THE GRANVILLE PARKERS - VICTORIANS TO WW2

After the war, many bombed-out families from SE London needed to be re-housed urgently.  Like my family, originating from the Peckham/Bermondsey area of London. They had been bombed out several times before moving into a shared house in Bellingham. They were eventually, in 1955,  allocated a flat in a new block in Granville Park, Lewisham SE13. This was built after bombing destroyed 4 large Victorian houses numbered 47,49,51,53. The flats are arranged in 4 conjoined units, numbered 47-53, each being divided into flats ; a & b ground floor, c & d up several flights of stone stairs. We occupied 51a. My parents, Rose and Louis Wigzell, lived there until their deaths, in 2001 and 2012 respectively.

This is the story of some of the residents of Granville Park from Victorian times until World War 2, in particular the inhabitants of the house formerly on our block, number 51.

Major development of the area between Blackheath and Lewisham began with the coming of the railways in the mid 1800s. Granville Park is a long, steep hill – 1/13 gradient was on a sign near the top, by the Goldsmiths College students’ accommodation, when I was a child in the 50s.  It runs between Lewisham Road at the bottom and Aberdeen Terrace and Pagoda Gardens on Blackheath at the top. This means 2 railway stations, Lewisham and Blackheath, are relatively close by. In later life, thanks to the miracles of modern science, largely Ancestry.co.uk, I have more recently learned that members of my Grandad Wigzell’s mysterious wealthy Angell relations owned/lived in a house on Aberdeen Terrace. My putative Great Great Grandmother Clara Pattenden on that side was born on the family estate, Batemans in Sussex, later owned by Rudyard Kipling.

The Victorians began a busy time of house building spacious homes eventually occupied largely by the professional and upper middle classes anxious to take advantage of the rail route to their businesses in London.

The first record of Granville Park residents I found was in 1860. Dwellings were not necessarily all numbered then, so it is difficult to pinpoint the exact occupants of the four houses originally on the site of odd numbers 47-53. There is mention of groups of terraces and villas, such as Camden Villas, Granville Park Place, Granville Park Terrace, Caroline Villas, and Thanet Villas, which seems to be the site of these 4 houses. Most of these grand houses still exist; each with several storeys and now divided into flats, each valued at well over half a million pounds sterling per flat. The long back gardens slope down towards the railway, and there are front gardens of varying sizes according to their position on the hill, many of which are now converted into parking spaces.

Two particularly noteworthy former residents of Granville Park are :

Samuel Smiles, (1812-1904), government reformer, philanthropist and author of Self Help lived at the top ,(the posh end, being nearer Blackheath). I remember the blue Heritage plaque on number 11 commemorating this; but have since discovered that Smiles in fact lived at number 12; a confusion attributed to re-numbering in the early 20^th century.  The plaque has now been re-sited appropriately.

A lesser known ex-inhabitant of the area is the suffragette Rosa May Billinghurst, who although disabled by childhood polio, was an activist in the WSPU and was jailed in 1912 for defacing a post box in Pagoda Gardens; she was even force-fed although a wheelchair user. She lived at number 35 in her early years, and never married.

Pagoda Gardens itself, situated at the very top of Granville Park, is home to an interesting building, known as The Pagoda. It was formerly attached to Montagu House, which was demolished in 1815. Built in 1770-80 for the 3rd Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, it was used as a summer house and still retains the look of a Pagoda. Caroline of Brunswick, wife of the Prince Regent was banished here after her separation from her husband in 1799. The Pagoda was extended in the 1820s for the Legge family (Earls of Dartmouth) and in the 1850s for Lewis Glenton, a major builder and developer in the Greenwich area. In the 1950/60s it was used as a Boys Home and later featured in several TV and film productions, notably the 1986 series ‘Life and Loves of a she-devil’ and more recently, Jonathan Creek. A plaque on nearby Elliot cottages  (my late Aunt lived there) denotes it was once the abode of Dr Montague John Druitt, a Jack-the-Ripper suspect. He was found dead in the river in 1888 just after the last murder.

In the late 19^th/early 20^th century most of the houses were home to members of professional classes; doctors, bankers, lawyers, teachers. And of course, many households in the Victorian/Edwardian period had servants on site. Even before World War 2, the houses were gradually being divided into separate homes for 2 or more families. After the war, and the destruction of several properties in Granville Park, many remaining houses were altered to accommodate several families.

