Introduction
“Stay Home. Stay Local.” These Covid lockdown instructions inspired us to launch the Update
newsletter on 18 March 2020 – reaching out to our neighbours in Ryland Road and Perren
street with offers of help. Gradually the emphasis changed, with news of what we were doing and seeing. We were anxious when people fell ill, celebrated birthdays, counted the birds in our gardens and reported (extensively!) on the swans on the Heath.
One key element throughout the editions that continued until April this year was a fascination with Ryland Road and Perren streets’ past.
We engaged in research the history of our roads and surrounding area, and produce articles for our daily newsletter. We had the time to do it, and some vital resources in the memories of some long-standing residents. But there were some limitations – we couldn’t visit libraries or archives in person, so online research was the order of the day. Some of this was free -Hansard, Graces Guide to business, the London Gazette. Some by subscription, but available to avid family history researchers- 1881-1911 and 1939 census returns, parish records, local directories, electoral registers, newspaper archives and so on.
We discovered and wrote about the people who lived in our houses before us – where they
went to school, their jobs, the effects of war. But our aim was to entertain and pique
interest rather than to be primarily academic. Ryland Road and Perren Street have it all:
residential and business properties, and former factories and schools now converted into
luxury flats.
So, we found stories, using historical facts but emphasising the human element. Some made
us think about our environment differently. We were shocked by the number of people
living in one smallish property in the late Victorian period, amazed that people had live-in
servants, that some houses had been damaged in the Blitz and recalled the thriving
businesses had come and gone. We learned about lost buildings in Camden Town and the
theatres we once had, and the creation of new facilities, such as Talacre Open Space.
We hope to continue the research. The publication online next year of the 1921 census
could be a treat in store! We have joined forces with the Inkerman Area Local History Group
to work on pet projects.
So here follows a selection of our history pieces, each with a brief introduction. We hope
you enjoy them!
Sara Carroll
Note: the articles were kindly written by Sara, except for the one by Trisha Montague on
Talacre and one by Martin Plaut on Windsor and Newton
—————————————-o0o————————————-
Quiet and respectable in 1898 or “Rich and poor in colour – in 1898”
By Sara Carroll
On 1st November 1898, Ernest Aves took a stroll around West Kentish Town in the company of Police Inspector William Tomkin. They started at the far west end of Prince of Wales Road, taking in Maitland Park Villas, Marsden Street, past Rhyl School, into Dalby Street and east of the railway into Ryland Road and thence into Grafton Road. They had met similarly the previous day and would meet again on 2nd November to walk Inkerman and Willes Roads.
What were they up to? Ernest Aves (1857-1917) was a social investigator and was taking copious notes from his observations and also adding comments from his companion as they walked the streets of Police District 18.
They were involved in the ongoing project: The Inquiry into the Life and Labour of the People of London, which ran from 1886-1903 under the auspices of Charles Booth (1840-1916), a wealthy shipowner and philanthropist. Booth funded the project, which sought to measure poverty and then influence social policy to alleviate and eradicate it by practical measures.
Booth was surprised to find that 30% of Londoners lived in poverty, earning below 21 shillings per week. Poverty was largely caused by low wages, illness and old age, rather than laziness or vice, as many believed. Free school meals and old age pensions were eventually introduced as a direct result of Booth’s work. Aves was specifically involved in verifying and updating information gathered in 1889 by School Board visitors, and used maps which had been colour- coded following earlier inspections to indicate levels of need and prosperity.
The colour scale was:
YELLOW Upper-middle and Upper classes. Wealthy
RED Middle class. Well-to-do
PINK Fairly comfortable. Good ordinary earnings
PURPLE Mixed. Some comfortable, others poor
LIGHT BLUE Poor. 18s to 21s a week for a moderate family
DARK BLUE Very poor, casual. Chronic want
BLACK Lowest class. Vicious, semi-criminal.
Aves described Ryland Road as: ‘quiet, respectable; well-built houses letting from £32 to £34
plus rates; 2 storeys, largely occupied by Brinsmead’s employees. Remains pink as map’.
How did our road compare with some of our near neighbours? Also recommended to
remain pink, Healey Street is ‘rather better than Grafton Crescent; respectable working
class’ and Hadley Street is ‘not quite so swell as Healey Street’. The now charming Kelly Street is described by Tomkin as ‘the worst street for immorality in the Division’, with 2 houses under police observation as brothels, albeit well-managed and with no complaints of violence. There are pockets of dark blue nearby, the closest being Litcham Street (since renamed Athlone Street and largely rebuilt). And the nearest yellow streets are in Belsize Park.
Kentish Town in general, says Tomkin, is ‘nothing like as rough as it was 10 years ago’. He had been in the Metropolitan Police since 1874, and had seen many physical changes to the area, mainly due to railway expansion. The railway developments meant that areas suffered different fates, ‘going both up and down’; west Kentish Town was greatly affected.
However, downsides were offset by some good landlords maintaining their properties, and the fact that much of the housing stock was relatively new and streets were well laid out. The police had an understandable dislike of narrow, winding streets with alleys and courts coming off them.
The conclusion for the area was that largely ‘clearances are therefore not needed. The district gains in this from its modernness’, and that ‘the general character is undeniably one of respectability and comfortable living’. Pubs in the area, interestingly, were thought to be mostly well-run from solid buildings, and almost a force for social cohesion, boosting the local economy.
There were some obvious flaws in the survey’s methodology. It relied overmuch on the
observations and reports of a small number of individuals, however well-intentioned,
bringing with them their own ‘baggage’ of prejudice and expectations. Working from an
existing map, rather than doing completely new research, was a factor. The use of police
officers was likely to skew results because, despite local knowledge, they were inevitably
more familiar with areas of criminality or nuisance.
