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Reviews and snippets January 2000

November 2, 2019, 3:38 am
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Reviews and snippets January 2000

Many of the books reviewed below were self published  - and some authors have died, moved or run out of stock. So, most contacts of how they can be obtained have been removed.  Sorry.  Comments, where necessary in [ square brackets and italics].

MILLENNIUM GREENWICH 2000 Local artist, river watcher and GIHS member Peter Kent has produced his own report - illustrated in his own inimitable style - on what has been going on recently.   He covers the subjects under a range of headings - ‘Naval Matters’ .. ‘Culture and the Vultures’ ... ‘Ships that Pass’ and so on. 
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THE BATTLE FOR THE MILLENNIUM  DOME by Alastair Irvine. This is the latest book on the Dome site - basically a report of the machinations and negotiations of the Dome’s construction based on interviews with the leading players and written by a local journalist.  There is a short piece on the history of the site in which the lack of proper research on the part of the author shows badly.  I will only be convinced of the existence of a windmill on the Tide Mill site if someone can show it to me on a map.   The book also includes an extended piece on the background to the gas works and use of the site - which does pull some of the various elements of the background to the works together. 

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ENGLISH HERITAGE. ARCHITECTURAL SURVEY REPORT ON MUMFORD’S FLOUR MILL
(23-25  Greenwich High Road) by Jonathan Clarke. This is clearly a very important report for Greenwich industrial historians

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BYGONE KENT The November and December  1999 issues includes two articles   by Mary Mills on Lovell’s Wharf.  These cover the building of the wharf under Coles Child in the 1840s and  the work of the wharf up to the Great War. Hopefully an article about Lovells themselves will appear in January.
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RAILWAY MAGAZINE An informant tells us (thanks Howard) that the January 2000 edition of Railway Magazine includes an article on a visit of the Loco Club to East Greenwich in 1963.  

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BRITISH GAS WAR MEMORIAL On 11th November the War Memorial to employees at East Greenwich Gas and chemicals works who died in the First and Second World Wars was re-dedicated on a new site.  The War Memorial - almost the only thing to survive from the old gas works - has now been put on a new site near the back of the Pilot Pub. The ceremony was attended by the Mayor of Greenwich, John Fahy.  Our member, Kay Murch, who is Site Manager at the Peninsula, was the moving spirit behind the presentation of the stone.  She has sent some photographs of the ceremony.   [The monument is still in good shape and now cared for by the management on the Peninsula and in the list of Greenwich War Memorials.  It has been reseached, and subsequently listed by the school which stands next to it. Sadly Kay Murch died soon after the memorial was installed].



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MILLENNIUM GRANTS
Among grants given locally are:
Terry Scales/Open Studios - Visions of Greenwich Reach. Grant for publications of paintings of the River Thames
Greenwich Borough Museum - History of Greenwich 2000 Tapestry Project.
Age Exchange Reminiscence Centre - Ebb and Flow, multi-media performance project looking at the lives and experience of people on and around the river Thames.
Greenwich Millennium Community Play - large scale play to be presented in Greenwich Park.

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GREENWICH SOCIETY The Greenwich Society notes the following at their AGM (among many other things):

Greenwich Station - proposals to enlarge the forecourt for the Millennium bus link.
Lovells Wharf -the Society approves the development but not its ‘height, scale and indifferent architecture’.
Hoskins Street - notes the refusal of the council for a renewal of the licence for the breakers yard..
Support for the idea of the ‘Halfpenny Hatch’ bridge across Deptford Creek.
Support for regeneration of the East Greenwich riverfront  because of ‘dereliction because of designation of the riverside area for wharfage use’.
They have suggested to Amylum that there should be a viewing platform on one of the silos and they hope to take this further.

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ARCHAEOLOGY  The English Heritage quarterly update by the Greater London Archaeological Advisory Service shows the following results, of interest, from Greenwich work: Greenwich Magistrates Court, 9-10 Blackheath Road - post medieval pits and trenches, Deptford kilns from 17th century.

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WOOLWICH ANTIQUARIANS NEWSLETTER... reports on a new sculpture in Woolwich. This represents the ‘Great Harry’ (the Henri Grace a Dieu’) the great ship built at the Royal Dockyard in Woolwich in 1512.  The sculpture is on a stainless steel column with wave effects at the base and it appears to sail over the rooftops towards the open sea

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CROSSNESS RECORD. The October issue of  Crossness Record  makes the following points:
*They have received the Bradlee Boiler which is now in the boiler house. It will run the Prince Consort engine  and they will also need a boiler feed tank and a 1000 gallon fuel tank. They will need planning permission for a chimney.
** An Association of London Pumping Heritage Attractions (ALPHA) has been set up and had its inaugural meeting.
** Article on Broad Gauge Locomotives at Crossness.  This records how in 1879 the Metropolitan Board of Works bought six broad gauge locomotives from the Great Western Railway. The two destined for Crossness were to be mounted and altered to become stationary engines to drive centrifugal pumps. They were delivered to Crossness  by barge. The article goes on to describe the engines in detail.
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The Jubilee Line Extension Station. A celebration of Architecture and Engineering -  was the title of a seminar held by the British Cement Association and the Institution of Civil Engineers.  Malcolm Tucker, one of our members, has been kind enough to send a copy of the one the papers submitted - ‘The Contractors Tale’ by Rolv Kristiansen of Sir Robert MacAlpine.  This paper gives a lot of interesting details about the construction of the line from North Greenwich (ring me for a copy, 0181 858 9482). Of historical interest is the discovery under the Jubilee Line station footprint of a cast iron pipe ‘inserted deep into the gravel bed through which toxic wastes from the former gas works were discharged’.  It would have been interesting to have been to able to ask how they knew it was from the gas works and not from the  chemical works which had once been on site.

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KENT UNDERGROUND RESEARCH GROUP Newsletter No.63. This contains Mary Mills’ article on the possible Ice House at Lovell’s Wharf - giving details of the possible construction and ownership. The article notes that it was possibly built by a John Ashby in the 1890s and hopes that, despite the fact it has not been possible to get on site so far, that an investigation can eventually be done.

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Industrial Archaeology News - this (the newsletter of the national Association for Industrial Archaeology) records vents at their national conference held this year in Kent. They ventured twice into ‘Kentish London’ - so what did they think of us?
On the Sunday afternoon one party went to Crossness - and IA News published a nice photograph of some of the ‘Victorian splendour’ on view there and commented on the ‘four mighty beam engines’.
On the Thursday morning they went to Woolwich Arsenal. The visit was organised by Paul Calvocressi of English Heritage who also lectured to them about it on the previous evening. The party visited ‘the original cartridge works (later a bomb factory) from which can be seen some of the outstanding Grade I listed buildings’. This was ‘necessary because all the roads have been dug up and carted away in yet another fatuously expensive contaminated land clearance by outside contractors’.  In actual fact the coach lurched about the site up and down the ruts while Jack Vaughan heroically tried to give a commentary having had no briefing and almost unable to keep his balance! Meanwhile Paul coped with the second coach!.
Later they went to Avery Hill for lunch ‘the picturesque campus of Greenwich University which allowed a visit to the impressive Edwardian conservatories’. The afternoon visit was spent at David Evans silk mill at Crayford - well worth a visit!
Mary Mills gave the throat damaging commentary on the coach all day ‘comprehensive and erudite’ (gosh!). 

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BLACKHEATH GUIDE.  Neil Rhind outlined 19th century mod cons in Blackheath - and mentions the TV family who lived in the 19th century house in Charlton (which the whole world seems to have been watching avidly!) Neil also records that the Blackheath Preservation Trust has just taken over Brigade House in Brigade Street. It has been Lab One (who will stay on the ground floor) but was originally in 1871 the Village Station  fitted up, says Neil, with every mod con.  The firemen actually lived above the station  and old cooking ranges have been found walled up behind the plasterwork. Neil has discovered that these were made by Frederick William Cash, ironmonger and bellhanger, of 49 Montpelier Vale. Neil thinks Mr, Cash probably didn’t make the ranges there but just screwed his labels on them.  Neil goes on to comment on the life and times (and occasional drunkenness ) of the Blackheath firemen. Neil is much less industrial with an article about bazaars - but this lapse on his part is more than made up for by an article by Peter Kent which includes a splendid map of the river from Spice Island to Anchor and Hope. Peter illustrates and points out several items on the industrial waterfront.
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SLAS NEWSLETTER. The latest issue of the Southwark and Lambeth Archaeological Society Newsletter gives a short biographical piece under ‘Where are they now?’ on Richard Buchanan. Richard is of course one of our members, and is also very active in the Shooters Hill Group and in the Blackheath Scientific Society.   He mentions in particular the founding of the London Kiln Study Group of which he was treasurer which was triggered by the discovery of the Woolwich kiln. This turned up at Woolwich Ferry Approach  and was ‘the earliest stoneware on in England’  (er er errm, where is it now?)  [the kiln was finally digistised and destroyed in 2018]