My main interest lies in the 4 houses originally on the site of 47,49,51,53, possibly originally called Thanet Villas; particularly number 51. Note that in early days a landlord/owner of a property had the right to vote in that area as well as in the area in which he resided, which could lead to confusion as to who actually lived in a property.

 Alfred and Priscilla Mellersh were the earliest confirmed inhabitants of 51, their first appearance there being on the 1871 census. Alfred was born in Battersea in 1825, son of William Mellersh and Jane Roake. He married Priscilla Gifford (1815-1895) in 1845 in Dorset, and they had 4 sons (Alfred Henry, Athelstan, Harold and Frank), and 3 daughters (Lucy, Edith, and Mary Priscilla). The census lists Alfred as a general merchant and chemical manufacturer, later dealing in cattle food. They had lived in Maidstone until 1871, when the census shows them at 2 Thanet villas, in Granville Park, Lewisham.  They kept 2 servants, a housemaid and a cook. By 1881, the census lists the family at 51 Granville Park, still with 2 servants. In 1891 they were listed at Forrest Holme, Seldown, Dorset, now retired age 66 (Alfred) and 75 (Priscilla). Their daughter Mary Priscilla. now Rendall, is listed there too with 2 children and one servant. Alfred was still on the electoral register at 51, presumably as owner. They may have later moved back to Priscilla’s home town of Bridport, in Dorset, where they both died in 1895. Alfred left over £15k , a huge amount then. In 1894, their son Harold Mellersh was listed as landlord of a tenement at 8 Crutched Friars, City of London.  His home address was still given as 51 Granville Park.

In 1893 Harry Anderson was living at 51, whilst claiming rights to vote as owner of a tenement at 55 Queen Victoria Street. He remains registered there between 1893 and 1900, most of that time also on the electoral roll at 2 addresses in Queen Victoria and Fenchurch Streets. In 1901, Georgina Anderson, a widow of 50, was on the census at 51 with son Alexander, a tobacconist assistant, daughter Winifred, and one servant. They were previously registered at nearby 150 Lewisham Road where husband Harry was a tobacconist.  I wonder if this was the small shop near the station approach where we used to buy our penny sweets in the 1950s?

In 1904/5 Mary Violet de la Cherois-Crommellin born 1857, was on the electoral register at 51 Granville Park.  She came from an aristocratic Irish family.  Her father Nicholas was born in Carrowdore castle, County Down, with a baronetcy and lands in France.  However, he was rather hard-up, and the family moved to England in the 1880s.  One of Mary’s brothers, Andrew, was a meteorologist of note, working at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. He wrote several books and learned papers.  (My own ancestor, one Eustace Wigzell, designed the famous dropping Time Ball on the roof of the Observatory).  But I digress.  Andrew’s cousin, May Crommellin, unusually for the day, was a well-known novelist and writer. In 1909 Mary was living round the corner from Granville Park at 12 Oakcroft Road with her younger sister Clara Crommellin.. By 1911 they were living in Battersea, with one servant, and by 1920-1 at 5a Blessington Road Lewisham. Mary died in 1939 in Streatham, aged 82. Her sister Clara, still listed at Blessington Road, died in December 1921 in St Leonards on sea, near Hastings, aged 59.

In 1910 John William Hinton MUS.DOC was living at 51. He was born in Edmonton, London in 1849, son of the Reverend Zebulon Wright Hinton and Eliza nee Chetwode. His family moved to Liverpool for a while, his mother having died when he was 2 years old, then to Guernsey where they lived in Feckenham house. John married Parisienne Justine Virjinie in 1877. For the first years of their marriage they lived in Battersea, John’s occupation being Professor of Music. They had 7 children, 6 of whom were still alive according to the 1911 Census, when their unmarried daughters Louise and Marguerite still lived with them at 51. John died in 1922 in Southbourne Bournemouth and Justine died in Ranmore cottage, Raleigh Drive, Thames Ditton, Surrey, still with her daughters in 1935.

