On This Day 25 February 1879 the burglar and murderer Charles (Charlie) Frederick Peace was executed
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Until Jack the Ripper he was the most infamous criminal in Victorian times and a known burglar in the Streatham area

On This Day 24 February 1872 Stanley Vickers died. He was an MP and a Distiller. His father John Vickers, co-owner of a Vickers Gin and the family lived at Hill House Streatham Common North

Stanley Vickers (31 October 1837 – 24 February 1872) was an English distiller and Conservative Party politician who sat in the House of Commons

He was educated at King's College School. and became a distiller and merchant. He was managing partner and half proprietor of J. and J. Vickers and Co. distillery. He was a captain commanding the 5th Kent Artillery Volunteers

At the 1868 general election Vickers was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wallingford. He held the seat until his death aged 34 in 1872.
Vickers married Mary Ianthe Dunbar, daughter of William Dunbar, merchant of Aberdeen and London.

On This Day 23 February 1792 Sir Joshua Reynolds died

Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA FRS FRSA (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an English painter, specialising in portraits.

He was noted for his paintings of the "Streatham Worthies"- a collective description for the circle of literary and cultural figures around the wealthy brewer Henry Thrale and his wife Hester.
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Sir Joshua was also a Streatham Worthy

On This Day 23 February 1976 Professor Eric Anderson Walker, an eminent historian of South Africa, died.

He was born at "Craigmore", Polworth Road, Streatham, on 6 September 1886, the eldest son of William Walker (1851–1927) of Leith, Scotland, mercantile clerk, and his wife, Jessie, née Goodman. From Mill Hill School he won a scholarship to Merton College, Oxford, where he missed a blue as an oarsman but was awarded a first in modern history in 1908.

His first post was lecturer in history at the University College of Bristol, and while there he co-wrote a textbook for secondary schools on English history which went through many editions.

In 1918 the South African College where he had an appointment became the University of Cape Town, and Walker made his department one of the leading departments in the university.

In Cambridge, where he became a fellow of St John's College, he continued his interest in South African history, but he now also wrote on the empire more broadly; his The British Empire: its Structure and Spirit (1943) was well regarded; his Colonies (1944) was wide-ranging and considered the motives for colonization, the policies of the colonial powers, including the Soviet Union, and the future of the colonial empires.

He was an outstanding teacher who made a great impression on his students, and the first-year survey course he introduced in 1923 survived for sixty years. In the early 1930s he served on the university's council and was dean of the arts faculty. Smuts was to suggest that had Walker been available, he would have been appointed principal in 1937.
(Christopher Saunders)
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Announcement of Professor Walker's appointment at Cambridge University (Scotsman 2 May 1936 Image © Johnston Press plc

​On This Day 22 February 1887 Streatham & Clapham High School was founded as Brixton Hill High School by the Girls’ Public Day School Trust as one of their earliest member schools.

The school was initially located in a house at 260 Brixton Hill, but continued expansion led in 1894 to a temporary move to a home in Palace Road to await the completion of the new building in Wavertree Road, Streatham Hill (now the location of the Prep School).

The building was opened by H.R.H. Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll in 1895, and the school was soon renamed Streatham Hill High School. With the strong growth in the school’s academic reputation and pupil roll, Streatham Hill merged with Clapham High School in 1938, and was renamed ‘Streatham Hill and Clapham High School’.
(Streatham and Clapham High School)
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Today the school is in Wavertree Road and the senior school in Abbotswood Road ( the site of Battersea Grammar School)

On This Day 22 February 1930 this appeared in the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News.​

A Tennis Wedding: Miss Evelyn Colyer and Mr Hamish Munro at Christchurch, Streatham. Hamish Munro was a Tea Planter and soon after they moved to Assam Evelyn died of complications after giving birth to twins

First class lawn tennis player Evelyn Colyer, daughter of Sir Frank (an eminent Dental Surgeon) and Lady Colyer married Mr Hamish Munro- a Tea Planter from Assam.

Best known for her doubles partnership with Joan Austin. In 1923 "the Babes", as the press dubbed them, excited both public and press by fighting their way to the doubles final. Colyer went on to represent her country at the 1924 Olympics.
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Image © Illustrated London News Group

​Edwina Cynthia Annette Mountbatten, Countess Mountbatten of Burma died On This Day 21 February 1960
She died at the house of Robert Noel Turner Chief Secretary in North Borneo of unknown causes while on an inspection tour for the St John's Ambulance Brigade.
Robert Turner later lived at 13 Amesbury Ave Streatham.

On This Day 21 February 1921 Betty Searle was born
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Betty, a Streatham Society member reaches the magnificent age of 100 today
Happy Birthday Betty