Then there were the prevailing Victorian concerns, such as drunkenness and prostitution, so investigators were bound to look out for instances of these. There was a conflation of extreme poverty with vice, and a reliance on external appearance of both houses and people. One of the signs of extreme poverty was to be without shoes, while hearing a piano being played was a sign of respectability. Even people were colour-coded: Aves remarked on ‘a pink child of 15, well dressed and brazen’ living to next door a ‘light blue Cinderella’.
Sometimes it feels as though the investigators were disappointed to find an area quiet and respectable, and wondered whether all was really well behind closed doors. After all, ‘appearances might be deceptive and that clean and garnished (curtained) windows might not infrequently hide want and suffering’. Ryland Road was certainly found to be quiet, with no children playing out, or women gossiping on the steps, as was common in some notorious East End areas. It was pure conjecture that ‘bad sanitation may be concealed by decent exteriors’, and this thought was unlikely to be voiced in upper class areas. On occasion, the researchers attributed motivations which were entirely speculative: in Litcham Street ‘2 or 3 farouche men were standing at their doors wondering when it would be worth their while starting for the public house’ and a few women ‘busy in neglecting their homes and thinking of their drinks to come’. This reads almost like the sensational journalism of the times, which Booth claimed to eschew; so much for empirical research.
Given the association of quiet streets with virtue, I wonder what Aves and Booth would
have made of our Wednesday afternoon street concerts?!
I am indebted to the free online site from the LSE. It’s lovely to read and then walk the same
present-day streets- so many changes!
—————————————-o0o————————————-
Dodgy dealings and reputable trade
Ryland Road and Perren Street have always had a mixture of residential and commercial
properties. But commercial activity was not always confined to the industrial buildings, as a search through newspaper archives has shown. Some residents were offering services from their homes, advertising in the small ads section of newspapers. Given that bad news makes more interesting reading, it was no surprise to find several articles about dodgy dealing in some of the Perren Street businesses. There are also, sadly, many announcements of bankruptcy in the various and numerous enterprises over the years.
In September 1941, P.H. Products of Imperial works, Perren Street, were fined £20 and 20
guineas costs for selling a product with a false description. They were selling an ‘orange substitute’ named Vit-Orange, labelled as being made from natural orange oil, equal to 16 fresh oranges with their vitamin content. In fact, it contained citric acid, equivalent to that of only 2 oranges, had no vitamin C or sugar at all! The public analyst described it as ‘virtually coloured water’, coloured by a synthetic dye. The only value of the citric acid was to make a refreshing drink. The defence stated that Vitamin C was indeed put into the product, but the firm did not realise that vitamins kept in bottles for any length of time disappeared. P.H. Products advertised widely at the time, looking to buy 2oz bottles of lactic and citric acid.
P.H. Products were at it again in 1942, operating as Globus Seed Growers from the same address, but marketing a product labelled ‘PH Onion powder’, purporting to be a full substitute for onions. However, analysis showed the content to be only wheat flour, with a scarcely detectable onion flavour, with a selling price 64 times higher than the flour itself.
Luckily, it was merely worthless rather than dangerous. Again, it claimed to contain vitamin C, but none was detected. The product had been widely distributed by wholesalers Messrs. Armour and Co. of London, in good faith. Several shopkeepers were prosecuted for selling it, but were acquitted of intentional deception. However, the firm was eventually £10 and a £2 analyst’s fee for false trades description. Somehow, the firm continued in business until it was dissolved in February 1957.
Quack remedies were also available by post from the residential properties, as several advertisements in the 1870s demonstrate. In the early Victorian period, itinerant street vendors sold medicinal remedies to the gullible, but later on, these were more likely to be sold via advertising.
Given that there was no National Health Service, sufferers of various ailments may have been inclined to try their luck with these. Usually, pills were made simply from bread and vegetables, so were not dangerous. Such advertisements were supported by ‘thousands of testimonials form grateful patients’.
In 1876, a Dr Vernon was waxing lyrical about the benefits of his magic pill. A mere four penny stamps would buy a box on application to 19 Ryland Road. He advertised throughout the country, claiming that is pills ‘instantly relieves and speedily cures nervousness and general weakness…indigestion, depression of spirits, cough, palpitation of the heart, rheumatism, deafness, headache, stomach and liver complaints and all forms of nervous irritability’. Quite a list!
The same Dr Vernon, a self-declared eminent specialist, would send applicants his essay discussing the cure for symptoms of ‘timidity, self-distrust, dizziness, love of solitude, groundless fears etc.’ In 1877,
a Mr Goodman was using number 19 as his address for selling a remedy for ‘ruptures
effectually cured without trusses’. This was a much more expensive remedy, selling for 10
shillings. He cited such illustrious patrons as the Royal College of Prussia, the Ecole de
Pharmacie de Paris and the Imperial College of Vienna. Needless to say, I can find no trace
of a Dr Vernon in our road in street directories or census returns! I wonder if it was a
successful business enterprise.
Some companies were lucky to get the right to reply to a bad press. Deltress of London, making wigs in the 70s from Portland House, Ryland Road, had to launch a big PR campaign to rebut a Sunday Mirror article claiming that synthetic wigs were inflammable ‘flaming torches’ and that the industry required a British Standard. Deltress responded on 15th March 1970, reassuring customers that their wigs were made from a modacrylic fibre known as Dynel, manufactured by Union Carbide Corporation (in its pre-Bhopal days). They commissioned an independent report which declared ‘in every case the specimens tested were self-extinguishing, with no flame propagation’.
As we know, Ryland Road was at the heart of the piano-making trade, with many people working at the Brinsmead factory itself or in related support services. Mr Reginald Dix, FIGCM, (Fellow of the Incorporated Guild of Church Musicians), organist and choirmaster at St Andrews Church, Haverstock Hill, was advertising in the Hampstead and Highgate Express in September 1906: he ‘visits and receives pupils; organ, piano, singing etc; all pupils instructed in theory and prepared for examination without extra charge; 40 recent successes’. All this from his home at 32 Ryland Road!
