saxon, or a Dane, or a Norman, or a Citizen of Queen Elizabeth's time were to awake from his long slumber of death, he would no more know where he was, and would be as strangely puzzled as an Englishman of the present generation would be, who had never stirred further than the radius of the Metropolis, supposing him to be conveyed by some supernatural agency one night to China, who, on rising the next morning finds himself surrounded by the street-scenery of the city of Pekin. Costumes, manners, language, inhabitants have all changed! Viewed from a geological stand-point, even the soil on which New London stands is not the same as that on which Old London stood. The level of the site of the ancient city was much lower than at present, for there are found indications of Roman highways, and floors of houses, twenty feet below the existing pathways. There are probable grounds for supposing the Surrey side to have been some nineteen hundred years ago a great expanse of water. London so called for several ages past, is a manifest corruption from Tacitus'sLondiniumwhich was not however its primitive name this famous place existed before the arrival of Cæsar in the Island, and was the capital of theTrinobantesorTrinouantes, and the seat of their kings. The name of the nation as appears from Baxter's British Glossary, was derived from the three following British words, tri, nou, bant, which signify the 'inhabitants of the new city.' This name it is supposed might have been given them by their neighbours on account of their having newly come from the Continent (Belgium) into Britain and having there founded a city calledtri-nowor the (new city) the most ancient name of the renowned metropolis of Britain.[1]Some have asserted that a city existed on the spot 1107 years before the birth of Christ, and 354 years before the foundation of Rome. The fables of Geoffrey of Monmouth state that London was founded by Brute (or Brutus) a descendant of theTrojan Æneas the son of Venus and called New Troy, orTroy Novantuntil the time of Lud, who surrounded it with walls, and gave it the name Caer Lud, or Lud's town etc.Leigh.A certain Lord Mayor when pleading before Henry VI. assumed from this mythological story with a view to establish a claim to London's priority of existence over the city of Rome. The Celts the ancestors of the Britons and modern Welsh were the first inhabitants of Britain. The earliest records of the history of this island are the manuscripts and the poetry of the Cambrians. Britain was called by the RomansBritanniafrom its Celtic name Prydhain.Camden.We need not tarry to discuss whether Londinium originally was inCantiumor Kent the place fixed by Ptolemy and some other ancient writers of good authority, or whether its original place were Middlesex, or whether situated both north and south of theTamesisThames. TheTrinobantesoccupied Middlesex and Essex, they joined in opposing the invasion of Julius Cæsar 54 B.C.; but were among the first of the British States who submitted to the Romans their new City at that time being too inconsiderable a place for Cæsar to mention. Having revolted from the Roman yoke they joined their beautiful Queen Boadicea and were defeated by Suetonius Paulinus near London A.D. 61. But before reducing the Trinobantes who had the Thames for their southern boundary, it is the opinion of some antiquarians that the Romans probably had a station to secure their conquests on the Surrey side, and the spot fixed upon for the station is St. George's in the Fields a large plot of ground situated between Lambeth and Southwark, where many Roman coins, bricks, chequered pavements and other fragments of antiquity have been found. Three Roman ways from Kent, Surrey and Middlesex intersected each other in this place. It is thought that after the Normans reduced the Trinobantes the place became neglected and that they afterwards settled on the other side of the Thames and the name was transferred to the New City. The author of a work entitled "London in Ancient and Modern times." p.p. 12 and 13 writes.—Let the reader picture to himself the aspect of the place now occupied by the great Metropolis, as the Romans saw it on their first visit. He should imagine the Counties of Kent and Essex, now divided by the Thames, partially overflowed in the vicinity of the river by an arm of the sea, so that a broad estuary comes up as far as Greenwich, and the waters spread on both sides washing the foot of the Kentish uplands to the south, and finding a boundary to the north in the gently rising ground of Essex. The mouth of the river, properly speaking was situated three or four miles from where London Bridge now stands. Instead of being confined between banks as at present, the riveroverflowed extensive marshes, which lay both right and left beyond London. Sailing up the broad stream, the voyager would find the waters spreading far on either side of him, as he reached the spots now known as Chelsea and Battersea—a fact of which the record is preserved in their very names. A tract of land rises on the north side of the river. It is bounded to the west by a range of country, subject to inundations, consisting of beds of rushes and osiers and boggy grounds and impenetrable thickets, intersected by streams. It is bounded to the north by a large dense forest, rising on the edge of a waste fen or lake, covering the whole district now called Finsbury and stretching away for miles beyond. This tract of land, rising in a broad knoll, formed the site of London.
