Wandsworth -18thC Powerhouse - Part 2

East India Company Connections

There were  connections with the affairs of the East India Company and its politics.  In the first half of the 1740s Wimbledon House was leased by Stephen Bisse,  a former MP and Company Director from 1732 to 1741.

Robert Clive of India owned the Mitcham Grove estate until he gave it to the lawyer Alexander Wedderburn in recognition of his support. Clive’s cousin George was in India with him until 1760. He became an MP in 1763 until his death in 1779, and from 1764 was a  partner in the Sir Francis Gosling and Co. bank. He had Mount Clare in Instead Gdns built in 1772-3.

Other residents connected with the Company were Colonel Adam Hogg and Stephen Lushington, Director and Chairman, in Wimbledon and Lt Colonel Sir Henry Oakes who leased Mitcham Hall from 1811 until his suicide in 1827. Charles Mortimer of Streatham who died in 1840 had been the Company’s Treasurer.

Wandle Mills

Over the century the Wandle River was further developed for industry. Merton Abbey became a major centre starting in 1724. Technological and process improvements aided the growth of the industry from the 1750s. The corn mill in Morden Hall Park was converted to snuff in 1758.  Phipps Bridge and Ravensbury Mills  became other centres. The calico businessmen built homes: The Willows 1746 by Thomas Selby, jnr, Tamworth House by Isaac Hillier  in 1785 and Wandle Villa about 1789 for John Rucker. Mr. Gardiner's calico printing works in Mapleton Rd in Wandsworth employed 250 men in 1792, which is a quarter of the total estimated number across the area.

Garratt Mill was a copper one. From 1777 James Henckell ran an iron mill just north of Wandsworth Town, which was  converted to papermaking in 1836. Henry Hoare of Mitcham owned  3 mills.

The Wandle River ran through the Town and then through an area of creeks to flow into the Thames. As well as the Wandle this part of the Thames frontage was industrialised. Up to 1764 John Spence’s works undertook scarlet dying for the East India Company from  premises near where Wandsworth Bridge now is.

Young’s Brewery and Surrey Iron Railway

Wandsworth’s Town’s brewery on the High St and along the Wandle was purchased in 1786 by Thomas Tritton, his family selling it in 1831 to the partners whose business became Young’s Brewery.

Off the road linking Wandsworth to Putney was the Point Pleasant area along the Thames. From 1771 Gatty and Waller set up their works for making vinegar and chemicals for dyers and calico printers. By 1790 there was also a brewery.

At the beginning of the 19thC a group of businessmen agreed to lobby for the Surrey Iron Railway which opened in 1803 along with a canal in the final stretch north of the Town’s High St.

By 1806 there were 40 industrial operations along the River along it employing an estimated 2,000 people, 300 people at Merton Abbey in 1810. It was called ‘the hardest worked of any river of its size in the world.’

Nine Elms 

Industry in Battersea parish particularly developed at York Place and Nine Elms. By 1741 York Place had warehouses, granaries, a still house, millhouse and stables. By 1762 the distillery was fattening 1,000 pigs from the residue of distillation. The owners operated the water mill on Falcon Brook nearby. The former  Battersea Enamels works was moved into by Fownes glove makers which employed 600 workers.

Further towards the Village along what is now Lombard Rd was the works  of  Price, who made chemicals and pharmaceuticals from 1749. By 1834 the works was being run by John May who then went into partnership as May & Baker.

There were wharves near the Village and in 1788 a Horizontal Air-Mill was built next to the Battersea Parish Church to prepare linseed oil, then corn and then malt for an adjacent distillery. Grains from the distillery were used to fatten 4-5,000 bullocks for the London market. Another  distillery, Benwell’s was used to fatten 3-4,000 hogs a year.

The Nine Elms  district was low and swampy district with osier beds and windmills. Its riverfront became a place to locate new industrial premises, including by 1724 a copper works and later Edward Webster’s turpentine manufactory. There was a barge building yard next to Randalls  Mills in the late 1820s and early 1830s.

The Wars with France between 1793 and 1815 appear to have acted as a stimulus for further industrial development, especially in Battersea parish. Isambard Brunel’s father Marc added mass production waterproof boot making to his veneer saw-mill. Most of Wellington’s troops were wearing them at the Battle of Waterloo.

Clapham Common Area

The area around Clapham Common became a desirable one after the former slave plantation owner Christopher Baldwin persuaded others to invest in draining and improving  the Common in the 1760s. Bankers, men involved in the slavery business like the Hibberts, as well as members of the anti-slavery Clapham Sect such as Henry Thornton Granville Sharp and William Wilberforce lived in the area. Bankers seem to have been particularly attracted to the Clapham Common area. The bankers included Thomas Martin of Martin’s, the Barclays, the Roberts Dent and Lovelace of Child’s and William Willis of Willis Percival Bank. Dent built Old Park House off Battersea Rise in 1776, and Willis expanded the estate to 64 acres.  The Willis family’s  acquisitions included Grove House which in 1807  became the residence of Alexander Champion, whaler, merchant, and Director of the Bank of England, who died there in 1809.

After Wilberforce left Broomfield House it was passed to William Henry Hoare and then to John Deacon of Williams, Deacon & Co., the bank into which Pole, Thornton & Co. was merged during the bank crisis of 1825.

The area to the south of the Common was farmland, including the Black Hill Farm Estate which Thomas Cubitt purchased in 1824 and later built the Clapham Park Estate.

Battersea Bridge

Battersea’s attraction improved with the opening of the bridge in 1771 led by a consortium led by Earl Spencer. Streatham was helped by the spa at Streatham Wells. Part of Balham began to be developed with mansions houses and parkland as an extension to those along Clapham Common's southern edge by men such as the silk merchant John Whitteridge who built Balham House, the millionaire draper James Morrison on Balham Hill later lived in by George Wolff, a timber merchant and friend of Wesley. Bedford Hill Farm was purchased and a mansion built by Richard Borrodaile, Chair of the Hudson Bay Company and East India Company merchant.

Streatham

Streatham was mainly an area of farming estates leased from the Duke of Bedford, specialising in wheat, beans, root crops and potatoes because of the gravelly soil. The Duke’s agent Daniel McNamara purchased a house in 1782, renovated it and persuaded the Duke to buy it for him to live in. He was frequently visited there by the Prince Regent. The Streatham Park house and estate was owned by the brewing family the Thrales, and was famous as a cultural gathering venue including Dr Samuel Johnson. Streatham became popular as a spa because of its natural springs, known as Streatham Wells, at the top of Streatham Common, with Wells House being built in 1783, later renamed The Rookery. They lost their popularity as the waters became contaminated.

In 1819 J. G. Fuller, a wine merchant and owner of Boodle’s gambling club, purchased the Leigham Court estate and built a house, which became a meeting place for his clientele. In 1820 Stephen Wilson set up a silk mill using the latest French Jacquard loom. In 1821 there were 235 families engaged in agriculture, but this had dropped to 189 in 1831.