Mr Ramsay at number 18 was offering piano tuning and repair in 1885. He had ‘many years practical experience of all kinds of pianos’, with tuning of a cottage piano costing 3/6, and a grand 5 shillings. In 1944, Imperial Organs of Perren Street were looking to buy reed organs, requesting details such as maker’s name and number of stops, or names of stops if below 12. I can’t help wondering if they got a good response.
Bricks and mortar provided income for several people. Buy to let was common practice in the past as now. Hamptons estate agents were pleased to announce in the London Evening Standard of July 1908 that they had sold numbers 25 and 26 Ryland Road by auction: ‘two private houses, producing together £65 per annum.’ Other residents, themselves renting from landlords, let out rooms to produce extra income. In 1902, there was accommodation available at number 36, with the advertiser well aware of the amenities of local public transport: ‘double bedroom, use sitting, 8 shillings, board as required, suit ladies or gentlemen, two minutes bus, train, tram’. There was more money to be made by providing meals as well as just a room, which could be let furnished or unfurnished. Electoral registers show the high turnover of lodgers and other residents until home buying became more common.
Several of our earlier residents worked at Claudius Ash’s artificial tooth factory in Anglers’ Lane. Ash’s idea was to make teeth from porcelain mounted in gold plates, fixed by gold springs and swivels. Apparently, they functioned well and looked good. His firm (several of his sons and their descendants were involved in the business) became incredibly successful, dominating the European market. At the Great Exhibition in 1851, the firm exhibited 2 sets of mineral teeth with gold tubes, and single teeth of various colours.
Sisters Alice Rosa (20) and Amelia Jane Gibbins (16) from number 36 were recorded in the 1891 census as being employed as artificial teeth makers. Although they moved from Ryland Road, they stayed in Kentish Town and carried on with their work making teeth. They never married, and lived together till their deaths in the mid twentieth century. Another pair of sisters, Hilda Louisa (18) and Ida Florence Short (16) from number 1, worked as dental assistants in 1911. Their father, Robert John Short, had worked in the manufactory in 1893 when the family was living in nearby Castle Road.
Yet another young pair of sisters, Lilly (23) and Eliza Cooke (19) were dental factory workers from number 33. As were (you’ve guessed it yet another pair of sisters!) sisters!) Florence Minnie (19) and Dorothy Lilly Scott (16) making the short journey to work from number 19. Amazingly, the Scott sisters were still living in Number 19 in 1939, both now working as clerks, with their parents, and still unmarried. Women often looked to work in domestic service, either as a daily help or taking residential posts. In 1912, ‘G’ of 33 Ryland Road was advertising as far afield as Croydon as a working housekeeper: ‘middle-aged (active) requires situation to a respectable gentleman, or would give services for comfortable home and one unfurnished room’. Mrs ‘EE’ of 23 Ryland Road, advertised herself as a good cook who ‘understands soups’. How many of us can claim that?
Miss Coombe of number 30 advertised her skills as a dress and mantle maker in the Ham and High in 1889, offering either to work from home or at ladies’ houses. A few years later (1897) at the same address, a Mr Pinkard was in the market for some daily domestic help.Apart from the pay, the incentive was that he was a respectable married man and an abstainer! Another incentive for those looking for domestic work was a ‘small family’, or no young children. The Pinkard family lived at number 30 from 1891 to at least 1911, and had a profitable milk round. They had relatives locally in the same line of work, who advertised their milk and provision business with milk round for sale as suitable for a young couple or mother and son in 1885.Even the children had a part to play in the economic activities of Ryland Road. In 1934, Margaret Hewitt, aged 13, living at number 23 gets a mention in the ‘Daily Herald’. She was the winner of a half crown for her ‘charming coloured picture of the Pond in Spring’, in the Bobby Bear Club competition. That may sound like a meagre prize, but it equates to almost £10 nowadays. And she got a Bobby Bear Club token for her efforts. Probably a collector’s item these days!
Christmas Past
This miscellany is from our Christmas 2020 edition, and includes stories found in newspaper archives, and in local church records online.
Christmas. A religious festival? A holiday? A commercial opportunity? All of those and more over the years. Here are a few memories from the past.
Christmas remains a very busy time for the clergy, and certainly was for James John Smyth, who was Curate of nearby Holy Trinity from 1890-93, and lived at 32 Ryland Road. The vicar himself officiated at up to 10 weddings on Christmas Days in those years, while Smyth, being the junior cleric, officiated at weddings only on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day.
Christmas Day weddings were relatively popular in the Victorian period- after all, it was a holiday, meaning family could attend. Some churches even waived or reduced the fee, which was another incentive. The festively named John Jollie, a farrier living at 5 Ryland Road, as having married Harriet Jane Harrison on Christmas Day 1898 at St Barnabas Church, which hosted 2 more Ryland Road weddings on Christmas Day 1913.
A seasonally- named Christmas Evans was living with his family at number 15 Ryland Road in
He was presumably named after the famous Welsh preacher, who was born on Christmas Day 1766 and was said to be the ‘greatest preacher the Baptists have ever had in Great Britain’. Kissing his headstone was said to bring great luck and became the Swansea equivalent of kissing the Blarney stone. I don’t think our Christmas would necessarily have had need of great rhetorical powers in his job as a railway clerk. Maybe he was just known as Chris most of the time. And he didn’t name any of his children Noel, Holly or Ivy.