An old writer says "it is now certain that the spot, (viz. St. George's in the Fields) on which the city was described to have stood, was an extensive marsh or lake, reaching as far as Camberwell hills, until by drains and embankments, the Romans recovered all the lowlands about the parts now called St. George's Fields, Lambeth etc. London never stood on any other spot than the Peninsular, on the northern banks, formed by the Thames in front; by the river Fleet on the west; and by the stream afterwards named Walbrook on the East. An immense forest originally extended to the river side, and, even as late as the reign of Henry II. covered the northern neighbourhood of the city, and was filled with various species of beasts of chase. It was defended naturally by fosses, one formed by the creek which ran along the Fleet ditch, the other by that of Walbrook. The south side was protected by the river Thames, and the north by the adjacent forest."
In the reign of Nero the first notice of Londinium or, Londinum occurs in Tacitus (Ann xiv. 33.) where it is spoken of, not then as honoured with the nameColoniabut for the great conflux of Merchants, its extensive commerce, and as a depôt for merchandise. At a later date London appears to have beenColoniaunder the name Augusta (Amm. Marcell.; xxvii. 8.) how long it possessed this honourable appellation we do not know but after the establishment of the Saxons we find no mention of Augusta. It has received at various times thirteen different names, but most of them having some similarity to the present one. However as it is not a history of England's Metropolis butAll about Battersea[2]we write, we will at once commence at Nine Elms.
[1]The inhabitants of ancient Britain derived their origin partly from an original colony of Celtæ, partly from a mixed body of Gauls and Germans. None of them cultivated the ground; they all lived by raising cattle and hunting. Their dress consisted of skins, their habitations were huts of wicker-work covered with rushes. Their Priests the Druids together with the sacred women, exercised a kind of authority over them.Britain according to Aristotle, was the name which the Romans gave to Modern England and Scotland. This appellation is, perhaps derived from the old wordbrit, partly coloured, it having been customary with the inhabitants to paint their bodies.According to the testimony of Pliny and Aristotle, the Island in remotest times bore the name of Albion.The Sea by which Britain is surrounded, was generally called, theWestern, theAtlantic, orHesperianOcean. Herodotus informs us that the Phœnicians, Greeks, and Carthaginians, especially the first were acquainted with it from the earliest period and obtained tin there and designated itTin Island. The name Great Britain was applied to England and Scotland after James I. ascended the English throne in 1603. England and Scotland however had separate Parliaments till 1st of May 1707, when during the reign of Queen Anne the Island was designated by the name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. The terms at first excited the utmost dissatisfaction; but the progress of time has shown it to be the greatest blessing that either nation could have experienced.
[1]The inhabitants of ancient Britain derived their origin partly from an original colony of Celtæ, partly from a mixed body of Gauls and Germans. None of them cultivated the ground; they all lived by raising cattle and hunting. Their dress consisted of skins, their habitations were huts of wicker-work covered with rushes. Their Priests the Druids together with the sacred women, exercised a kind of authority over them.
Britain according to Aristotle, was the name which the Romans gave to Modern England and Scotland. This appellation is, perhaps derived from the old wordbrit, partly coloured, it having been customary with the inhabitants to paint their bodies.
According to the testimony of Pliny and Aristotle, the Island in remotest times bore the name of Albion.
The Sea by which Britain is surrounded, was generally called, theWestern, theAtlantic, orHesperianOcean. Herodotus informs us that the Phœnicians, Greeks, and Carthaginians, especially the first were acquainted with it from the earliest period and obtained tin there and designated itTin Island. The name Great Britain was applied to England and Scotland after James I. ascended the English throne in 1603. England and Scotland however had separate Parliaments till 1st of May 1707, when during the reign of Queen Anne the Island was designated by the name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. The terms at first excited the utmost dissatisfaction; but the progress of time has shown it to be the greatest blessing that either nation could have experienced.