It may not be easy to see spacecraft from Vauxhall, but many’s the astronaut that’s been spotted on the South Lambeth Road having a last drag on a cigarette before entering the British Interplanetary Society HQ at Numbers 27–29 on the corner with Langley Lane. Indeed, writes space historian and Fellow of the Society Dr […]
A litter-bin now marks the spot in Vauxhall Gardens where once stood Roubiliac’s life-size statue of Handel: Free Vauxhall Gardens guided history walk, 21 May 2018
Vauxhall Gardens drew visitors from around the world in its 18th-century prime, not least to see Roubiliac’s sensational statue. Pale imitations sprang up elsewhere in England, and as far away as America, Australia and Russia. None could quite match Jonathan Tyers’ Vauxhall Gardens for originality and crowd-pulling spectacle with a purpose. Tyers helped civilise this […]
Saturday 10 February: ‘South Lambeth Road Stories’ guided walk with Sean Creighton
Historian, community activist and blogger, and former project worker in the area Sean Creighton leads South Lambeth Road Stories, a free guided Vauxhall Society/Vauxhall History walk which kicks off from the Tate South Lambeth Library at 180 South Lambeth Rd, Vauxhall, London SW8 1QP at 10.30am on Saturday 10 February. There is the story of […]
Anthony Eyton RA on the ‘lure of Brixton’
The 20-year-old Van Gogh lasted only a year in Stockwell before leaving his digs in 87 Hackford Road (1873), it’s said, because he was getting nowhere with Eugenie Loyer, the landlady’s daughter. The painter seems to have left behind just the one ‘Van Gogh’, a sketch of the house that was not accepted as by […]
Whatever became of hit-parader Winifred Atwell’s saucy murals?
Fifties hit-parading pianist Winifred Atwell opened a salon in Brixton that may have been the very first for black women in this country. Winifred and her salon are long gone, but what about its saucy murals?
Love’s Labours Lost: the Morley College murals of Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden
Vauxhall History brings you an opportunity to rediscover the extraordinary murals at Morley College.
Handel at Vauxhall
Conductor and harpsichordist Bridget Cunningham on how she came to record Handel at Vauxhall.
Dr Johnson and the Vauxhall Gardens Mysteries
At the heart of Dr Johnson’s connections with this celebrated London pleasure resort, there lies a mystery, and behind that mystery lurks an enigma.
“Our quest does not appear to take us to very fashionable regions”: Sherlock Holmes and Lambeth
Roger Johnson, editor of The Sherlock Holmes Journal, on the spoor of the sleuth and his ever-faithful Watson in these parts
Maynard Keynes, Duncan Grant, ‘Bubbles’ and the ‘Lift boy of Vauxhall’
John Maynard Keynes, later Lord Keynes (1883–1946) has the distinction of having a branch of economics named after him. Keynes’ name is sometimes mentioned in another connection, that of his many, many sexual partners, the sculptor and painter Duncan Grant for example. Another partner is identified only (by Keynes himself) as the ‘Lift boy of […]
Henry Fawcett: The Mysterious Case of Vauxhall Park’s Missing Monument
By Sarah Bridger A terracotta statue of Henry Fawcett, which was unveiled on Wednesday 7th June 1893 by the Archbishop of Canterbury in Vauxhall Park, mysteriously vanished in late 1959.[1] It was designed by the celebrated Victorian sculptor George Tinworth, and donated by Sir Henry Doulton. The statue has not had a confirmed sighting since […]
Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens: famous names
Carl Friedrich ABEL 1723-1787 Musician Played with J. C. Bach in the Gardens. Dr Thomas ARNE 1710-1778 Composer Worked regularly played in the Gardens. Best known for ‘Rule, Britannia’ Johann Christian BACH 1735-1782 Music Master Wrote songs for and played in the Gardens Sir Henry Rowley BISHOP 1786-1855 Composer Musical Director? James BOSWELL 1740-1795 Writer […]
Vincent van Gogh in Stockwell
Vincent van Gogh moved to London in May 1873 at the age of 20 and lived intermittently in the city until 1876. During this time he is known to have visited, and written about, several of the Royal Academy of Arts’ Summer Exhibitions, Christie’s and iconic sites including St Paul’s Cathedral and Hampton Court. He also […]
Henry Tate (1819-1899)
The ‘Tate’ of Tate and Lyle fame, was born in Chorley and was the son of a clergyman. He started out at age 16 as an apprentice in the grocery trade, but by age 20 had set up his own shop which soon became a chain of 5 shops. In 1859 he sold his shops […]
Violette Szabo
Violette Reine Elizabeth Bushell was born in Paris on 26 June 1921 to an English motor-car dealer from Brixton, and a French mother. She grew up at 18 Burnley Road, Stockwell, and was know to be a fiery daredevil. She met and married Etienne Szabo, a Captain in the French Foreign Legion 21 August, 1940. […]
Sir Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904)
Sir Henry Morton Stanley of “Dr Livingstone I presume” fame was the MP for North Lambeth at his second attempt from 1895 to 1900. He only spoke on one or two occasions and then without much success.