Ryland Road residents no doubt decorated their houses for the festive season in the old
days. It’s not clear whether they availed themselves of the following product:
The Silicate Cotton works of Perren Street placed a very opportunistic piece in the Christmas newspapers in 1895. They recommended their product, known also as slag wool, for use in Christmas decorations, as being much safer than cotton wool. Being also white and fleecy, slag wool is ‘absolutely incombustible and infinitely cheaper than cotton wool’ and can easily be made to represent snow. Someone in the business must have had a creative mind, as their product was usually sold as building insulation material, not as a decorative item.
They played on public fears of fire, saying ‘this should meet a long felt want’. Christmas trees were prone to catch fire, given that candles were used as decorations, and there were many stories of such mishaps in the newspapers.
There must have been good money to be made selling Christmas cards in the Victorian
period, for one former Ryland Road resident at least. Henry Castell, described as a wholesale stationer in the 1881 census when he lived at number 34 with his young family, left a massive £41,316 in his will in 1915. The family left Ryland Road in the mid 1880s and moved up the hill to Wedderburn Road. Together with his younger brother John, Henry founded the stationery business in 1878 in Warwick Lane, near
St Pauls, and they branded their products under the name Pepys. They made various paper products, and later branched out successfully into playing cards and board games. A number of newspapers provided detailed descriptions, without illustrations, of the various Christmas cards on offer annually.
The Pall Mall Gazette in 1887 recommended the Castell Brothers’ religious cards as being ‘handsome and good’. They also noted another set of cards as ‘interesting because Lady Randolph Churchill has designed the gorgeous clusters of orchids’.
In 1888, the Evening Standard remarked on their autograph cards, and in 1889 the Morning Post was amused by their cracker and lantern designs.
And if you needed a Christmas gift suggestion, you need look no further than our very own Vinolia products from Blondeau et Cie of Ryland Road! They advertised extensively, both with and without attractive illustrations. A very wordy 1893 advert listed ‘useful Xmas presents’, such as dentifrice (English for 2/6d or American for 1/6d) or brilliantine for the moustache for 1 shilling. A lavishly illustrated advertisement in the Graphic on Christmas Eve 1892 presumably appealed to the last-minute shopper offering ‘elegant and useful’ gifts.
Some Vinolia products were advertised to niche markets: Vestal soap at 7s 6d for 3 tablets, packaged in white leatherette with gold lettering should make ‘a nice present for your medical friend’, on the grounds that ‘this is the soap the Medical Profession usually recommend, and the one which is most to their liking’. Is that the equivalent of today’s celebrity endorsement?
Moving on from the Victorian period to exactly 100 years ago, let’s look at Christmas 1920 in London, as described in the Manchester Guardian on 28th December. The aftermath of The Great War was still in evidence, with many soldiers still abroad, some working on the new cemeteries. Their festivities were organised by the Imperial War Graves Commission, with the YMCA providing free tea, cocoa and cigarettes. People were exhorted to take disabled soldiers out of hospitals to treat them to Christmas lunch in their homes. Apparently, it was a mild, springlike Christmas, encouraging crowds to get out and about to fairs, circuses and the Zoo, ‘making overcoats superfluous’.
Crowds promenaded on the usually seasonally empty streets, some pausing to view the holly wreaths at the Cenotaph or on the tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey. Boxing Day saw queues outside all theatres, and Museums and Galleries were thronged. No closure of the tube network in those days-special extra trains were laid on to Walham Green (now Fulham Broadway) for the ChelseaGfootball match, played on Christmas Day itself. I don’t know whether the match itself was exciting, but for the football fans amongst you, the result was a one-all draw to Chelsea playing Liverpool.
The Blitz hits Ryland Road
The business which now occupies the building where the bomb fell put this article in their window for employees and passers-by to read. It is plain to see that the building is newer than the remaining Brinsmead factory, and is thus a visible reminder of local effect of the wartime Blitz.
Ryland Road commemorates a sad anniversary in October this year; it will be eighty years since six people were killed, during the Blitz, at Dell’s factory, situated on the corner with Grafton Road on 17th October 1940:
William Joseph Brown born 18.10.1904
David Joseph Butler born 20.9.1897
Owen Charles Carr born 1.3.1915
Alexander William Crome born 28.3.1911
Thomas James Jackson born 23.4.1923
John George Mendorf born 24.5.1897
The Blitz (Blitzkrieg = ‘lightning war’) lasted from 7th October 1940 to 6th June 1941. Until halfway through the war, more civilians than military personnel had been killed. Every night between 7th September and 13th November 1940, London was the main target for enemy bombs; bad weather stopped them only once on 2nd November. On average,160 bombers flew nightly, dropping a total of 27,500 high explosive bombs and incendiaries in this period. 60% of the 2 million homes destroyed in the Blitz were in London. The worst night was 15th October, when 410 planes dropped 538 tons of high explosive bombs, killing 400 people.
During the Blitz, 33 high explosive bombs were dropped on Kentish Town alone. In the weeks before ‘our’ incident, there were been bomb casualties in Hadley Street, Weedington Road, Inkerman Road, Allcroft Road and Camden Town Tube Station. On 16th November, Mansfield Road School would be completely destroyed. The 675 World War II civilian casualties from St Pancras are memorialised on a municipal monument in St Pancras Cemetery, East Finchley. Jim Turner, a young boy living in Athlone Street, recalling the Ryland Road bombing for the BBC, remembered a man called Tuvey being so badly injured
that he lost a leg.
The LCC (London County Council) recorded the destruction between 1939 and 1945 in its Bomb Census Survey maps. These meticulously hand-coloured maps, using updated 1916 Ordnance Survey 1:2,500 maps, show the extent of damage to the built environment, graded in a range of colours. The map of our local area shows ‘Dell’s factory’ completely destroyed; it had formerly been the Brinsmead finishing and case-making building in 1900.