MERIDIAN A PARK FOR ALL SEASONS In its October issue Greenwich freebee Meridian ran an item on Tree Planting on the Greenwich Peninsula.  This basically describes the planting arrangements for the new park alongside the Dome site.  It includes an interview with Bernard Ede, landscape architect, on the site.  It includes the statement ‘the team has deliberately rejected the current fashion in urban regeneration landscaping of referring to the area’s industrial past, although a working gasometer remains a landmark by the A102 (M) - to the dismay of Mr. John Prescott, the deputy Prime Minister’. Following this we wrote immediately to Mr. Ede inviting him to come and talk to the Society and tell us what his policy was, how it was derived, and what the rationale behind it was.  He faxed back immediately to say he would reply ‘on Monday’ but ever since then there has been a massive silence.
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In November Meridian ran an article on local buildings at risk.  Some of those they included were:
* the Royal Military Academy ‘an establishment at the heart of British military history. First established by Royal Warrant it moved to the present site in 1806 into the building designed by James Wyatt. A number of other buildings have been added since. The Gothic parade ground is 72- feet long and the centre block is based on the White Tower at the Tower of London. Michael Faraday lectured there. There is, says Meridian, a clear backlog of maintenance.
* the former Odeon (Coronet) cinema at the bottom of John Wilson Street and the Granada Cinema (Gala Club). The Coronet, now closed and due to be sold, is listed and is ‘a fine example of an Art Deco Cinema’. The Granada’s ‘exotic interior’ had a designer whose speciality was stage sets for the Russian ballet.
** the fine Art Deco HQ of RACS. Like the Coronet cinema this is boarded up. It is listed, has a fine tower and original Crittall windows. It is also for sale.
** Meridian also draws attention to the fine beam engines at Crossness - ‘painstakingly restored by a trust’.
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GREENWICH YACHT CLUB  CELEBRATES MOVE DOWNRIVER.   a note in the Greenwich Waterfront Community Forum News outlines the new centre at Pear Tree Wharf in an interview with Joyce Loman.

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GLIAS NEWSLETTER. The October 1999 Newsletter contains an article by Mary Mills on the Bulli wreck built in Greenwich by Lewis and Stockwell. It also contains an appeal by Brian Forristal  about lime kilns in everyday life. Surely some of the Greenwich kilns would-be of interest to him. Greenwich is mentioned again in ‘News from Greater London’ - if only commenting that the East Greenwich gas holder is still full of gas. The opening of the DLR line from Lewisham to Island Gardens is also mentioned.

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LETTER FROM AMERICA - Jack Vaughan
 No not THAT one! This one is from Mingus Mountain Machine Works, no less, in Arizona and contains a request for knowledge of a 40 ton steam hammer which worked at Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, in the 1870s.
The specific query related to the suggestion by the maker (Nasmyth, of course) that its use upset certain delicate instruments at the Greenwich Observatory, two miles away. I am seeking help from the Observatory but if any reader can offer anything the Society would gain credit thereby.
The hammer was reviewed by the Czar of Russia in 1874 on the occasion of its first use. That occasion was described in ‘Warlike Woolwich’ written in the late 1890s by W.T.Vincent (whose two volumes on Records of Woolwich & District’ are the standard source of Woolwich history.  I have a copy of ‘Warlike Woolwich’ and the above description could be copied for any interested member who is into steam hammers.
  
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NEWS FROM CREEKSIDE   The Creekside Open Meeting give some details of the new river wall works (that is the Ravensbourne River - Deptford Creek). The river wall is being clad with vertical elongated timbers. The wood is ‘tanalised’ which will not allow plant growth, although plants can grow in the deposited silt.  It had not been possible to use recycled wood for this because  it would be a non-standard size.



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Siemens Museum The Duke of Edinburgh's Visit

November 2, 2019, 3:54 am
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THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH’S VISIT
- Iain Lovell concludes his article on the Siemens Museum

On some matters however Dr Sutton was quite adamant. He wanted any exhibit  that could be made to work to be available for visitors to operate. Thus the water meter had to be connected to a power supply so that it could be operated by a push button. The Alphabetic Telegraph presented problems, as we had only one instrument containing transmitter and receiver The receiving dial was removed from its wooden housing, and set up at the opposite end of the display cabinet, connected by two wires emerging from the hole where it (the receiver) had been fixed. A glass pane was left out of the cabinet so that visitors could reach the transmitter handle to operate it. He reluctantly agreed that it would be impractical to have the visitor operate the Morse Inker or Soot Writer, and settled for messages on the paper tape, described above. We had attempted, at his request, to use the Sound Powered Telephone in conjunction with a modem earpiece. Much to John Arnold's relief these experiments failed, possibly because of mismatching impedances. When I told John that the Victoria Lamp was blown (though not that I had blown it) his comment was “thank God for that".

Another matter of contention was the Cable with the Ends Teased Out. John had identified as one of his themes for the exhibition the fact that early telephone distribution systems used huge arrays of wires on poles, which in modem times had been replaced with multicore cables. We had several excellent Edwardian photographs of streets festooned with wires, it only remained to acquire eighteen inches or so of modern multicore cable, and teased out the ends of the various layers to show how many there were. Terry Card knew the foreman of the shop where it was made, and offered to get an offcut. Dr Sutton felt that he should approach the manager of the Cable Division officially, as it would otherwise "upset a lot of people “. He also doubted Terry's ability tease out the ends neatly, rather an uncomplimentary remark to an instrument maker. However, the request was made, and weeks went by with nothing appearing, despite constant chivvying. We would sometimes sing about The Cable with the Ends Teased Out to the tune of “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top". Eventually, a few days before the visit, the exhibit appeared It was a display stand made of pine and covered with treacle varnish, into which were mounted about a dozen or so communications and light power cables, including coaxial wiring.  Far from demonstrating the compression of a festoon of wires into one neat cable, it suggested the substitution of one muddle for another. The effect was totally ruined. Terry renewed his offer to get some multicore cable, but Dr Sutton turned this down as he felt the Cable Division would be upset "after taking all that trouble'.

Eventually the time came to set up the exhibition. I was very impressed when I saw the walnut display cabinets for the first time. The legs were slightly curved and tapering along their length and also curved in section. The curves were continued into the upper part of the cabinet. Although of modern design (in 1958) they perfectly complimented the Victorian panelling of the library, each being related to the appropriate panel sizes. Inside, they were fitted with platforms of various heights, mounted inconspicuously on steel rods, all painted matt black, and tailored in size to match the exhibit to be displayed It gave the impression that the exhibits were floating within the cabinet. I was amazed that four slender rods could support quite comfortably the weight of the W40 Magneto Electric Machine. The notices were printed by a photographic process on to matt white panels, each supported by a rod of appropriate height. There were also panels with drawings reproduced from Victorian books and journals.

Setting up was not without its problems. We checked all the notices immediately and found a few with spelling mistakes, which had to be sent back and corrected. Two of the historic light bulbs, which appeared to have standard bayonet bases, were in fact a little too large to fit the modern lamp holders fitted in the display cases. A little gentle easing with pliers was necessary. Various office and shop floor workers seemed to be constantly moving in and out, sometimes meddling with the exhibits. The water meter was switched on before the circuit was sealed, splashing water everywhere.

The library was close to the offices of several senior executives, including that of Dr John Aldington, the managing director, who was out of the country until a few days before the visit. His secretary a statuesque, impeccably coiffured blonde with icy blue eyes and clicking high heels, made no attempt to hide her distaste for our presence. Surveying the packaging, tools and other items strewn about the floor as we worked, she would say "Oh dear, this dreadful mess will have to be cleared before The Doctor returns'. "The Doctor" was the expression she always used when referring to Dr Aldington. She looked particularly disapproving when she spotted the tank suit I used as a motorcycling outfit folded up with a crash helmet resting on it. Dr Sutton gave us a key, and permission to use the executive washroom nearby, which was invaluable as we needed constant to wash our hands, and required water to clean up parts of the exhibition fill the water meter etc. Executives coming in to find us there would at first look startled, then disapprovingly raise their eyebrows.

The most serious problem, which infuriated John Arnold, was the sudden and completely unannounced installation of radiators in the library. The display cabinets no longer fitted in the room. No one seemed to know who had ordered the work, when or why Appeals to get the work stopped, or at any rate deferred till after the visit, were to no avail. By moving two cabinets into the centre of the room John was able at least to keep the remaining cabinets against the wall, but the overall effect was greatly impaired. The final disaster came when workmen came to paint the radiators a muddy brown the day before the visit. They were by this time in use and hot, and gave off clouds of steaming paint. The stench was appalling. John appealed for something to absorb the smell, and in response crystalline tablets, of the type designed to disinfect lavatories, were placed in the room. This had the effect of making it smell like a lavatory. Half an hour or so before the Duke of Edinburgh's visit John Arnold was trying to dissipate the smell by flapping sheets of newspaper: This greatly amused the people who trundled through but did not amuse John Arnold at all.

