Blog Archives - The Streatham Society

Violinist Mary Law

31/3/2022

On This Day 31 March 1919 the Violinist Mary Law died, her son Hugh died a few days later

Mary Law was the first wife of Hugh Sewell Kingdon of 66 Woodbourne Avenue. They married at St Leonards on 24th July 1915.

Kingdon purchased the land from Sternhold Avenue to Telford Avenue, as an entertainment centre and the Locarno, Streatham Hill Theatre and Gaumont Palace were built on this land.
Mary Law was a young British violinist, born 1889, died 1919, possibly from tuberculosis. She recorded a number of sides for Zonophone in 1915, primarily of operatic fantasias - those arrangements that provided audiences the tunes they knew.

In November 1915 she began a tour of Australia. The Melbourne Argus of November 23rd 1915 contains the following: Just Arrived, Direct from London, Under Special Engagement and First Appearance in Australia of Miss MARY LAW, The Notable English Violinist. Miss Law has been honoured with Royal Commands galore, and can claim the distinction of having played before most Members of the Royal Family.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYXryi3soIg

Hugh Kingdon lived at 66 Woodbourne Avenue, Streatham and Mary Law is recorded at 13 Becmead Ave 39 Babbington Road, and the Paragon houses - number 12 in Streatham Hill
Images by Bassano © National Portrait Gallery, London.

The novelist Lionel Davidson

31/3/2022

On This Day 31 March 1922 Lionel Davidson, novelist, was born at 205 Hessle Road, Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The family moved to Streatham - 11 Streatham Close when Lionel was 2 years old.

The ninth child of Avram Chaim (Hyman) Davidovitz (1866–1925), draper and tailor, and his wife, Hannah (Annie), née Salit(1878–1958), Jewish immigrants from, respectively, Poland and Vilnius in Lithuania.

After his father's death the family moved to Streatham, in 1929 when the family name was changed to Davidson. Lionel attended school in Tooting

In 1950 Davidson became the fiction editor for John Bull, publishing the short fiction of many best-selling writers including Graham Greene, Nevil Shute, and Agatha Christie. He continued to write his own short stories and radio scripts for the BBC

The Night of Wenceslas quickly sold for a film but when the film did appear in 1964, as Hot Enough for June (American title Agent 83/4), it had been transformed into a romantic comedy vehicle for Dirk Bogarde. The Rose of Tibet was published in 1962 and Run for Your Life, published in 1965
In total he wrote eight crime and thriller novels.

He is said to have been planning a novel set in Tooting in the 1930s when he died in February 2016.

(Source:extracts Mike Ripley and Photograph by Yvonne Plaut, Camera Press, London

Our #ThrowbackThursday takes us back to November 1926 and Norwood Grove, previously known as Streatham Grove #streathamcommon

31/3/2022

Once the home of Arthur Anderson co-founder of P and O. I believe his portrait still hangs in their boardroom and Anderson's gin is served on the cruise ships

Sir (James) Frank Colyer

30/3/2022

Frank Colyer died On This Day 30 March 1954

Sir (James) Frank Colyer (1866–1954), dental surgeon and museum curator, was born on 25 September 1866 at 2 Loughborough Villas, Loughborough Road, Lambeth, London, one of the sons of James Colyer, dentist, and his wife, Rebecca Hastings, née Farrow.

Colyer was the recipient of many prizes and honours, both in England and North America. Included among these was his admission to the fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1916, and the honour of being created a knight of the British empire in 1920, for services rendered during the war. The Royal Society of Medicine also paid him a great tribute when in 1926 they named a prize after him, a rare accolade to be made during a person's lifetime.

The Colyer's had 3 children Their youngest daughter, Evelyn, a talented lawn-tennis player sadly died in India See FB post https://www.facebook.com/groups/StreathamSociety/permalink/964991497345173

The skull of the real Winnie-the-Pooh, "Winnipeg" belonging to Captain Colebourne was examined by Colyer who determined the loss of teeth and thickening of the alveolar and sockets filled with bone were the result of old age and eating habits.

Colyer died at his home, Queenswood, 39 Palace Road, Streatham, London, on 30 March 1954. A memorial service was held at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, on 12 April 1954.