The rest of the former Brinsmead Works appear to have been thought doubtful if repairable at the time. Numbers 23 and 24 Ryland Road were colour-coded to show ‘general blast damage-not structural’. House owners could apply for repair grants after the War. Dell’s Confectionery Works Ltd. had been operational here since 1923, the firm having moved from Stratford. Their alphabet biscuits decorative tins, and collectible cards depicting sportsmen can still be found for sale online. In its heyday it had two telephone lines, one being GULliver 5436, for those of you nostalgic for the old exchanges! In 1936 they were advertising as far afield as Kensington for ‘boys and girls aged 14-16 for chocolate and confectionery trade. Excellent prospects to learn skilled trade. Permanent work, five day week, no Saturdays.’ There were other vacancies for ‘sugar improvers, also toffee and slab hands’. Wages ranged from 14-18 shillings a week according to age. One of our casualties, John George Mendorf, was certainly working here as ‘foreman packer, confectionery and sugar manufacturer’, in 1939. But by 4th September 1940 the firm was being wound up by liquidators operating since 23rd November 1939.
Dell’s was rather deficient in the Health and Safety department. The firm was fined £22 plus costs in November 1928 ‘for failing to give written notice of two accidents, and for failing to fence securely a length of shafting’. Some unfortunate female operative nearly got caught in the machinery by her hair, which was, luckily, bobbed rather than long so that only one piece was pulled out. Dells’ vehicles were involved in at least two accidents in 1936. In one incident, neither lorry nor trailer had sufficiently effective brakes (a boy was seen to jump from the moving cab to apply a ratchet handbrake to the trailer!), and the driver had no licence. Another fine was issued for £5 plus costs.
The newer business in the building was the Boula Reflector Lamp Co, which had been in operation from 1931. The two partners, Cosimo and Teodoro Conoce, Italian Nationals, had been given special permission to establish a factory in England. They had a showroom at 156 Charing Cross Road. Their unusual reflector lamps were packaged with the slogan ‘twice the light at half the cost’, and branded ‘British and brilliant’! Another casualty, Owen Charles Carr, was in 1939 described as an ‘electric lamp packer’, presumably for Boula. The company survived the War, and continued trading until 1962 when it was wound up. They had premises in Dorset Street, and may have moved their production to Montagu Mews, W1.
Other manufacturing workshops in Perren Street seem to have been able to carry on production during the War, despite local bomb damage.
The 1939 population census provides useful information: enumerators collected data on 29th September 1939, initially to use the information for the production of National Identity Cards. Later, it was used for other purposes such as an aid to the use of ration books, to record the movement of the civilian population, and to track name changes and marriages.
In 1948, it formed the basis of the register for the new NHS. The data gives details of household members, such as occupation and date of birth, and also war work, such as Civil Defence work. However, some records remain redacted under the 100 year rule.
Four Ryland Road residents are recorded as doing Civil Defence Work for the ARP (Air Raid Precautions):
George Francis Beldom at number 6 did decontamination work- trained to clear up chemical spills Heather Amy Martin at number 14 was a trained First Aider Percy Hewitt at number 23 and William Horseman at number 30 were ARP Wardens.
When on shift, usually 3 nights a week, often with a full-time daytime job, they were among those responsible for ensuring the blackout was effective, assessing the need for emergency services, dealing with small fires, administering first aid and staffing public shelters. Local knowledge was important in helping reunite families after raids, and many were awarded medals for bravery. But it also meant that wardens might witness terrible destruction to their own homes. Residents could shelter from raids in either public shelters, such as the redundant underground station at South Kentish Town, provided with bunks and a first aid post. Or in the Anderson shelters in the garden, some of which survive to this day. Some chose to ignore the sirens and take their chances……
Horse sense
What a different world from our car-lined streets!
In 1890 there were an estimated 72,000 horses in London. The London horse fodder market accounted for 10% of total agricultural output in England. All sizes and colours of horse were required for different purposes. They were used to move goods and people, supporting the railway and canal systems, the army and commerce. So a vast number of people were employed in their support: grooms, veterinary surgeons, harness makers, farriers, and so on. Stabling was needed all over the capital: in mews, in purpose built blocks, in areas by railway termini etc. London horses seem to have become acclimatised to city life and work, trained to do so, while their ‘natural sagacity’ meant they could negotiate crowded thoroughfares at a decent pace generally without accidents.
In the 1911 census, Frederick Thomas Manning Cooke, living at 33 Ryland Road, identifies himself as a horse cab driver, although many cabs were already motorised by this time. He probably worked for a large cab organisation. This meant cab drivers would had a less personal relationship with the horses; they would be allocated different horses for each shift, having to learn the traits of each horse afresh. These horses were numbered as well as named, and were well treated and fed, as they were valuable commodities for the 4 years or so of their working lives. Many even got a two month summer country break when trade was quieter. They would usually work a 6 day week, maybe for up to 12 hours a day, often covering 200 miles weekly. Cab use declined with the improvements in public transport.
Information for this article came from newspapers and Hansard.
Railway operations required a huge amount of horse power, and most railway companies had large studs of their own near major stations. Goods were unloaded at goods yards, and then transported onwards, using carriers’ horses, described in 1893 by journalist WJ Gordon as being ‘power personified’. The London and North Western Railway contracted most of their horses through their agent: Pickfords, which had a 4000 horse stud. They also used Carter Paterson, with 2000 horses stabled at 20 London depots.
The Alderton brothers from Bury St Edmunds, lived at 3 and 30 Ryland Road in the early years of the twentieth century, and worked as railway horsekeepers. The horses needed a lot of care. A working railway horse on average needed one new shoe weekly, i.e. a full set replaced monthly. Most injuries were caused by picking up stones or nails in their hooves in the streets, although ‘weather will age a horse more than it will a man’. The heaviest railway van weighed 9 tons fully loaded, requiring a 4 horse team. These heavy horses had their working lives limited by the heavy pull required to start off, and the harsh braking jarred their feet. Some of these horses would have been stabled at the Camden Goods Depot and
Interchange, by the canal down at Camden Lock. Today you can still see the Stables Market and Horse Hospital, the horse tunnels and loose boxes for sick horses made over as market stalls.
