Blog Archives - The Streatham Society

Ethel Mary Elderton (1878–1954), statistician and eugenicist

31/12/2020

Ethel Mary Elderton (1878–1954), statistician and eugenicist, was born in Fulham On This Day 31 December 1878.

The eldest of four daughters and third of eight children of William Alexander Elderton (1839–1890) and his wife, Sarah Isabella, née Lapidge (1852–1931), who, after her husband’s death, took charge of a local school to support the family.

Ethel’s three sisters all became schoolmistresses. Her elder brother Sir William Palin Elderton (1877–1962) became an actuary, was president of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, and wrote a number of works on statistical problems. Another brother, Sir Thomas Howard Elderton (1886–1970), took a first in the Cambridge mathematical tripos and became chairman of the Calcutta Port Trust.
Ethel Elderton attended Streatham High School. She lived with her widowed mother and siblings at 4 Valley Road.

She became Galton Scholar and Fellow and Assistant Professor at University College London. She retired in 1933.

(Chris Renwick)

Lincolnshire Chronicle 1875

31/12/2020

On This Day 31 December 1875 this appeared in the Lincolnshire Chronicle

Streatham had a racecourse and in 1868 races which with steeple chases were first held in the area under the Jockey Club rules.

The race course was between Rowan Road and Norbury Station and incorporated a jump over the River Graveney.lick here to edit.

Our #ThrowbackThursday this week takes us back to the junction of Streatham High Road, Streatham Common and Greyhound Lane with Hambly Mansions in the background

30/12/2020

A 49 bus on the Ealing Broadway route and another bus heading to Liverpool Street from Croydon
Two gentleman having a conversation on the edge of the common, one possibly holding a doctor's bag

Irene Amy Byers (nee Cookson)

30/12/2020

On This Day 30th December 1906, the Author Irene Amy Byers (nee Cookson) was born.

A resident of 69 Baldry Gardens, Streatham

In her early career Byers worked as a freelance journalist specialising in interviews with famous people such as John Gielgud and Dame Sybil Thorndike Byers gave up her career on marriage, around 1930, to Cyril Byers, but took up writing again after her children were at school. She also wrote poems for her children during the war.

She was a regular contributor to the BBC's Woman's Hour and two of her books were serialised onChildren's Hour

(Thanks to Tudor JL Jones)

Operas on piers - the Opieros

30/12/2020

On This Day 30 December 1927 Tom Howell appeared in the Stage. Saint George and the Dragon, The Brixton. On Monday, December 26 1927, Mr Frederick Melville presented here his twentieth annual pantomime, written and produced by him, the music composed and arranged by F. Gilmour Smith.

Tom Howell ran a concert party called the Opieros – because they sang excerpts from operas on piers, as well as giving a fine selection of the usual song-and-dance turns.

He lived at 103A Streatham Hill and 1 Daysbrook Road, SW2.

(Images Tom centre with Opieros and with the boater in the family picture)

Source: Webster and Booth

E and A Wates: 120 years in Streatham

29/12/2020

2020 marks our 120th year of trading so we made a pictorial history from the E & A Wates archive. Take a look if you missed the highlights first time around: https://eawates.com/history.htm This charabanc outing took place in 1907
(E and A Wates)

What a milestone for this Streatham business. Here is a picture (courtesy Kevin Kelly Streatham /Penwortham resident) with Streatham Park Villas on the right where the shop is today http://bit.ly/3mTBi2J for the radio London interview with Roger Wates

On This Day 29 December 1919 David Nixon was born-TV Magician and King Rat - resident of Leigham Cottage, Leigham Court Road Streatham.

28/12/2020

Robert Noel Turner lived at 13 Amesbury Ave Streatham. He was born On This Day 28th December 1912 Robert Noel Turner 1912-1987 was Chief Secretary in North Borneo. Lady Edwina Mountbatten passed away at his house while visiting. Many thanks to Ginny Ra

28/12/2020

The First female Press Photographer

28/12/2020

On This Day 28th November 1862 Christina Broom was born. A resident and shop owner at 87 Streatham High Road

**Please note we have a Zoom talk on Christina Broom's Suffrage Photograph by Beverley Cook of the Museum of London on our events page https://www.facebook.com/events/707465133218258**

Christina Broom [née Livingston], [known as Mrs Albert Broom](1862–1939), was a photographer born on 28 December 1862 at 8 King's Road, Chelsea, seventh of the eight children of Alexander Livingston (1812–1875), a master bootmaker, and his wife, Margaret, née Fair (1826–1884).
On 15 August 1889 Christina Livingston married Albert Edward Broom (1864–1912), who worked in the family ironmongery business at Brompton. They lived with his parents in Cheyne Row, Chelsea, and when Winifred, their only child, was born they moved to Napier Avenue, in Fulham. Albert's sport was cricket and he became captain of Battersea Cricket club. In 1896 he was hit by a cricket ball and suffered serious disablement. At about the same time the family business failed and Albert and Christina invested in a stationery and toy shop in Streatham; Albert's trade card described him as an 'accountant and auditor, specialising in laundry accounts'. By 1903, however, the shop had failed to thrive.

While producing postcards Mrs Broom had become an established press photographer.
Unusually for a woman, Christina Broom became official photographer to the household brigade, with a darkroom in Chelsea barracks.

Because she lived near the Thames, Christina Broom also became the regular photographer of the annual Oxford and Cambridge boat race. Her most memorable pictures, however, are probably those of the women's suffrage movement taken between 1908 and 1913, which comprise a virtually unique record of the less flamboyant moments of their campaign. These include photographs of Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, Christabel and Sylvia Pankhurst, and Louisa Garrett Anderson in the Women's Sunday procession and meeting in Hyde Park on 21 June 1908, in which a quarter of a million women took part, and of Christabel Pankhurst at the International Suffragette Fair, 1912 (both Museum of London collection).
(Shirley Neale)

A nice selection of her photos at https://www.dailymail.co.uk/.../Suffragettes-soldiers...

Anniversary of June Whitfield's death

28/12/2020

On This Day 2 years ago 28th December 2018. The much loved Dame June Whitfield died- born in Streatham at the "Haven" 44 Mount Ephraim Lane and later lived at 5 Palace Road
Her Streatham-family connections: her father lived in Babbington Road and her parents married at St Leonard's Church. Her grandparents lived in Woodbourne Ave

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