Between 1915-29 George Edwin and Grace Muriel Mason were owner/occupiers of 51 Granville Park. George was born in Paddington in 1880.  In 1911 they were living at 20 Verdant lane, Catford, with one servant, Alice Eunice Arrowsmith. George was a Freemason, a civil servant with HM Tax Office. In 1915 and 1925 they were listed at 51 Granville Park. Minnie Blatt was their servant.  In 1929 they were on the Electoral Register in the Pall Mall area of the City of Westminster, but gave their abode as Homestead, Leaves Green, Keston, Kent.  In 1939 they lived in Westerham Road, Orpington. Grace died in 1953 and George in 1972 in Portsmouth.

Around 1930-31 Dorothy and Henry Fort-Stephen; William and Elsie Mabel Cookson and Alice Flood, a servant, were listed at 51. Henry was born in 1874, registered at St George Hanover Square suggesting his parents may have been in the military, or Crown Servants. A John Stephens with son Henry born 1874 was listed in the 1881 Census in Plumstead (a known barracks).  Henry was a widower when he married Dorothy E Logsdail in 1929 in Greenwich. In 1911 Dorothy, a typist, lived with her parents at Humber Road in Blackheath, her father being an estate agent. In 1931 the couple lived at Ermine Road in the Ladywell area of Lewisham.  By 1939 they were living at 4 Lewisham Hill, which runs adjacent to Granville Park. Henry was then an Estate Agent’s clerk & cashier. He died in 1967 in Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire, age 93. Dorothy died in 1986 in Braintree age 94.

Between 1933-35 Hubert Brandreth Bowles and his wife Ingeborg Dorothea occupied number 51.  In 1911 Hubert was an accountant listed with his Uncle Thomas Egeler and family. Having married Ingeborg Lowen in 1932, by 1933, they were living at 51 Granville Park, and in 1935 they were listed there together with the Pilton and Bilney families.  By 1939 they lived at Somertrees Ave, in the Baring Road (Lee) area of Lewisham. Hubert died in 1957 in Bridge, in the Whitstable/Tankerton area of Kent. Ingeborg died in 1987 in Chippenham Wiltshire

Maud Ethel Loudwell born in 1909 in Lee had married James A Pilton, a joiner, born 1908, in 1929 at Camberwell. In 1931 they lived in Stanstead Road, Honor Oak.  By 1933 they were living at 51 Granville Park with the Bilneys & the Bowles. In 1938/1939 they were listed at 4 Princes Rise Lewisham. Between 1950 and 60 they were still listed at 4 Princes Rise Lewisham, with Betty Pilton & others.  James died in Luton 1993. Maud died in 2007 in Kent.

John Wadley Bilney married Annie Clarke in Lewisham in 1925.  In 1930 they were listed at 49 Granville Park. 1931 to 1933 they were listed variously at 51 with James and Susan McGowan, the Piltons and William & Hilda Noon; and in 1934/5 with the Piltons & Bowles

London Electoral records were by necessity largely abandoned during the war years. The 1939 register was the last reliable source until the war ended. So the Nash, Miller and Boreham families may well have been the last inhabitants of 51 Granville Park before the flats were built in the early 1950s.

The 1939 register shows William Alfred, (born 1878), Elizabeth (nee Barham born 1882) and Herbert Boreham (born 1922)  at 51 Granville Park, together with the William and Freda Miller and Frederick and Constance Nash. William Alfred Boreham was born in 1878. He married Elizabeth Batden in 1903 in Deptford and was a plumber at time of marriage. The earliest record of him I found was admittance to the Poor Law Hospital at Greenwich in 1892, until he was taken out by his Mother at age 14. They lived at various addresses in Lewisham in the 1930s; first recorded at 51 Granville Park with Elizabeth in 1938. Elizabeth died in Kent before the war ended, and William possibly in 1953 in Lambeth. Their son William Herbert died in Plymouth in 1988.

1939 is the last date we see 47, 49, 51, and 53 Granville Park in any records until the mid 1950s. They were bombed beyond repair several times, that part of the street being a particularly attractive target for the Germans; near the railway and coal yard, and close to the Thames and central London. Several bomb sites were still in existence in and around Granville Park well into the 60/70s Great playgrounds for later inhabitants!

Flats 47-53 are still occupied today, though in poor condition.  It is doubtful they will last as long as their Victorian predecessors.

My Father Louis Henry Wigzell who moved there with our family in 1955 was the last remaining original tenant of the whole block comprising flats 47-53. He passed away still holding the tenancy of 51a in 2012 age 91 and a half.