By 1879, the London General Omnibus Company had a near monopoly in the capital. They had stabling behind the Bull and Last pub and in Prince of Wales Road for local operations. Each omnibus averaged 60 miles daily, with the horses putting in 4 hour day. The type of horse favoured for this work was likely bought from Yorkshire, preferably ‘a short thick horse, low in the leg, round in the barrel, and with full strong quarters, whence all the propelling power came’. Augustus Copeland living at 13 Ryland Road described himself as an omnibus driver in 1911. Drivers were paid 6/- a day, and conductors more, and both had to be licensed by the police. But there were already jokes made about the slowness of ‘bus journeys: ‘the snail gallops gaily past the outward-bound suburban omnibus…the tortoise prefers to walk in order that he may be in time’. No change there then!
Moving on in time, the Great War armies relied hugely on horses, as motorised vehicles were not yet reliable enough. Horses were compulsorily purchased in England supplemented by purchases in Europe. And they required the same support as working horses at home, provided by the Army Service Corps’ Remounts Service. This was responsible for provisioning horses and mules to all other army units: one squadron of 200 soldiers would obtain and train 500 horses at any one time. By December 1917, 93,847
horses and 36,613 mules had been trained. It could be dangerous work, with often a small number of men in charge of large numbers of frightened animals – horses being entrained at stations often stampeded and could crush anyone in the way. And of course, horses were used for transport to the front lines from forward dumps. Men with special knowledge and skills for working with horses were pressed into service, one such being Alfred Thomas Brewster, who had lived at 28 Ryland Road in 1901, and was a groom. He seems to have had a miserable time in France; he worked as a ‘strapper’ on stable duty at the Rouen depot from October 1914, but was three times disciplined for being AWOL or drunk, and once for failing to report an injury to a horse. He was eventually discharged from continental service in May 1916 but he refused employment back at the Woolwich depot because of the poor pay. His discharge papers say that he was a ‘good groom’ and of good character. He seems to have had more empathy with the horses than with Army Command.
Finally, the Great Manure Crisis of 1894 deserves a mention. Apparently, an average horse produces 15-35 lbs of manure and 2 pints of urine daily. And a lot of this would be in the public thoroughfares, making walking unpleasant and hazardous. If the weather was poor, the streets would be full of muddy churned up manure, and if dry, it would all blow around as straw-filled dust. The Times newspaper predicted that in 50 years time, the streets of London would be buried under 9 feet of manure. Individuals could get some protection by paying a crossing sweeper to clear their path, but there was only so much fertiliser a city could use. No immediate solution was found, but gradually the motor car, electric trams, and the underground railways replaced horse transport. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Pen pushers
From Dickens’ Bob Cratchit (A Christmas Carol, 1843) to George and Weedon Grossmith’s Charles Pooter (Diary of a Nobody, 1892), there is a wealth of depictions of clerical life in Victorian literature. Ryland Road had its fair share of office workers, employed by the local railway companies, local businesses, stockbrokers in the City, or the burgeoning Civil Service. With the expansion of elementary education from 1870 onwards, clerical occupations were increasingly available, to both men and women.
I am indebted to Lee Jackson’s wonderfully engaging and eclectic website www.victorianlondon.org, started in 2001 but no longer updated.
Railway companies’ employment records were kept in massive ledgers, detailing what was often a lifetime’s career: appointments, promotions, moves, punishments for poor work or mistakes, and salary increases. Many such ledgers are now viewable online. The three Presland brothers, lodging at number 1 Ryland Road in 1891 worked as clerks for London and North Western Railway (LNWR) which operated between 1846 and 1922. Two of the brothers were LNWR railway clerks for their entire careers. It was often a case of like father, like son. William Joseph Cowton at number 26 in 1901was just beginning his LNWR clerical career at Broad Street, while his father retired in 1909 from the Camden Goods Depot. Their relationship is noted in the relevant staff ledger, so maybe the son’s path was smoothed accordingly.
Karl Marx (almost a neighbour at 46 Grafton Terrace, Belsize Park) might have worked in the same profession, but was rejected by an unnamed railway company in 1862 for his poor handwriting.
In an 1876 careers advice manual, Charles Edward Parsons comments on the lengthy application forms used by many railway companies, describing them as intrusive and inappropriate for the jobs on offer. One company required that an employee: ‘must devote himself exclusively to the company’s service and interest, not only during regular hours, but at all other times when required. Must reside very near to his customary place of duty.’ Even more Big Brother- like, the employer tried to control employees’ private lives; they were ‘required when not on duty, to avoid the risk of impairing his strength or efficiency by fatigue, exertion or exposure of any kind’, or yet more bizarrely: ‘to be at all times neat and cleanly in his person and dress; to avoid all foppishness and affectation of singularity in dress, in person or in manner.’
The Civil Service was opened up from 1870 with the introduction of open entry by examination. However, for those aged over eighteen, there were usually over 700 applicants with only the top 50 being appointed. Candidates often resorted to ‘cramming’ in order to improve their chances. But once in, there was a clear career path, although promotion often relied on further examinations. All Civil Service appointments were reported in the ‘London Gazette’, so we can trace the career of Samuel Radmore, living at number 10 Ryland Road in 1891 and 1901. He competed successfully for a position as Assistant Clerk in the Board of Education in 1902, having started as a Temporary Boy Copyist. By 1914, he was a Second Division Clerk. He was rewarded for his public service with the MBE in the New Year’s Honours List of 1935.