Felix Slade (1788-1868)
Felix Joseph Slade, the son of a wealthy Surrey Landowner Robert Slade, was born in Lambeth on 6 August 1788. Felix, a rich bachelor, was a passionate collector and purchased many books, engravings and glass objects with which he adorned his home in Walcot Place (Kennington Road). When he died on 29 March 1868, four […]
Peter Schmidt (1931-1980)
Peter Schmidt (1931–1980) was a painter, artist, teacher and composition and colour theorist. His work has been collected by the Tate, who have two of his prints, both called Flowing in the Right Direction. Five works are in the UK Government Art Collection. With his student and later friend Brian Eno, Schmidt developed a process […]
Sir William Chandler Roberts-Austen (1843-1902)
William Chandler Roberts-Austen was born 3 March 1843 in Kennington and became famous for his research into the physical properties of metals and their alloys. He developed procedures for the analysis of alloy constituents and an automatic recording pyrometer used to record temperature changes in furnaces and molten materials. He became a world authority on […]
Richborne Terrace
Andrew Nicholl, RHA, a 19th-century Irish artist lived at 33 Richmond Terrace (now 72 Richborne Terrace) in 1882/3. And in 1872, after living at other addresses in the area, he moved into 26 Osborne Terrace (now 55 Richborne Terrace). Richborne Terrace came into being in 1936 when the two sides of the same road (Osborne […]
David Ricardo (1772-1823)
David Ricardo, a political economist, was born in 1772 and was the third of 17 children. Although his father was a wealthy merchant banker and stockbroker David had little formal education and at age 14 went to work in his fathers business. He was disinherited at age 21 when he married against his parents’ wishes. […]
Arthur Rackham
Arthur Rackham was born at 210 South Lambeth Road on 19th September 1867. He came from a big family, his mother Annie having 11 other children though not all survived childhood. He was educated at the City of London School and showed a natural aptitude for art and drawing. In 1884 Arthur became an insurance […]
Samuel Prout (1783-1852)
Samuel Prout was born in 1783 and studied at Plymouth Grammar School. As a teenager he tried to earn a living as an illustrator and accompanied the historical painter B. R. Haydon on a tour of Devon and produced some good work but in 1796 his drawings of Cornwall for the publisher John Britton were […]
Charles Pritchard
Charles Pritchard, headmaster of a private school in Stockwell in 1833, was an astronomer. He was educated at Merchant Taylors School and Christ’s Hospital and gained his degree from Cambridge in 1832. He then turned his attention to educational reform. In 1834 he moved from Stockwell to Clapham grammar school, which was founded to give […]
Andrew Nicholl
Andrew Nicholl RHA (1804-1886) was the son of a Belfast bootmaker and started out as a compositor on the Northern Whig newspaper, but from an early age was interested in art. His artistic talents were spotted by Sir James Emerson Tennent, the Colonial Secretary, who became his patron, funding a trip to London in the early […]
Florence Nightingale Times obituary
This obituary for Florence Nightingale appeared in The Times on August 15, 1910. We deeply regret to state that Miss Florence Nightingale, O.M., the organizer of the Crimean War Nursing Service, died at her residence, 10, South-street, Park-lane, on Saturday afternoon. She had been unwell about a week ago, but had recovered her usual cheerfulness […]
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale was a British nurse, hospital reformer and humanitarian. She was born in Florence on 12 May 1820, and named after the city, while her parents were in Italy as part of a tour of Europe. Nightingale’s early life was spent, in the main, in Derbyshire. Her father tutored her in the classics. Aged […]
Herbert Stanley Morrison