The Duke of Edinburgh's visit was by most accounts very successful. On his arrival he was treated to a lecture illustrated with a large carefully drawn map of the works, with his planned itinerary clearly marked fn blue. Predictably, he soon broke away from this as was his wont on such occasions, and entered areas which had not been prepared for him. Some operatives, suddenly recognising him, cowered behind their machines, but were quickly reassured by his outgoing and friendly manner. He was taken into the museum, but made no attempt to play with any of the toys so carefully prepared for him. If he noticed the smell, he made no comment on it . He was in the room less than two minutes, and made some such remark as "Interesting set of old stuff you’ve got here" He was clearly more interested in talking to people than in looking at historic artefacts I am quite confident that I have not in any way reduced the quality of his life by depriving him of the opportunity to illuminate a glass effigy' of his great great grandmother in law.


This article appeared in the GIHS Newsletter January 2000



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Enderby Settlement Diaries - Barbara Ludlow

November 2, 2019, 4:53 am
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THE ENDERBY SETTLEMENT DIARIES
                                             - BARBARA LUDLOW

Many people are familiar with Enderby House, Enderby Wharf and Enderby Street in East Greenwich but until now little has been known about the ill-fated expedition to the Auckland Islands, one of which is called Enderby Island. In 1849 Charles Enderby of Greenwich left Plymouth in the Samuel Enderby whaling ship hoping to found a prosperous whaling station in this newly created British Colony to the south of New Zealand. Why? you may ask, did the senior partner of a once very successful shipping and whaling business go to a distant part of the world where there was nothing and worse, to put it mildly, the climate is not good.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century the Enderbys were looking for new whaling grounds and began exploring the southern oceans. Whales were scare in northern seas and the raw material which produced Enderby’s barrels of oil was much farther away from their base in London. At the beginning of the nineteenth century Enderby captains such as Bristow, the discoverer of the Auckland Islands in 1805/6 were away for several years but not returning with enough oil to cover the cost of the trip.  As the whaling ships went towards and into the Antarctic seas the cost of strengthening each vessel began to eat into profits, but Samuel Enderby and his son Charles were exited by and committed to exploration.

At the beginning of the 1830s Charles Enderby, who had become the senior partner in 1829, established a rope works and sail making factory on Greenwich Marsh, the site today of Enderby  Wharf and Alcatel.  Charles had a house built on the riverside by his works and it became both workplace and home for him.  His brothers George and Henry did not live there for long.  In 1837 Charles was approved to make a waterproof rope covering for telegraph wire but unfortunately failed in this enterprise as water seeped through the hemp. However, whilst he entertained explorers and scientists at Enderby House and listened to some glowing descriptions of places like the Auckland Islands, he put much effort into making the Greenwich rope works a success.

All this came to an end when on 8th March 1845 the majority of the East Greenwich works went up 
in flames. The damage to everything was extensive. This was a disaster for the company as they were not as prosperous as they had been and Charles set about seeking a way to revive their fortunes. He put forward the ideas of promoting a new whaling company with the help of the British Government. Alarmed at the decline of the nation's whaling industry the Government was eager to help.

In 1847 Sir James Ross, the famous Antarctic explorer, totally backed Charles Enderby’s choice of the Auckland Island as a fixed whaling station and in 1849 the Southern Whale Fishery company was granted a Royal Charter.  Charles was appointed the company's resident Chief Commissioner and the Crown conferred the office of Lieutenant Governor of the Auckland Islands on him. No doubt he wondered what honour would be bestowed upon him if the station were successful - Sir Charles Enderby or Lord Enderby of Greenwich?

The family fortunes were certainly in the balance as Charles sailed out of Plymouth on 18th August 1849. In October 1849 the following appeared in the Times ‘Messrs Charles Henry and George Enderby for many years connected with the whaling trade and lately engaged on a large scale as rope manufacturers at Greenwich, have announced themselves unable to meet their engagements. The general liabilities of the house are extremely small but it is feared that various members of the family will suffer severely.’  The paper also predicted that the Southern Whales Fishery Company could be nothing but an advantage to the Enderby firm, Alas this was not so. 

The colony only lasted a few years and by 1852 the Southern Whales Fishery Co, was facing financial disaster. For Charles it was also a personal disaster. His Assistant Commissioner, William Mackworth, age 25 years (Charles was 52 when he left England) tended to hold Enderby in disdain, declaring that he could not manage personnel, settlers,or the whaling.  Eventually the company sent Special Commissioners to take over from Charles in December 1851. They were back there to wind up the company  and Charles had reverted back to being called ‘Mr. Enderby’ instead of ‘His Excellency’. On 27th January 1852 Enderby was made to resign as Lt. Governor but he became angry over this and declared ‘ he was determined to shooter either Mackworth or any other man attempting to remove him or his effects by force’ . The Special Commissioner threatened to put Enderby in irons. In the end Charles Enderby took them to court in Wellington and eventually the whole affair became the subject of two detailed Parliamentary Papers. Charles Enderby returned to England in July 1853 and the firm of Enderby Brothers was formally wound up in 1854. Charles died in Fulham on 30th August 1876 in an ‘impecunious state’.

The diaries of William Mackworth, Assistant Commissioner and William Munce, Company Accountant, start on 1st January 1850 and finish on 13th August 1852. They have now been published in New Zealand. As well as a complete transcription of the diaries there are excellent chapters on all aspects of the Auckland Islands settlement. This 288 page book is well priced and contains 32 plates plus maps and plans.

I shall never walk past Enderby House again without thinking of Charles and his dreams of creating  a new whaling station in the Auckland Islands. Little did he know that it would all end in tears.

The book is edited by Dingwall, Fraser, Gregory and Robertson and is limited to 1,000 hand numbered copies. It is published by Wild Press, PO Box 12397, Wellington NZ and Wordsell Press PO Box 51168 Pakuranga, Auckland, NZ. Price £25 postage and packing included. ISBN 1 87245 01 1

 this article appeared in the GIHS Newsletter for March 2000 


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Reviews and snippets from March 2000

November 2, 2019, 5:19 am
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Reviews and snippets from March 2000

Many of the books reviewed below were self published  - and some authors have died, moved or run out of stock. So, most contacts of how they can be obtained have been removed.  Sorry.  Comments, where necessary in [ square brackets and italics].


‘Open History’Journal of the OU History Society contains a rant by Mary Mills on ‘Writing about the History of the Greenwich Dome site’.. It tries to take on some impoprtant, and unpopular issues. 

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Michael Rose has drawn our attention to the astonishing offer from the Woolwich Equitable Building Society which originally appeared in Greenwich Time. This is for FREE  copies of a history of the Society. The book is a proper hard backed book,  lavishly produced and packed with pictures of Greenwich, Woolwich and Bexley in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries - and after all the Woolwich itself must count as a local industry.

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‘Under the Dome’ appeared in January 2000 edition of The Oldie about how the author, Oliver Bernard, spent his holidays charging retorts at East Greenwich gasworks.  He seems to have enjoyed it.
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‘Gaslight’ is produced by the North West Gas Historical Association. In its January 2000 edition is an article about Gas Company Steam Wagons. This says that a former South Metropolitan Gas Company Sentinel wagon from East Greenwich Gas Works is now dismantled in store in Lancashire.  It was built in 1936 and the registration number was CWX13.

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 ‘Rail Roots on Site of Dome’ by Peter Excell appeared in the January 2000 Railway Magazine. This outlines the background to the railway inside East Greenwich Gas Works - although in less detail than the article by Malcolm Millichip which appeared last year. It also describes a visit by the Locomotive Club of Great Britain in 1963.  They went to United Glass at Charlton and then to the gas works.  Their final comment is that the Dome is unlikely to ‘contain anything as spectacular as a gas retort and coke car’.

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‘Festival Times’ the newsletter of the Festival of Britain Society has made an astounding discovery - and one which some of our members might be able to help with.  The quote a letter from a ‘lady living in Surbiton’ who claims to know what happened to the roof beams of the Dome of Discovery (well sort of, anyway).  It was demolished in 1952 when she was a 13 year old living in Kidbrooke.  Her school had been badly damaged in the war but a new semi-circular hall was built which used the beams from the Dome of Discovery .... so .. does anyone know where it was?  ......... er.. er.. it can’t be Kidbrooke School because that was new .... and Eltham Green and Crown Woods don’t semi circular halls.... and ... and ......
[it wasn't.  Kidbrook School pre-dates the Dome - and in any case we eventually heard from the site engineer on the Dome of Discovery and he said 'nonsense' and 'I've got all the sections in my attic'. 