The General Post Office was a division of the Treasury until 1940. Osmond John Dempster, living at number 27 in 1891, had been appointed a temporary boy copyist in 1890; luckily for him, without examination. By late 1891, he was a telegraph learner, and by 1894 a sorter in the Savings Bank Division. The increasing state involvement in English society is evident in the expansion of municipal clerks. Harry Fibbens Riches, living at number 7 in 1901, is listed as a Poor Law Clerk. Street Directories often provide more details; during WW1 he is listed in Southend as Relieving Officer and Collecting Officer to the Guardians, and Vaccination Officer for the Rochford Union.
The gradual adoption of typewriting machines radically changed office life; it was the operators and not the machines who were initially known as typewriters. England was slow in adopting this American invention, as Strand Magazine reported in 1897: there were ‘scores and hundreds of old-fashioned firms where a writing-machine was absolutely tabooed.
Only recently, a distinguished barrister, well-known on the home circuit, had declined to receive a typewritten brief’. This attitude flew in the face of advice from the Society of Arts in 1888: ‘at last modern invention has espoused the cause of the penman, and in the typewriter has given to the world of letters an instrument that banishes at a sweep cramp in the hand and illegibility; and doubles, nay trebles, the speed of writing.’
For some reason, typewriting machines were thought of as being particularly suitable for women. Female clerks were frequently preferred to men, as being ‘neater and more exact in their work.’ Furthermore, they tended to be more quietly behaved, did not go out drinking at lunchtime, and most importantly, were prepared to work for lower wages. But if they married they had to give up work because of the ‘marriage bar.’ Samuel Radmore’s elder sister, Henrietta, living with the family at 10 Ryland Road in 1901, was a commercial clerk, probably using both her typewriting and Pitman shorthand skills on a daily basis. By 1911, she was living in the household of a self-declared suffragist, on whose behalf she completed the census return. This was a widespread form of protest; if a woman was deemed incapable of voting, she was equally incapable of completing a form. Henrietta remained single and was still doing clerical work in 1939.
Although there was great competition for clerical vacancies, it was by no means a soft option. An anonymous social investigator in 1899 called it a ‘dull, quill-driven existence’, while the office itself was for many an unhealthy environment: dark, ill-ventilated, the gas-lighting leading to eye strain while the clerk stooped uncomfortably over their ledger.
Perhaps the lowest of the low was the law copyist, paid maybe 4 pence per folio of 72 words, and with no work at all during the Long Vacation; the zero hours contract of the early Victorian period. Robert White wrote in Nineteenth Century Magazine in 1897: ‘the perpetual struggle to make ends meet and to reconcile gentility with poverty is heart-breaking…yet the clerks are the machinery by which the industrial, commercial and financial activity and progress of London are maintained.’
Sweet smell of success
This piece came about when a search in the British Newspaper Archive for ‘Ryland Road’
yielded a plethora of illustrated advertisements for Vinolia products.
The 1890 Post Office Directory gives the following entry:
Blondeau et Cie., soap makers, 2 Perren Street, Ryland Road NW
The company was established in 1888, and by 1892 was trading as ‘Vinolia’, with a factory at 19, Malden Crescent (next to Rowney’s). The offices and depot remained in Ryland Road, and in 1894 patents were granted for their packaging and paper design: ‘to Blondeau et Cie., manufacturing chemists and soap makers of Ryland Road’. By 1893 the company had an office in New York, and at 5, Rue de la Paix in Paris. London business was conducted by their agents in Bond Street. There was a share issue in 1899, the company was reformed with new articles of association in 1900, and had been bought out by Lever Brothers by 1906, who still hold the archive material.
The company was very successful and innovative. Vinolia won a silver medal and a Diplome
d’honneur at the 1897 Brussels International exhibition for Industrial exhibitors. The Secretary of the Soapmakers’ Association of Great Britain gave this ringing endorsement: ‘most cordial wishes for their success in the efforts they are making to bring about the necessary reforms in the manufacture and supply of soaps for toilet use’, noting that their emollient soap was ‘very serviceable in eczema’. Apparently, a lot of soap products of the time contained dangerous ingredients such as arsenic, tartar emetic, zinc oxide and mercurial colour compounds.
Not so Blondeau’s Vinolia. Their judicious advertising emphasised the ‘inherent good qualities’ of the products, that their soaps were ‘free from gritty particles’ and that the ‘otto of roses is an odour which is especially liked by those of refined taste’. The product range included toilet soap, shaving cream, powder for the nursery, and many perfume scents, like stephanotis and frangipanni. In 1893, they introduced the bizarrely named ‘Jockey Club’ perfume, which I trust did not smell of horses and leather!
The company prided itself on being a benevolent employer and general philanthropist. A ‘Nursing Record’ article in the edition dated 13 October 1892 reads: ‘We hear that Messrs Blondeau et Cie., have a very lofty idea, not only of their duty to their work people, but also of philanthropy. At their own expense they have sent more than 100 poor children for 2 weeks into the country…Every employee in their soap factory in Malden Crescent and at their warehouse and offices at Ryland Road is given a paid vacation of not less than 2 weeks…there is a sick club so that in case of sickness each one may be provided for.’
Let us hope that the Ryland Road workers benefitted. Thomas R Gibbins living at number 36 in 1891 proudly declared himself a ‘Vinolia factory hand’, while Edith Radmore from number 10 was, aged 14, a chemical packer and had been promoted to ‘forewoman in perfume factory’ by 1901.
What was the Vinolia legacy? The offices and depot do not seem to be in Ryland Road by 1906, according to street directories, and the factory was no longer in Malden Crescent by 1916.
The perfume bottles with their ivory (!) stoppers, and Staffordshire porcelain containers are now collectors’ items, as are the Victorian and Edwardian advertisements- one is crudely racist and used as an exemplar in academic studies. Lever Brothers continued to sell products under the Vinolia brandname, including Lypsyl and Chypre perfume. First class passengers on the ‘Titanic’ were provided with Vinolia toilet soap in their cabins.