(Extracts Susan L. Cohen and the Hunterian Museum)
Image: 1 Sir (James) Frank Colyer by Walter © National Portrait Gallery
Image 2: Skull of the real Winnie the Pooh (Royal College of Surgeons)

Air Vice Marshal Sir Philip Woolcott Game

30/3/2022

Air Vice Marshal Sir Philip Woolcott Game Died was born 30 March 1876

Air force officer, colonial governor, and commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, was born in Streatham on 30 March 1876, the second son in the family of eight children (five boys and three girls) of George Beale Game, a member of the Baltic exchange, of Broadway, Worcestershire, and his wife, Clara Vincent.

The 1871 census shows the family living at "Hetherell" in Leigham Court Road and the 1881 census "Basset", Streatham

After promotion to air vice-marshal in January 1922 he was in 1923 at last given a chance to command, as air officer commanding RAF India. But he had been in India only a few months when he was called home urgently, as indispensable, for what the Air Ministry in a formal letter called his 'unique administrative qualities'. Appointed air member for personnel, he remained one of the senior members of the Air Council until he retired at his own request in 1929.

His many high distinctions reflect his responsibilities: DSO (1915), CB (1919), KCB (1924), GBE (1929), KCMG (1935), GCVO (1937), and GCB (1945).

He founded the Philip Game's Boys' Club- some interesting and well-known names performed at the Streatham Hill Theatre to raise funds

A fascinating Pathe clip at the club https://www.britishpathe.com/.../query/copper+socking+club
(Source Kenneth Parker)
First Image ©National Portrait Gallery reproduced under the Creative Commons License

James Hill Tobacco merchant

29/3/2022

On This Day 29th March 1821 James Hill was born. He lived at "The Rookery"

James Hill a tobacco Manufacturer, his wife Jane, a daughter and 7 domestic staff. The Census records a Butler, Cook, Lady's maid, 2 housemaids, a Nurse and a footman. (Source Census 1851)

Robert and James Hill operated as Tobacco Manufactures from premises in Shoreditch. The Image below is from the Leicestershire Mercury on 30th June 1860 and the Spinet brand of cigarettes 1917
After 6 years of widowhood Jane Adam Hill became the 4th wife of Sir Kingsmill Grove Key,

Music Hall star Billy Merson

29/3/2022

The Music Hall star Billy Merson was born On This Day 29th March 1881

A resident of "Katherine House" 17 (previously 12) Woodbourne Avenue, Streatham. The house was named after his daughter Katherine (Kitty) In his book ‘Fixing the Stoof Oop’ in 1925. , he talks about his association with the number 7 and the penultimate paragraph begins
“There was a house in Streatham in which I lived for ten years ; the landlord changed the number soon after I went there, and it became No. 17.”

Billy Merson born William Henry Thompson in Nottingham , he began his career while working in a lace-making factory and performing shows as an acrobat and comedian in the evening at the Nottingham Theatre Royal.

It took some time until he could make a good living from his stage work; he also wrote many songs including 'The Photo of the Girl I Left Behind', 'Desdemona' and possibly his best known song 'The Spaniard That Blighted My Life'. He was chairman of the music hall at the Players Theatre in London.

Starred in a handful of silent film comedies under the direction of W.P. Kellino for the Homeland (Globe) Film Company in 1915-17 often taken from his own sketches.

Later he was often seen in character roles in many talkies through the 1930's. According to an article in the Nottingham Evening Post dated 19/8/2011 Billy Merson whose real name is William Henry Thompson may have been related to the famous 19th Century bare knuckle prize fighter William 'Bendigo' Thompson born in Nottingham in the early 1800's, and his descendants are Hayden Thompson born 2011 son of stage actress Emma Rothwell born 1985.

(IMDb Mini Biography By: Paul Rothwell-Smith and Miles Harvey)

Inspector General Belgrave Ninnis of The Green Streatham married Ada Sutton (Pembroke House Leigham Court Road) at St Leonard's Church

28/3/2022

On This Day 28th March 1883 Inspector General Belgrave Ninnis of The Green Streatham married Ada Sutton (Pembroke House Leigham Court Road) at St Leonard's Church. They lived at "Elms" Leigham Ave Streatham. The Ninnis family are also recorded in Adrington Road, Streatham Park.
Inspector-General Belgrave Ninnis was born on the 1st September 1837 the fourth son of the late Mr Paul Ninnis of St.Austell, Cornwall. He joined the Royal Navy in 1861 as an Assistant Surgeon and on the 23rd august was appointed to the sloop HMS Pantaloon on the Cape of Good Hope Station. He served as a Naturalist in the Imperial and Colonial surveying Schooner, Beatrice, in the Northern Territory of South Australia from 1864-66. On the 26th January 1867 he was appointed to the Royal Hospital, Greenwich, and on the 1st June 1869 to HMS Caledonia, on the Mediterranean Station, where he served until the 2nd May 1872 on appointment to HMS Lord Warden, Flagship of the C in C Mediterranean Fleet, as Surgeon.