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MERIDIAN for February 2000 has an interview with Tom Taylor-Benson of English Partnerships about their plans for the Woolwich Arsenal site. It is, they say, ‘the last hidden jewel of English Military Architecture’ and that ‘whatever we bring into the site must not damage the existing shops and businesses to the west of it’.   
In the same issue is an article by Mary Mills on the Ceylon Place cottages at East Greenwich.

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ALCATEL have produced a booklet on their history ‘Greenwich. Centre for Global Telecommunications from 1850’. 
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Reg Barter has written to say that he and his associates have now formed the Swiftstone Trust.  Swiftstone is a Tug built by Richard Dunston at Thorne in 1952/3. She is 80 feet long, 19 feet  ins wide and 9 feet, 6 ins deep.  She is made of welded and riveted steel and has a Lister Blackstone ERS8 600 bhp@ 750rpm engine. The Trust will promote the benefit to the environment by increasing the use of the Thames and bring about a greater public understanding of the Thames as a working river through history.  There is a web site at www.thames.org.uk   In June Swiftstone will go to Dunkirk as the support vessel for the little ships crossing - and it is thought this might be the last time that many of the remaining small boats will be able to make it.  On June 17th she will be involved in a Tug Push as part of the  annual barge driving race - when watermen row ‘under oars’ 30 ton barges between the palaces of Greenwich and Westminster . Swiftstone will accompany the race to Westminster  but beforehand will have battled with Touchstone head to head in a reverse tug of war.

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In our last issue we drew attention to the Woolwich kiln with reference to a note about Richard Buchanan who had been involved in the founding of the London Kiln Study Group which was triggered by the discovery of the Woolwich kiln. This had been found at Woolwich Ferry Approach  and was ‘the earliest stoneware on in England’ . We asked if anyone could tell us where it was now ...  happily Greenwich Borough Museum knows all about it. Curator, Beverley Burford has written to say

“ The Woolwich kiln is stored at the Royal Arsenal Site. It is encased and measures in length 18ft, width 14ft, and height 10 ft, weighing in at over 20 tons!  The kiln was moved (necessitating a low loader and a police escort) to its present location from the Tunnel Avenue depot in 1990.”

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Visit to White Hart Depot. In February a party from the Society and from GLIAS visited the Council’s White Hart Road depot. The Council have recently vacated this site which was originally occupied by municipal industries set up in the 1890s by what was then Woolwich Metropolitan Borough. It contains an important and dramatic complex of buildings which housed the original, and very early, Woolwich power station which generated electricity from local rubbish.  A report on this visit will appear in a future issue. In the meantime we have written to ask the Council the following questions:-

· What are the future plans for the site?
· What is the current listing status of the buildings?
· If there is any question of demolition or radical alterations, will a proper researched recording, or at least a photographic survey be carried out?
· The gates of the Red Barracks  and two iron plaques – marked with a monogram VR - which we think are part of the gates of the Cambridge Barracks  - were  lying in the open rotting unprotected. Can they be taken indoors?
· We were unable to see - some railings missing from the site of the Red Barracks in Francis Street  or the foundation stone of the Woolwich coffee tavern. We understood they were stored at White Hart - where are they? 
· We saw several piles of stone, bricks tiles, etc. lying around. If these were stored because they were of historic interest does the borough know what they are? Is there some record of them and  how they should be reassembled. If the site is cleared will they be safely stored elsewhere?
· We only saw a tiny fraction of the depot. There are probably  many  things of interest hidden in holes and corners – one of our members noticed a 1/- in the slot meter still in its bag carefully stored away for future use by a tenant!    Will local museums and archives have the chance to take items for store?

Greenwich and Woolwich have lots of important buildings. If this one was anywhere else everyone would be something we all raved about - but here it is overlooked.  We ought to take some notice of it. Thanks to Mo and Ian for showing us round.

PS. Ian told us about a ghost there too .........

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Ghosts in the Arsenal  ..... don’t tell English Partnerships but ....... David Riddle has found a note from the Fortean Times concerning ghosts in the Arsenal where ‘one gets a distinct feeling of being watched’.  

There is, he says an archway where the Duke of Wellington used to ‘spike the heads’ of ‘recalcitrant prisoners’ - this is now ‘close to freezing even on the hottest days’. The building was used by the Royal Navy in WWII and an old lady working at her desk heard the air raid sirens as a labourer put coal on the fire - she fell dead - and it was discovered that a cartridge case accidentally left in the coal had discharged and shot her in the neck.!!! Also you can hear a young girl coughing in the main building .. they say its atmospheric pressure ..... but .... a young secretary died of consumption there.... And a servant committed suicide by hanging himself from the balcony when he was accused of theft after 25 years service. .. And you can hear marching footsteps.........and .. in building 11 was a WW1 major with ‘eyes glowing softly’  who checked out the models stored there...... and he tore all the light fittings out of their sockets after a search ....... and in Building 2 is an elderly lady who keeps walking down the stairs, and again, and again, and again. .... and  ........in the First World War there was a 19 year old soldier who shot himself rather than go to Ypres and when his country is threatened he stands outside the Guard House ................. and ......... .... and   ......  and .......

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...... horse power .... surely the arrival of shire horses Merlin and Thomas at Woodlands Farm, count as industry....



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More memories of a ROF Apprentice

November 2, 2019, 5:25 am
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MORE MEMORIES OF A ROF APPRENTICE 

..  another instalment of John Day's memories of his life as an apprentice in the Arsenal ...  John describes his move to the pattern shop .....

.................The foreman of the Pattern Shop was Clarke. His office was in the north- west corner of the building on a kind of mezzanine floor and he had a system of mirrors looking down so that he could see what was happening on every bench. All the apprentices took the opportunity to make themselves a toolbox and the foreman told the shop labourer to smash it with a sledge hammer. I made two boxes, one in pine to hold my teamaking equipment and the other in mahogany, which was kept in a drawer and never assembled. I told Clarke that the pine box was to keep the dust  from my cup and it was allowed to remain - he never knew about the mahogany one.

Near the Pattern Shop was the Pattern Store, where the ground floor was used for wooden mock-ups of tanks to find out how much could be stowed and still leave space for the crew. One of the apprentices surreptitiously moved everything several feet forward and opened a little door to drive his Austin Seven into the space. He then fitted it with a beautiful two seater body painted battleship grey. When we drove it out through the main gate I had a ‘Brooklands’ silencer for my own Austin between the floor boards.

From the Pattern Shop the next step was the Brass Foundry. There I spent most of my time moulding skimmer cores and brackets for the wires of overhead cranes. A great deal of the casting was done in manganese bronze and in the inlet passage the molten metal was made to duck under a cubic core to skim out slag. The “core box” for these was a block of brass with a hole of about an inch and a half square. I made them by the dozen. They went into the core oven to dry - this oven had other uses. It was ideal for roasting potatoes for a mid - morning snack. At times I had other castings to mould. 

Risers were made in which steel rods were pumped up and down to make sure the molten metal filled all the space in the mould. I spent some days casting arming vanes for torpedoes. The mould was made in steel having six wedge shaped pieces to be pulled out to release the fan shaped casting. I stood by a crucible of molten aluminium, ladled it into the mould, gave the mould a bash with a mallet, took the mould apart, took out  an arming vane, put the mould together and started all over again. It was not a popular job, especially in the summer.

Next was a spell as a centre lathe turner back in the New Fuze Tool Room. I was put on an old 8 inch Le Blond lathe. Apprentices always got the most worn-out lathe - if we could do a good job with that, we could certainly use a more modern tool. Jobs varied from 0.2 in. diameter striker pins to 4 in. diameter bronze discs. Working next to me was a rotund, red faced, cheery character who had a mind like an engineer’s pocket book. He had instant recall of all the decimals for fractions of an inch by sixty -fourths, the sizes of number and letter drills and the thread depths of all the screw pitches - all to four figures ! In our fourth or fifth year we were given a turning test. For this we were given the choice of  drawings of jobs that could be done in less than a day and given a very modern lathe in the Carriage Tool Room to make it on. The lathes were so complicated compared to the old clapped - out ones we were used to, that we either spent the morning trying to find out how everything worked or, as I did, nipped back to the old machine that we knew and machined the test piece on that.

The second spell was in the Light Gun shop. Guns, particularly in the breech, use at lot of odd, large size countersunk screws. These were the province of the apprentices as they did not rate well in the piecework stakes, but the saving grace was that an apprentice had the right to refuse to make more than twenty  three of any one thing. It was realised that they were there to learn and not to take part in production. One job was a number of Morse taper sleeves of the larger sizes, which meant that the internal taper hole was longer than the travel of the lathe top slide. Apprentice lathes did not have the luxury of taper turning attachments. I complained to the foreman, he knocked me out of the way, did one and then said you will do the ****** rest. Another lesson, if one can do the job, a subordinate has no grounds for complaint.

This article appeared  in the March 2000 Newsletter
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North Woolwich Pleasure Gardens

November 2, 2019, 5:29 am
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EXTRA EVERYTHING AND
EVERYTHING EXTRAORDINARY - 

another extract from Howard Bloch’s history of the North Woolwich Pleasure Gardens.