Herbert Stanley Morrison was a British Labour politician, born in Lambeth the son of a police constable. The 1891 census shows the family was living at 240 Ferndale Road, north Brixton. Morrison had little in the way of formal education and left school at 14 to become an errand boy and later a shop assistant. […]
Sir Samuel Morland (1625-1695)
Samuel Morland was born in 1625, in Berkshire, the son of a clergyman. He studied mathematics at Winchester College, Cambridge University and became a fellow of Magdalene College in 1649. In 1675 he took a 31-year lease on the old Manor House of Vauxhall from the Duchy of Cornwall. This house was close to the […]
Roger Moore
Actor Roger Moore, who was born on 14 October 1927 in Stockwell, south London, the only child of George Alfred Moore, a policeman, and Lillian “Lily” (née Pope), a housewife, is best known for his roles as The Saint and James Bond. His biography, My Word is My Bond, details some of his early life.
Francis Moore
Francis Moore was an astrologer, licensed physician and Whig partisan, who had an astrological practice in Lambeth, and later in Southwark. His Vox Stellarum, an Almanac for 1701 with astrological observations appeared in 1700. Old Moore’s Almanack long outlived its creator, and sold extremely well throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, and it still thrives […]
Dr Annie McCall
Dr Annie McCall, L.R.Q.C.P. (Ireland) and L.M., MD Berne (1859-1949), was born in Manchester and had an international education – Gottingen Germany, Paris, Berne and Vienna as well as the London School of Medicine for Women. She qualified in 1885 and was one of the first 50 women doctors. Her interests included midwifery and tuberculosis. […]
Joanna Lumley
Joanna Lumley is a British actor and former photographic and fashion model resident for many years in Stockwell. She was born on 1 May 1946 in Srinigar, India, the daughter of Major James Rutherford Lumley, who served in the 6th Gurkha Rifles, and Beatrice Rose Weir. Lumley’s acting career started with a part in Some […]
James Sowerby (1757-1822)
The Sowerby family is without equal in the history of natural history for the depth and variety of its contribution to science. Fourteen members of the family published, wrote or illustrated natural history works between about 1780 and 1954. Subjects covered included botany, zoology, conchology, palaeontology and mineralogy. They worked with and for most of […]
Liza of Lambeth by W. Somerset Maugham
Liza of Lambeth was the first novel by W(illiam) Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), the English author and novelist. Maugham was born in Paris, orphaned when he was only 10 and then brought up by an uncle. He was educated at King’s School, Canterbury and after a year at Heidelberg University, he studied medicine at St. Thomas’ […]
Lambeth Road, notable inhabitants
The Marine Society, 202 Lambeth Road The following article appeared in The Vauxhall Society’s Newsletter of May 1980. A major contribution to the refurbishing of properties in Lambeth Road has been made in recent time by the Marine Society. In December 1979, HM the Queen officially opened its new headquarters in the former Archbishop William […]
Lambeth School of Art
Lambeth School of Art was established in 1854 by William Gregory, vicar of St Mary the Less Church. St Mary the Less Church was in Princes Road (now called Black Prince Road). It was demolished in the 1960s. At the end of the 1850s, the school was solely a night school. Dean Gregory was Rector, […]
Lambeth North Station
The following article appeared in The Vauxhall Society Newsletter of July 1981. To the casual traveller, the underground station at Lambeth North is pretty unprepossessing. With its clanking lifts and lonely platforms it characterises some of the depression of the inner city. In recent months a modest effort has been made by London Transport to […]
Juba – William Henry Lane (1825-1852?)