He was promoted to Staff Surgeon on the 21st December 1874 and accompanied Sir George Nares' Expedition to the Arctic as Staff Surgeon aboard the Discovery. He became Fleet Surgeon on the 3rd November 1876, and on the 13th October 1878 and was appointed to HMS Garnet, serving off the south-east coast of South America. He was awarded the Sir Gibert Blane Gold Medal in 1879, and became Deputy Director-General of Hospitals and Fleets on the 5th May 1883, retiring on the 1st September 1897 with the rank of Inspector-General.

He became Deputy Commissioner of the St.John Ambulance Brigade and was appointed
Chief Commissioner in 1903. On the 5th July 1911 he received the service medal of the Order of St.John from the hands of H.R.H. Duke of Connaught, who was then Grand Prior of the Order of St.John of jerusalem. he became a Knight of Grace of the Order and was awarded a C.V.O. on the 14th June 1912.

In addition he was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and he published "Remarks on the Ethnology, Natural History, and Meteorology of the Northern Territory of South Australia", and "Diseases incidental to Eskimo Dogs of Smith Sound - Diagnosis and Treatment".

He died on the 18th June 1922, aged 84 in Streatham.

His son Belgrave Edward Sutton Ninnis was killed on the Australian Antarctic Expedition of 1912-14 when he fell into a crevasse on a sledge journey across King George V Land, with Mawson and Mertz.
(Knight of Justice. London Gazette 21.1.1916.)

Lionel Louis Leleu- deadliest plane crash

28/3/2022

Lionel Louis Leleu died 28 March 1933. A resident of 67 Wavertree Road

On 28 March 1933, an Armstrong Whitworth Argosy II passenger aircraft, named City of Liverpool and operated by British airline Imperial Airways, crashed near Diksmuide, Belgium. Captain Leleu was the pilot who with 14 others was killed. He is buried at West Norwood cemetery.

It was the deadliest accident in the history of British civil aviation at that time. It has been suggested that this was the first airliner ever lost to sabotage and in the immediate aftermath, suspicion centred on one passenger, Albert Voss, who seemingly jumped from the aircraft before it crashed.

Peter Brusey Cow

27/3/2022

On This Day 27 March 1890 PB Cow died

Peter Brusey Cow (1815–1890), rubber manufacturer, was born at Deptford on 25 September 1815, the younger son of John Cow, a master boat builder at Woolwich Dockyard. In 1830, at the age of fifteen, he was apprenticed to Charles Gower Collins, a linen draper of Lower Sloane Street, Chelsea.
After completing his apprenticeship in 1835 he stayed with Collins until 1837, when he worked for Gainsford and Goods for a year. In 1838 he went to Swan and Edgar at Waterloo House, where he lived in, but was meantime in touch with Samuel Matthews, superintendent of the three London branches of Charles Macintosh & Co., rubber manufacturers, at 46 Cheapside, 66 Broad Street, and 58 Charing Cross. The firm's main activity was the manufacture of waterproof garments made of double-texture cloth. In 1842 Cow opened his own shop in Bishopsgate, selling lace and baby linen.

In 1852, with William G. Forster, Cow founded the Lonestone Chemical Works at Streatham, and in 1857 moved the manufacturing activity from the Deptford factory, which had become too small, to a former crêpe factory at Streatham. The firm still traded as P. B. Cow.

He died of heart failure at his home, Streatham Common on 27 March 1890. Cow was actively involved in church work throughout his life, and was on the building committee of St James's, Hatcham. While at Streatham he was churchwarden of Immanuel Church, Streatham Common, and he donated generously to the building of St Andrew's Church, Lower Streatham.

His estate was £96,536 18s. 9d at probate
(extracts Adrian Room)

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Our next event is on 7th June 2022 a talk on the Streatham Ice Rink, The Early Years (1931-1946) by Saki Hajnal which follows the AGM is at 6:30pm

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