Arthur  McNamara, a haulage contractor employed by Eastern Counties Railway became manager of the gardens in 1855 but was succeeded by Edward McNamara, probably related. Over the next four years they spent over £20,000 on improvements, described in the Stratford Times as ‘Dinners of every description and wines of good quality can be obtained (in the hotel) throughout the day at prices which considering the excellent manner in which the dinners are served, and the excellent attendance, are exceedingly moderate .... The gardens themselves are admirably laid out. A broad, long terrace runs for some distance by the side of the river; at the back are pleasant winding walks bordered by fresh green turf and beds of gay flowers, a maze and gipsy’s tent is in one part, a rifle gallery in another, in the centre of the grounds is a large ballroom, and a little beyond a refreshment room, half marquee and half booth. Beyond this again is a capital specimen of an Italian garden, brilliant with scarlet geraniums,  and at the end is a large platform for dancing , adorned with an orchestra.  Chinese in form and decoration and by crossing the visitor arrives at the margin of a small lake, on the opposite shores of which a stage is erected for the performance of drawing room entertainment's and the display of poses plastiques.  The grounds are of considerable extent so open that a pleasant breeze is generally to be found playing about them, rendering them cool and refreshing even in the hottest days.  At nights too, when they are lighted up the effect is charming, and not the least effective of the illuminations are two fountains, in which the combination of artificial light and dancing waters is most capitally contrived.

Charles Bishop succeeded McNamara in 1862, going there after a fire had burnt down the Surrey Music Hall in  June 1861. He ran the gardens until 1867.

During the next period of their history the gardens came under the control of two of the leading music hall managers - Charles Morton and William Holland. Morton, who had established the concept of music hall with the Canterbury Hall, Lambeth, became manager after that had been destroyed in a disastrous fire on 11th February 1868.  He set to work immediately and trees and flower beds were out in order, buildings overhauled, a new stage erected in the Concert Hall and two new dancing platforms built. 

On Whit Monday 1868 about 17,000 people went to the gardens where they were entertained by a programme which included a Volunteer band, playing on the esplanade, Jean Price and Gevani on the trapeze, a concert in the main hall by Miss FitzHenry, Miss Kate Stanley and Mr. Jonghmans and the ballet ‘ Le Demon de Paradis’. To mark the visit of Lord Napier to Woolwich in July 1868 Morton staged a spectacular representation of his victory in Abyssinia. The desired effect was achieved by erecting a painting of the ‘March of the English through Abyssinia’ and the ‘Storming of the Magdala’ and a contingent of Volunteers firing off rifles and mortars to massed brass bands and  a display of fireworks.

This article appeared in the March 2000 GIHS Newsletter
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Greenwich Pier

November 2, 2019, 5:32 am
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GREENWICH PIER

Thanks to Sally Maschiter we have been shown an extract from a PLA report (No.RNB15/UK/1098/1)  on Greenwich Pier, compiled by R.N.Bray.

The document pieces together a history of the Pier.  The original Act of Parliament for the Greenwich Pier Company was passed in 1836. This was for a pier 175 feet long sited upon the present upstream portion of the pier. Later that year the Act was amended to allow the company to extend down stream over land owned by Greenwich Hospital and the Ship Tavern.

In 1843 dredging in front of the pier was reported to lead to a sudden collapse on 16th May - the foundations were distorted and the toe of the riverside face of the pier had moved outwards. This was illustrated in the Pictorial Times.   The pier appears to have been reconstructed but no documentation on this has been found. 

In 1954 part of the up stream end of the pier was dismantled to allow the Cutty Sark into its dock. A drawing of the pier’s construction was made by those involved in this work. This shows that York stone landings were laid on a mat of 15” x 4” timbers. The timber was supported on two rows of 16” x 3” timbers tied at the top with timber whaling while the outer edges of the landings rest on cast iron piles, tied back by 2” tie rods to an undermined point in the fill.  The brick wall is stepped backwards from the top width of 14” to the bottom width of 48”. Timber piers (or counterforts) have a concrete backing to the wall between them.  There was a 7’ high chamber behind the top of the wall on the upstream corner which had no apparent use. A large (6’ x 3’) oval sewer ran along the south bank of the river and curved to run through the pier and discharged from the up-stream end of the front face. 

This sewer also had a bricked branch going downstream through the pier.  This may, or may not, be an accurate description of the original foundation or it may be an improved design used after the problems in 1843.

Both the re-constructed up-stream and original downstream ends of the pier seem to be tied back with tie rods. Up-stream are 2” diameter rods installed in 1955, the downstream rods are smaller and were shown by the two inspection pits.

The report notes been four hydrographic surveys  - 1924, 1930, 1974 and 1997 - relating to the variation of the levels of the foreshore. Generally it seems that currently the foreshore level is higher than it was in the past - important information because the level of the foreshore affects the stability of the pier wall.

So - the report concludes: - the upstream corner and end wall of the pier date from 1955 - the main pier frontage dates from after 1843 - the downstream corner and side wall  probably date from 1836 - the level of the river bed in front of the pier has not changed significantly in 75 years, meaning that scour is not a problem.


This article appeared in the March 2000 GIHS Newsletter
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Woolwich at the Royal Arsenal Woolwich

November 2, 2019, 1:08 pm
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WOOLWICH AT THE ROYAL ARSENAL WOOLWICH - 

by Jack Vaughan

Some members may have visited Bicton Gardens, near Exeter - one attraction of which is a narrow gauge railway system operated in the main by locomotives and rolling stock which for many years worked on the Royal Arsenal Railway.  Of special interest are the diesel locos ‘Carnegie’ named after the C.O.S.F. at the Arsenal in the 1930s, and the ‘Woolwich’, a 1916 0-4-0 oil fired steam loco.
I have a soft spot for the ‘Woolwich’ having had the privilege of working on its maintenance during my own apprenticeship in the 1930s. Sadly the whole system is to be auctioned off, if possible as a whole. In the event of this failing individual items will become available.

The preliminary valuation is £45,000 for the whole system. Unfortunately if a system sale fails the ‘Woolwich’ considered the jewel in the crown, is valued at around £25,000 as a single item.

It goes without saying that the proper final resting place for ‘Woolwich’ is where it was born, in the re-vamped Arsenal.  It would, even as a static exhibit, give some character to the site - which it will never under the present owners, obsessed as they are with tourism and recreation.

The finding of £25,000 plus cost of transporting the loco to the Arsenal would be a formidable task and would need professional guidance in ‘raising the wind’, but not to at least make the attempt will bring shame on Council, English Partnerships, and, indeed, the people of Woolwich.

This piece appeared in the May 2000 GIHS Newsletter

- that newsletter also contained this piece about some of the Woolwich buildings

BUILDINGS OF THE ROYAL ARSENAL, WOOLWICH


Of the many important buildings inside the Arsenal site two of the most important can be easily seen from the Arsenal entrance in Warren Lane. These are the east and west Pavilions of the Royal Laboratory.

They were built in 1694-6 when the Royal Laboratory moved to Woolwich from Greenwich.  They were once the centre pieces of the two long sides of a quadrangle of buildings, all used for the manufacture of shot. They are of two storeys, five bays in width and built of brick. The main elevations face inwards and have stone quoins and dressings.  The western building still has the Royal Cypher of William III on its pediment -although this has been rebuilt.

The two buildings were changed a great deal in the 19th century when the quadrangle was roofed over as an ammunition factory in 1853-4 - using an iron framed roof.  It is still possible to see evidence of this on the western front of the eastern building, where the console brackets of the doorcase have been replaced in cast iron but with eyes to allow for the passage of line shafting..    At the time the main laboratory workshop was said to be the largest  machine shop in the world -  under one roof it contained more than 500 lathes. 

Both buildings have modern roofs. The eastern one is flat but the western one is whipped and carried on light weight steel trusses.  In side the western pavilion there is no first floor and it appears that there never was one -although he large scale OS map of 1866 appears to show a stair.

The Main Guard House - which is the main foot entrance building from Warren Lane - was built in 1788 by Isaac Ashton at a time when James Wyatt was Architect to the Board of Ordnance (although Wyatt does not appear to have been involved).  It was built for the army whose responsibility was to guard the Arsenal until the 1880s.  It is built of stock brick with stone bands, a cornice and a tetrastyle Doric portico on its principal  front, which faces onto Dial Square (inside the Arsenal complex).  This portico is an early example of the correct use of the Grecian order, without base.
Inside the building is very much altered and is used by English Partnerships.