Juba, also known as Master Juba, was born William Henry Lane in 1825 in Mississippi, a free black man. As a teenager Juba grew up in the Five Points district of New York City and was influenced by the well-known black saloon dancer “Uncle” Jim Lowe. Lowe, best known for his jigs and reels, initially […]
Robert James (1705-1776)
On a number of 18th-century maps of North Lambeth a property is identified as Dr Robert James’s Laboratory (1766 plan from the Gentleman’s Magazine). This doctor must surely have been the friend of Dr Johnson and inventor of James’s Powder, a ubiquitous medicine of doubtful effectiveness that was in use until the late 19th century. […]
Peabody
Peabody Buildings, housing blocks for ‘the artisan and labouring poor of London’, were built from the trust funds set up by the philanthropist, George Peabody. Peabody was born in Massachusetts in 1795 but spent most of his life in London. In March 1862 he donated £150,000 to endow a fund ‘to ameliorate the condition of […]
Thomas Hughes
Thomas Hughes, who was elected as the Liberal Member of Parliament for Lambeth in 1865, was the author of children’s books including Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857). Hughes was educated at Rugby and Oriel College, Oxford. He was called to the bar in 1848 and became a judge at Chester in 1882. He was a Christian […]
Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677)
Wenceslaus (or Wenzel) Hollar was born in Prague on 13 July 1607, and died in London on the 28 March 1677. His family was ruined by the capture of Prague in the Thirty Years War, and though originally destined for the law, Hollar was determined to become an artist. A major influence upon Hollar’s […]
Kate Hoey
Kate Hoey (born Catharine Letitia Hoey on 21 June 1946) is the Labour Party Member of Parliament for Vauxhall since 1989, and previously served in the Blair government as Minister for Sport. She was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland and was educated at the Ulster College of Physical Education. She joined the International Marxist Group. […]
Hercules Road
Artist and poet William Blake and his wife lived in a large house which was on the site of present day No.23 Hercules Road (Penlington Place). A visitor once came upon them sitting naked in the summerhouse where they were reciting passages from Paradise Lost. ‘Come in,’ Blake called out. ‘It’s only Adam and Eve, […]
Hackford Road
The Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh lived in this road for a short period in 1873-74. He lodged at No. 87 with Ursula Loyer, the French widow of a curate. While there, he fell in love with Eugenie, the widow’s daughter who rejected him because she was engaged to someone else. The well-received 2003 play […]
Guinness Trust
In 1890 Edward Cecil Guinness (1847-1927), great grandson of the founder of the Guinness Brewery gave £250,000 to set up the Guinness Trust. Guinness’s purpose was to help the many people in London and Dublin who found themselves destitute and unable to afford decent homes. The first trustees were concerned with more than just housing […]
Sir Ernest George (1839-1922)
The following article appeared The Vauxhall Society’s Newsletter in April 1985. Sir Ernest George was one of the most successful of the later Victorian architects. Specialising in domestic buildings, his style was notable for the use of red brick and terracotta and his attention to details such as ironmongery, perhaps inherited from his father, a […]
Henry Fawcett and Millicent Garrett
Henry Fawcett (1833-1884) lived at No 8 The Lawn (which ran parallel to South Lambeth Road, between Lawn Lane and Fentiman Road). It was Fawcett’s special wish to form a park on the site. Fawcett was a Member of Parliament, an educational reformer and an economist. He became blind at the age of 25 when […]
William Curtis (1746-1799)
William Curtis was born in Alton, Hampshire, where he served an apprenticeship as an apothecary; he then moved to London and set up his own business. This proved sufficiently successful for him to sell out and he was then able to devote himself to the study of plants. Curtis cultivated some 6,000 species of plants […]
David Cox (1783-1859)
David Cox, the son of a blacksmith, was born in Birmingham on 29 April 1783 and in his youth was apprenticed to become a miniature painter. Following his employer’s death, he moved on to become a scenery painter at Birmingham and Leicester theatres. In 1803 he moved to London to work on scenery at Astley’s […]
Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin and South London Kennington Cross is the focus of several sites associated with Lambeth’s most famous son, Charlie Chaplin. The Tommyfields bar was formerly the White Hart pub where, sitting on the pavement, Charlie first discovered the joy of music. One of his schools was in Sancroft Street and one of his (many) […]