But I have at least one unanswered question- who was Blondeau? I think a visit to Lever Brothers archive may be in prospect, whenever that may be!
Impressionism’s debt to Kentish Town
Compiled using notes from Daniel Hausherr, a Camden guide, with additional material.
This story begins in 1832, with the establishment of Winsor& Newton, famous forthe artists materials that it makes. William Winsor was a scientist and Henry Newton was an artist and they set up ashop at 38 Rathbone Place, London.The company quickly grew to become one of the main suppliers of art-related materials in the world,manufacturing a wide array of items that included oils, alkyds, watercolours, acrylics, pastels, brushes, canvases and papers.
They won a warrant to supply the Royal family and Queen Victoria was much taken with their brushes for her watercolours.
Even more important were their inventions. In 1840 they introduced glass syringes to replace the pigs’ bladders that had previously been used to contain their oil-based paints.
Then – two years later – they went one better. The fragile glass syringes were replaced by metal tubes with metal caps.
They were the first company to sell pre-prepared oil paints in this manner. This became the standard way to sell oil paints and it remains so to this day.
In 1837 Winsor & Newton acquired a varnish factory at King’s Cross and also took premises at Blackfriars for the grinding of oil colours. These facilities were replaced or extended in 1844 when they set up a steam power factory in Kentish Town, known as the North London Colour Works.
This was established just around the corner of Holmes Road (once called Mansfield Place) on Spring
Place.
So, what was the connection with the Impressionists?
In 1870, the Franco-Prussian war drove Monet, Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley to seek sanctuary in London. They were already well on the way to inventing a free, immediate style of painting that would soon earn them the nickname “Impressionists.”
Claude Monet began using the Winsor & Newton handy collapsible tubes to paint along the Thames.
He ran into another man who was doing the same thing. The other man was Charles-Francois Daubigny, another French painter, who was also escaping from the Prussian invasion of Paris. Both had been side-lined in Paris because their art did not appeal to the Academie des Beaux-Arts.
The two became firm friends and soon a whole salon of French émigré artists came together in London.
This painting, by Daubigny, St Paul’s from the Surrey Side, dated 1873, was either begun on the spot and finished in the studio, or was worked up from sketches made of the river during this visit.
They were joined by their soon-to-be dealer Frederic Durand-Ruell and, when the war was over and it was safe to return, they went back to Paris to become known as the Impressionists.
That development started in London and was aided by Winsor and Newton. Without paint in tubes there would have been no painting en plein air, nor would there be Impressionism.
This conclusion was supported by Renoir.
He said: “Without paint in tubes, there would have been no Cezanne, no Monet, no Sisley or Pissarro, nothing of what journalists were later to call Impressionists.”
The story does not end there – the factory still exists. In 1938 Winsor and Newton moved out of the building to Wealdstone. Seventy odd years later the factory has been re-purposed as Spring Studios – fashionable photographic studios with a stylish day time restaurant and bar.It’s a favourite for fashion shoots and magazine cover stories for stars like Lady Gaga, Madonna and Pet Shop Boys.
Its restored spaces are host to a buzzy young crowd of sharply-attired creatives. Rather different from the paint factory that served the Impressionists so well!
A history of Talacre
We all know Talacre as a grassy area in which to walk a dog, play football or drop off our Christmas trees for recycling. In turns out that the history of this small green space is unexpected and fascinating.
In the early 1800s when Kentish Town was little more than a hamlet, the open space now known as ‘Talacre Gardens’ was part of ‘Fourteen Acre Field’. In 1850 the first St Pancras Almshouses were built on some of this open land – where Wilkin Street now sits at the north end of Talacre.
St Pancras Almshouses, 1852
However the almshouses were demolished after only a few years during Kentish Town’s rapid industrial and residential expansion in the 19th century, to make way for the encroaching railway as well as the building of streets of terraced housing for the working population.
The housing deteriorated over time, eventually turning into slums. It also suffered some bomb damage in WWII and was eventually demolished in 1962 as a result of a compulsory purchase order.
A history of Talacre
A derelict site in 1972
For several years the land was a derelict site. Attempts were made at redevelopment which included plans for a 195 foot tower block where the playground now is.
More buildings were demolished on the west side, though this was not universally popular according to the graffiti at the time.Finally, Talacre OpenSpace was created in1975 according to the requirements of the Open Spaces Actof 1906.
The most exciting and creative development of the site then occurred as a result of the involvement of the American community educator and social activist Ed Berman who had established the Inter-Action Trust in 1968. Inter-Action members worked in schools, youth clubs, hospitals, community centres, playgrounds and in projects on the streets. With the help of the local population, and particularly the children, Berman turned the Talacre site into an exciting creative experiment as you can see in this wonderful short film called The Amazing History of Talacre (1974). The project impressed a youthful Prince
Charles, who makes a guest appearance.
Prince Charles on a skateboard in Talacre in 1979
This slide show gives some idea of the heady atmosphere of the experiment, which culminated in the £1 million (the equivalent of 7 million today) Inter-Action building:
Ed Berman is well worth looking up for a fuller history of his achievements, but in terms of our local history, he was also responsible for establishing Kentish Town City Farm in 1971. It was the first of several City Farms across the country, using land close to railway lines that couldn’t be used for development.
The architect of InterChange, Cedric Price, believed buildings should only last for as long as they are useful. The Inter-Action centre was difficult to operate and maintain and was dismantled in 2003.
Talacre in the 1980s – skateboard and BMX park (site of broken glass, needles and syringes)
The Talacre we know today with its sports centre, floodlit multi-use games area, landscaping of the green open space, perimeter fence and gates was developed between February and May 2003. It became officially known as Talacre Gardens following consultation with determined local residents.
Our streets…our people