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Robinson's Flour Mills. Deptford Bridge

November 2, 2019, 1:17 pm
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ROBINSON'S FLOUR MILLS, DEPTFORD
BRIDGE,

In 1887 ‘The Miller’ ran an article describing Robinson’s Deptford Bridge Mill - the following extracts have been sent to us thanks to Chris Rule.
This appeared in the GIHS Newsletter in May 2000

‘The Deptford Bridge Flour Mills are very conveniently situated for flour milling purposes, being connected to the Thames by a tidal dock, navigable for barges, for the reception of wheat.  The proprietors are Messrs. J.&H.Robinson, who have long been known in the trade in connection with the Lewisham Flour Mills.  After the fire on 22nd December 1881 which totally destroyed the mills built in 1870, Messrs. Robinson determined to rebuild on the site of the mill ruins and fit up the plant on the roller mill system.  The mills, which are substantially built, have eight floors, and the building is 92 feet long and 66 feet wide.

Structurally the building is arranged so as to minimise the risk of fire as far as possible, the warehouse, wheat cleaning department, and the roller mill proper being separated by thick fireproof walls and having no communication with each other, except by the iron galleries outside the building communicating on each floor. Each of these galleries has a communication with the fire alarm and a dial.  On the fire alarm sounding the men make their way to the nearest dial and there ascertain the locality of the fire, to which they proceed taking all the necessary appliances, which are in the recesses of the galleries, to cope with any fire that may occur.  Each gallery is provided with hose connected to the hydrant pipe, which is connected to the stationary fire engine and city main on the ground floor.  Thus the whole of the premises are well guarded in case of fire.By means of the tidal dock, the wheat is unloaded under two lukums direct from the barges into the warehouse and after being well cleaned in the wheat cleaning department, is reduced to flour and offals in the roller mill proper.

ROLLER MILL PROPER

The roller mill proper contains two distinct plants, together having a capacity of about 30 sacks per hour.  Each plant of machinery has a separate engine so that if a stoppage occurs by any unforeseen event the whole mill is not forced to be idle.  The machinery of the two plants are arranged on the several floors in the following order:
The ground floor is occupied by the main and other shafting, which drive the roller mills and other machinery on the floor above. On the first floor are arranged 33 of Gray’s roller mills with four horizontal rolls, and three pairs of millstones.  The wheat is broken in both plants by grooved rails on the system of six breaks.  The semolina and middlings are reduced in eight reductions on smooth rolls,  and the ‘flouring’ of the purified dunst is effected in each case on one pair of millstones. On the second floor are ten pairs of roller mills and the spouts conveying the different products from the dressing machines on the floors above to the reducing machinery on the first floor. The spouts are arranged so that an easy inspection of the material can be made.

The first break is effected on this floor by a Robinson’s roller mill, with grooved chilled iron rolls. Partitioned off from this floor is a sack cleaning room and a dust collector to receive the exhaust from the roller mills. On the third, fourth and fifth floors are 60 long silk reels 4½ sheets long. The silk reels are placed 14 in one line and five tiers high, passing through three floors and driven by upright shafts connected to the reels by gearing.

On the sixth floor are ten scalpers for the first, second, third, fourth and fifth breaks and four centrifugals. The purifiers consist of 12 Gray’s gravity purifiers and 26 of Geo.T.Smith’s purifiers, distributed nearly equally between the fourth, fifth and sixth floors.

And on the seventh floor are eight centrifugals, two of which act as scalpers for the sixth break, two ‘shorts’ dusters and four grading silk reels.  Here are five lines of lay shafting, by which means the upright fts of the silk reels are driven. Power is transmitted to this lay shafting by two belts, 21 inches wide, and 150 feet in length.  The top floor is used as a dunst room.


WAREHOUSE

The warehouse division of the mill on the one side, and the wheat cleaning department on the other side, the latter being a quadrangular structure adjoining the warehouse has eight floors and is capable of holding 7,000 quarters of wheat.  The two top floors are utilised for the offals and the remaining floors are used as a granary, containing three flour bins over the ‘Eureka’ flour packers, wheat bins for cleaned and other wheats, and a storing space for wheat and flour in sacks.

WHEAT CLEANING DEPARTMENT

The cleaning of the wheat is performed in quite a distinct department, separated from the warehouse adjoining by a thick, fire proof wall, and the cleaning operation is effected by two Van Gelder separators, a Barnard and Leas separator and a small cockle cylinder on the sixth floor, two smutters and 25 Van Gelder scourers, two stone scourers and a cylinder for removing the remaining wheat from the barley product on the fourth floor; two Victor brush machines and a cylinder for separating the remaining wheat from the cockle product are on the third floor. The wheat is then ready to be manufactured into flour in the roller mill proper.  The two top floors of the wheat-cleaning department are used as a dust or smut room, the first floor as the foreman’s office and the second floor as a workshop for doing repairs.  The workshop contains two lathers one of which is 18 feet in length, a saw bench, band saw, vices and smaller tools that may be required for repairing parts of machinery.

MOTIVE POWER

The motive power required to drive the two roller plants is obtained from a horizontal compound engine and two beam engines situated at each end of the mill, so that both plants of machinery can work entirely independent of one another.  The horizontal engine, named the Gladstone, has high and low pressure cylinders, 20 in and 87 in diameter and a 36 in stroke. This engine is capable of producing 400 indicated horse power and has a fly wheel 12 ft in diameter. The steam is obtained from three of Davy Paxman’s multitubular boilers.  The two compound engines which are situated at the opposite end of the roller mill, have a fly-wheel 16ft in diameter and are capable of producing 300 indicated horse power.  The steam required to drive these two engines is obtained from three boilers. The wheat cleaning machinery is driven by a separate vertical compound engine of 120 indicated horse power. 

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Crossness Destructor, another view

November 2, 2019, 1:21 pm
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ANOTHER VIEW OF THE CROSSNESS DESTRUCTOR

A new European regulation came into force in December 1998 prohibiting the dumping of sewage sludge into the North Sea.  Thames Water were therefore disposing of their daily fleet of boats and now despatch the most harmful sludge from throughout their  area, some 40% of the total, to two new incinerator installations, one at Crossness, and the other, of similar design but slightly larger in size at Beckton.  These two sites will handle more than 100,000 tonnes of sludge annually.

The remaining 60% of less harmful sludge will continue to be dealt with at local plants such as Mogden.

The Crossness incinerator and ancillary equipment is housed in a modern building of striking design some 12 storeys high, soundproofed to ensure that noise levels at the site boundaries remain at previous levels, and was officially opened in November 1998.
At the time of the Newcomen Society visit, because of the extremely empirical nature of the technology and the advanced concepts employed, detailed experimentation was still taking place to identify, rank and optimise the critical operating parameters and techniques.

Upon receipt at Crossness, the sludge is pumped into reservoir tanks of sufficient capacity to provide up to 10 days buffer storage to cater for possible emergency shutdowns.  A poly electrolyte is then added to convert the sludge into a solid suspension in free liquid.

Two Dorr Oliver filter presses which operate singly allowing maintenance on the standby unit, expel the liquid, leaving a damp cake-like material. As the optimum press technique had not, at the time of our visit, yet been established an attendant has for the moment to physically check that each filter bag has completely emptied at the completion of the cycle, and to rake the bag clear if needed. A throughput of 3 ½ tons/hour is currently being achieved. 

This damp precipitate is then conveyed, via a holding silo, to the incinerator, which operates on a fluidised bed suspended sand principle. The sludge cake is in the combustion zone for 3 seconds at a temperature of 950oC, sufficiently high to ensure vaporisation of the heavy metal content.
Natural gas firing is employed for start up and to augment as approximate the natural combustion process.  Depending on the prevalent dryness factor of the incoming cake, self combustion alone may provide sufficient heat input once the process has been successfully initiated.

The dust laden exhaust gas then passes through a Waste Heat Boiler; the steam thereby produced at 42 bar drives a 5.9 Mega watt turbo alternator operating at 6.6KV.

Depending again on the quality and condition of the sludge cake at any given time,  sufficient power can br produced to drive all the auxiliary plant on the site, whilst in the extremes some additional power may be needed from the National Grid or there could be a small surplus of power for export.
From the waste heat boiler the gases flow through an ash and heavy metal removal system in which activated lignite coke is employed to trap the heavy metal content, the ash then being stored prior to removal by road transport to a licensed landfill site. Average  rated throughput, 30 tons of ash is produced per day.

After then passing through gas cleaning and scrubbing towers the gas is reheated to ensure a sufficiently high temperature to void acidic condensation, analysed in detail to provide records for environmental control and  overall plant optimisation and then discharged throughout the station chimney which is approximately one third as high again as the 12 storey incinerator building
The whole plant is remotely controlled from a single control room with the incinerator  functioning automatically.

The Crossness and Beckton stations were both constructed by the AMEC-Luigi consortium, the overall contract being worth £125m.  Although these plants represent the very latest ‘state of the art’ practice similar equipment exists abroad, Incineration disposes of about 50% of sludge in Japan, 25% in the USA and 15% in Germany
John Elderton

This appeared in the May 2000 GIHS Newsletter




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Reviews and snippets May 2000

November 2, 2019, 1:40 pm
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Reviews  and snippets May 2000


WELLING MINES

Kent Underground Research Group Newsletter tells how they were approached by Railtrack about a stone mine in Welling - they eventually suggested some of the Plumstead chalk mines. Railtrack then came back and said, ‘oh, sorry - we meant Welwyn Garden City’.