Hablot Knight Browne
Hablot Knight Browne (1815-1882) was an English artist, famous for illustrating works by Charles Dickens. Hablot Knight Browne was born on 15 June 1815 in Kennington and was apprenticed to the engraver William Finden who gave him his only artistic education. At the age of 19 he gave up engraving to pursue other artistic interests. […]
Brown Institute for Animals
The Brown Institute for Animals in Wandsworth Road was the first animal hospital in the country. In 1855 Thomas Brown M.A., LL.B., who lived in both Dublin and London, left £20,000 to the University of London to found ‘an Animal Sanatory Institution’ which was to be concerned with “investigating, studying, and without charge beyond immediate […]
Patrick Nasmyth
Patrick Nasmyth (1787-1831) was born in Edinburgh on 7 January 1787. He was the eldest of 11 children of the Scottish artist Alexander Nasmyth (1758-1840). One of his brothers was the engineer James Nasmyth, who worked for a while in Lambeth. Patrick Nasmyth had an early love of nature and often played truant from school […]
William Blake
William Blake (1757-1827) was a poet, a painter and engraver, who created a unique form of illustrated verse. His poetry, inspired by mystical visions, is among the most original, lyric and prophetic in the English language. Blake’s style has been described as a pre-Romantic. Blake, the son of a hosier, was born in London. Although […]
Edward, The Black Prince
There had been a royal residence (at Kennington Palace) near the junction of Kennington Lane and Kennington Road as far back as Saxon times. In the 14th century the site became the principal residence of Edward, Prince of Wales (1330-1376), now familiarly known as the Black Prince, a name only given to him in the […]
George Parker Bidder
George Parker Bidder (1806-1878) was was an English engineer and calculating prodigy, who resided for a time in South Lambeth Road. Bidder was born at Mortonhampstead in Devon in 1806, the son of a stonemason. An older brother taught him to count when he was about 5 and he learned to multiply by himself by […]
William W. Begley
William Walter Begley (1893-1980), Architect, Historian and Ecclesiologist, was the inaugural Chairman (and later President) of The Vauxhall Society. Begley worked in the GLC Architects’ Department from 1912 to 1954, and headed the Historic Buildings Department of the former London County Council. He was also an active member of the London Survey Committee, which supervised […]
The Dollond family
Just over 150 years ago, British optician and inventor George Dollond died. His passing marked the demise of his family’s century-old instrument-making business. The story of the Dollond enterprise starts with John Dollond (left), who was born in 1706. His father was involved in silk weaving, and John picked up that trade. Because his father […]
Lilian Mary Baylis
Lilian Baylis was born in London into a family that ran a concert party, the Gypsy Revellers. In 1891 the family emigrated to South Africa where Baylis worked as a teacher of music and dance. When she returned to London in 1989 she jointly ran the Royal Victoria Coffee Music Hall in London (a temperance […]
John Bacon
John Bacon (1740-1799) was a British Neoclassical sculptor who perfected certain sculpturing techniques. He was born in Southwark, the son of a cloth worker from Somerset. In 1754, aged 14, he was apprenticed in a porcelain works at Lambeth, London. There he was at first employed in painting small ornamental pieces of china, but he […]
Tradescant family
Text taken from the Vauxhall Society’s “A guide to the church of St Mary-at-Lambeth, London” by Francis Terry We are indebted for the material in this section of the Guide to Mea Allan, biographer of the Tradescants. Her book, although out of print, is obtainable from libraries in London and elsewhere. We are also […]
Elias Ashmole
English archaeologist and antiquary. Elias Ashmole (1617-1692) produced exhaustive antiquarian studies, most notably The Institution, Laws and Ceremonies of the Order of the Garter (1672) and The Antiquities of Berkshire. In 1677 he donated to Oxford University a collection of curiosities, including his own contributions and those bequeathed to him by John Tradescant.< His gift […]
Albert Embankment
The Albert Embankment is on the east bank of the Thames and was created by Sir Joseph Bazalgette out of Fore Street, numerous small timber and boat-building yards and reclaimed land. This embankment is one of three built by Bazalgette, the Victoria and Chelsea embankments being the other two. The main reason for building the embankment […]