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LOVELL’S WHARF
The March Bygone Kent has in it yet another article by Mary Mills on Lovell’s Wharf.

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MERRYWEATHER
David Riddle has drawn attention to  the Ipswich Transport Museum’s web site. (http://www/geocities.com/MotorCity/Downs/8806/fire.htm)  This describes a Merryweather Manual Fire Escape discovered being used for repainting the Felixstowe lamp posts. 

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GLIAS NEWSLETTER
The latest GLIAS newsletter contains much of interest to Greenwich members - Bill Firth’s account of the visit to White Hart Road depot and a note on the new booklet on ‘Greenwich:Centre for Global Telecommunications’ produced by Alcatel.

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THE GUIDE
The March Guide magazine included an excellent illustrated article on the Greenwich waterfront by Peter Kent.  It includes some information and a drawing of the Greenwich Ferry the remains of which can still be seen on the foreshore.  Elsewhere in the issue Neil Rhind describes the background to Phoenix House which once stood in Blackheath - now Montpelier Vale.  This was once Washerwomen’s Row - which is, of course, industrial history.

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Subterranea Brittanica have just published their Winter 2000 Bulletin 31. Nothing about Greenwich in it - but there is an article by Mary Mills on ‘John Williams and the Metropolitan Subways’. 

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CREEKSIDE NEWS.The latest mailing from the Deptford Creekside team includes a list of projects by the Groundwork Foundation Office in the area - what the money was spent on. These include:

** Wood Wharf - £2,000 on a detailed technical survey and business plan for a Heritage Lottery Fund application in 1997
**  Changing Creekside Video - £5,000 in 1997, £4,100 in 1998.
** Pepys Waterfront - installation of five heritage interpretation panels. 3D interpretation of Drake’s circum-navigation of the World. £7,500 in 1997.
** East Greenwich waterfront - renovation of Enderby Wharf and Alcatel Jetty. £43,000 in 1999. ** **  Primrose Pier, East Greenwich, Renovation. £32,500, Morden Wharf interpretation panels on contemporary industry and its interaction with the Thames - £125,000; Programme of public space and access improvements, heritage interpretation £31,500, Safeguarding cranes at Lovell’s Wharf  £800.
** Macmillan Legacy - research project on heritage of the Macmillan sisters. £5,130.
** St.Nicholas Church - renovation of churchyard and new ceremonial gates. £9,200.


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NEWS FROM CROSSNESS

First of all we must congratulate Crossness Engines Trust on their splendid new look ‘Record’ - .inside it is 
** an article on ‘Penstocks in the Beam Engine House’ and their particular reference to  Crossness. The ones currently in situ date from 1884 and the article details their specification and installation
** a report from the 1880s on the ‘awful smell’ attributed to the Crossness works - and the horrors of the Skutch Works at Belvedere (which drowned out anything Crossness had to offer!!).
** an extract from the Illustrated London News on a visit to the works by the Prince of Wales in 1865.
**  a report on how the work is going on cleaning the engines and .. and ... they hope to have an initial steaming in February 2001.

WOOD WHARF - by Phillip Binns 
Wood Wharf is just upriver of Cutty Sark Gardens. Until a few years ago it was a busy boat repair yard owned by Pope and Bond. When Westminster Council decided to stop transferring rubbish by river they lost boat repair contracts - and since then the site has been taken over by developers.
The new owner of Wood Wharf has recently submitted a planning application to demolish all the existing buildings on the site and to erect in their place an eight storey mixed use development. 
Greenwich Industrial History Society has written to Greenwich Planners expressing concern on many aspects of the development but particularly at its unacceptable height and that it would constitute an over-development of the site, as well as increase traffic movements.  The style of design is also criticised as being wholly out of character with this particular stretch of river.
It is regrettable that nowhere in the development are there any proposals for retaining some boat repair facilities given that the scheme proposes the retention of the Massey Shaw mooring on the foreshore, in addition to introducing new ferries to access other vessels.
At a recent meeting of the Society a petition was signed by the 20 members present opposing the scheme on the grounds of height and the threat to the remains of the former Greenwich Steam Ferry.  This arises from the proposal to erect a new board walk linking the existing Thames Path to the Greenwich Reach 2000 development immediately upstream, which would result in the destruction of the engine chamber and boiler room of the ferry.
The petition has also been passed to Greenwich Planning and it is expected that the application will come in for strong criticism from residents of the nearby Meridian Estate as well as from Creekside Forum, London Rivers Association and English Heritage.

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BARBARA LUDLOW has written to say that she has some copies of her book available 
That is  Images of England: Greenwich. 

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SHIPWRIGHT’S PALACE
The old Master Shipwright’s house from Deptford Dockyard is now the ‘Shipwright’s Palace’.

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LLOYD’S REGISTER

In March Docklands History Group heard Barbara Jones, Information Officer and Archivist of Lloyd’s Register, give an account of the history of this ship classification system - which has a strong Greenwich connection.  Here is an extract from their write up of what she said:

Lloyd’s Register started in 1760 in Edward Lloyd’s coffee house, Lombard Street, City of London.  Today it is an international company with 4,500 employees in 280 offices worldwide.   As well as ships it has a Land Division covering the survey of oil refineries, pipelines, floating oil rigs, power stations, aircraft, escalators, nuclear reactors and much else.   It must not be confused with the insurance organisation ‘Corporation of Lloyds’ - although both originated at the same coffee house.
The first known Chairman of Lloyd’s Register of Shipping was John Julius Angerstein - whose Greenwich home is now Woodlands, our Local History Library. 

In the mid-1700s London trade was growing fast and it was realised that classification of the condition of ships was essential if underwriters were to be able to ensure valuable cargoes.  The idea of a Register of vessels was put forward in 1760 but the first surviving official register is for 1764-6.  The original classification was simple - the hulls were ‘A’,’E’, ‘I’, ‘O’ or ‘U’ with ‘A’ being the best.  Equipment was ‘G’, ‘M’ or ‘B’ - good, middling or bad.  So ‘AG’ meant the vessel was a good risk to insure, while ‘UB’ was dodgy, to say the least.    By 1775 the classification system had altered and a ship  previously classed as ‘AG’ became ‘A1’ - thus the legendary and talismanic phrase ‘A1 at Lloyds’, an indication of top quality.

There was however considerable rivalry between the Underwriters Registers - the ‘green’ books - and the Shipowners Register - the ‘red books’.  This went on for 35 years between 1799 and 1834.
Later the classification ‘100A1’ was used for iron, and later steel, vessels. It is thought this originated in 1870 when one of the Surveyors said that iron ships were so much better than wooden ships that ‘they would last for 100 years’.  The symbol of a Maltese Cross was introduced to signify vessels surveyed whilst being constructed.

Today between 30 and 40% of Lloyd’s work is non-marine but the Register of Shipping is still published and contains 85,000 ships as against the 4,500 in the 1770s.  The information is now available on CD-Rom.  Recently times had been hard for Lloyds and their new HQ in Fenchurch Street would let out four floors to other organisations - since so many Lloyds staff had been sacked before it was finished.




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Reviews and snippets April 1998

November 2, 2019, 11:34 pm
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 Reviews and snippets from April 1998

We have received notice of a new book about the Royal Arsenal Cooperative Society called‘An Arsenal for Labour’by Rita Rhodes.  this is the study of a consumer corporative society and its involvement in British politics over 100 years

The Newsletter of the Gunpowder Mills Study Group includes an item on an agreement of 1786 between the Principal Officers of the Ordnance and Walkers, Yorkshire gun founders. This includes deliveries to Woolwich of 1,000 tons of iron ordnance and give details of what this includes.

 Bygone Kent, for February 1998 includes an article by John Hilton on ‘Mr. Angerstein’s Railway’. There is also an article by Hugh Perks on ‘The barge builder – Horace Shubsall of East Greenwich’

GLIAS Newsletter No. 180 February 1999 includes an article on ‘Woolwich Arsenal and Railways’ by Bob Carr, as well about Lighthouses by Stephen Croad, and an article by Mary Mills on the Greenwich Railway gasworks

Jack Vaughan reports on the project to save Woolwich’s weighbridges. Can anyone enlighten us on the legal; requirements for weighbridges in London Boroughs.  Jack also draws attention to cast iron railings and gates now in store at White Hart Depot. What will happen to them and other items when White Hart Depot closes?

An item has been shown to us about the demolition of ‘most of Britain historic gas holders except those campaigned for by local groups’. Does this mean the East Greenwich holder will go? Attempts to get it listed seem to have failed. Time Outa couple of weeks ago included a cartoon of it, captioned ‘gas holder at Blackwall’

By the time this goes to press the new Creekside Environment Project book ‘Deptford Creek, Surviving Regeneration’will be available.  This identifies the diversity of the life of Deptford Creek and covers the whole range of historical and ecological aspects.

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Letters from August 1998

November 3, 2019, 12:31 am
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 Letters from August 1998

From Katie Jones. is there any mileage in investigating the history of the rather unprepossessing building at the corner of Deals Gateway on the Blackheath Road with a facade marked ‘Kentish Mercury’.  this building looks in danger of being demolisjed as it stands against the developing DLR line through to Lewisham. there are several ‘to let’ signs on the building. Is this building well documented already?


From John Day. does anyone know anything about this quotation from Mechanics Magazine, Vol9, 1828 "Mr Perkins continues to prosecute his plans for the application of steam to warlike purposes.  last week he had another day’s practice with his gun at the Limekilns, Greenwich.”

From F.G .Gilbert Bentley.  although age 84 and in seriously ill health which prevents my attending meetings now, this does not in any way reduce my interests.  I listened at midnight on December 31, 1922 to a faint crackling radio to hear the sound of Big Ben chiming in the New Year for the first time on radio – and listing to many ships hooting in the huge docks below and beyond.  I did not know then but I would see them ablaze and blown apart in September 1940.
I went to the pictures in October 1940 in Woolwich and saw only half the film. it was 42 years before I saw the end of it because the cinema was hit.  the Daily Mirror had a column on it. I was in Woolwich, Greenwich and Deptford throughout the Blitz and in a number of barracks when they were damaged.
My grandparents had a big laundry at Wilmington which served the area (James Bentley) and they had steam engines which I could go on about.
We have such a great affection, attachment and interest in the area. not least its communications-  trams, buses, ferry, subways, etc. The area has so much to offer industrial history – docks, shipyards, Arsenal, Royal Obervsatory, Royal Academy,  R.M. Repository, Rotimda, Palace, Royal Naval College, Royal Artillery, Grand Depot schools and endless small businesses.
The whole of English has at sometime congregated or passed by and through. thousands of thousands of ordinary people have contrinutrd something to thr tapestry by being there at the riht tme.

From  Myles Dove, thank you for the contact information about the Greenwich Foot Tunnel,  recently I was phoned by someone in Greenwich Council about the revised Sunday opemmg of the lifts which they are extending to 7 PM now until mid September 1998.  he also mentioned Greemwich Conuncil’s proposal to put up to display material about the foot tunnel and other Riverside works in the lift lobbies as part of the Cuty Sark Gardens improvememts

From Philipp Binns . I was particularly interested in the article about Wood Wharf and the adjacent slipway and engine chamber associated with the great Greenwcn steam ferry. its potential as a conservation centre, dynamic historical museum and visitor facilitu sound very attractive

From Colin Thom, Assistant Editor, Survey of London. Peter Guillery recently pointed out to me the note asking for assistance for information on the Greenwich Foot Tunnel.  I wrote the section on the history of the tunnel for the Survey of London, Vol. 43-44 on Poplar,  Blackwall and the Isle of Dogs. also the reference notes on the volume can be consulted in the RCHME London office which may be of interest.

From Phillip McDougall, Naval Dockyard Society.  we can certainly publicise anuthing you might have on Woolwich Arsenal, Deptford or Woolwich dockyard and the picture victusallimg yards, our newsletter incides requests for  help about Sir John Cox, Edmund Dummer, George St.Loe and John Tippets. Coaling facilities at Naval ports, Infantry landing craft and penal establishments in the Andaman Islands.  Information is also needed for a bibliography of books on civilian facilities for the Navy, and there are details on the society of Model Shipwrights which meets in Orpington.

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Notes and snippets from August 1998

November 3, 2019, 4:27 am
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Notes and snippets from August 1998k

Society Meeting. 
Despite the attractions of another World Cup match nearly 50 people turned up to hear Rod Le Gear of the Kent Underground Research Group talk about ‘Underground Greenwich’. 
Rod stuck closely to the industrial aspects of his subject, ignoring both the many natural caves and the conduit system built for Greenwich Palace. He began by talking about ‘Dene holes’- a subject well known to residents of North West Kent, if not elsewhere.   Rob said that despite stories about druids and Danes these are early chalk mines, and often very old. 
He went on to describe the chalk mining industry in the Borough how it had often been forgotten  and the subsequent collapses when  housing old was built about old mine shafts. It was with considerable surprise that we learnt that the most recent mine in Greenwich was opened by the co-op in Abbey Wood less than a century ago and that one building, Federation Hall, is stilling in use.  
Rod went on to show photographs taken by a recent party which visited the Diamond Terrace sand mine on behalf of the society.  They included graffiti giving some very unlikely dates and two elaborately carved portraits of ‘Shirley’ and ‘Mussolini’.  He went on to stress how often such sites are lost and forgotten.  there is considerable evidence that a much largrr series of mineshafts exists in that part of Greenwich but no one now knows where they were.  Few people would think of Greenwich as being a mining area but thr evidence is there we just can’t see it. 


More Underground Greenwch
There are a number of organisations and publications dealing with underground exploration. Rod Le Gear himself is a leading member of the Kent Underground Research Group. Another almost nternational organisation is Subterranea Britannica. There have been many publications which mention underground Greenwich. Rod didn’t mention his own ‘Kent and East Sussex underground’.Many of the best reports on Greenwich have bizarrely been published by the Chelsea Speleological Society - some references taken at random from their publications include - Greenwich conduits - other Greenwich caverns – Blackheath cavern - Blackheath Caves – Plumstead chalk mines – Blackheath dene holes – Woolwich sappers' tunnels - Turpin's Cave in Plumstead, Maryon Park chalk mine.

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Neil Rhind on Blackheath Mills
Neil Rhind writes a regular column on local history issues for the Blackheath Guide, the June issue contained a page article on Blackheath Mills.   In it he gives details of three known mills on the heath - at Hollyhedge House – the modern TA headquarters - the West Mill on the site of what is now Mill House and Golf House; and East Mill at 1-4 Talbot Place.  He comments that there were probably many more.  Another mill once stood at Lee Green behind the Tigers Head, moved there from the corner of Eltham and Kidbrooke Park Roads.  Neil goes on to comment on water mills and in particular the Lewisham mill described in the new Silk Mills book by Sylvia McCartney and John West.
In the August Guide Neil returns to an industrial theme - plus a very welcome plug for our Society. His article was headed ‘industrial detergents’ but covered far more. He mentioned a number of Blackheath based factories, a fruit juice factory in Independents Road, Burndept the wireless factory, a toy construction kit maker in Blackheath Grove followed by a plating factory. He then onto a brief biography of Percival Moses Parsons.   Parsons says Neil ‘invented manganese bronze in his back garden’and much more (including the Central London Railway).  
Thank you Neil and I think we’ll have to book you as a speaker soon


Jetties
The destruction of so many jetties and piers along the river side is causing great concern.  The rapid disappearance of the huge gasworks jetty on the Dome site has been the cause of some remark and we hope to write an article about it shortly. Further along the bank is the old Redpath Brown jetty – itself of a considerable historical interest. The jetty had been occupied to some time by the Greenwich Meridian Yacht Marina, although it was on the riverbank in area due to the closed as part the Dome site. Greenwich Yacht Club on an adjacent site is going to be relocated but the Greenwich Meridian club wished to remain independent.  Following protracted negotiations the jetty has been compulsory purchased and a dangerous structures notice put on it.  The club is looking at a number of other jetties including massive ones on the Arsenal site which are currently unused.  The whole saga throws up a number of questions about the riverbank and what it should look like and what it should be used for

New Books
Aspects of the Arsenal - the Royal Arsenal Woolwich. Edited by Beverly Burford and Julian Watson

Lewisham Silk Mills and the History of an Ancient Site.  The story of armour, small arms, silk and gold and silver wire drawing. By John West and Sylvia McCartney

Millennium Domesday. London Wildlife Trust have brought out a booklet about wildlife under threat along the Greenwich waterfront.   Although this has been publicised  as being about threats to wild life posed by the Dome it is far more than that.  It also notes problems at sites on Deptford Creek, Woolwich Arsenal and other places like Falconwood Field. It also highlights the case of the black redstart which is known to haunt derelict industrial buildings

Thames Estuary Archaeological Framework 
The Thames estuary may seem a long way from Greenwich,  but Greenwich is included in the ‘archaeological research framework’for the Greater Thames Estuary.  A draft of whose consultation document is now available.  They define the estuary as stretching upstream as far as Tower Bridge
The report comes from a working group comprising Kent and Essex County Councils and a variety of other organisations.  It is a long document and it’s almost impossible to do justice to it in the space available here, so apologies for the summary and some, probably misplaced, highlights. 

Although it is ostensibly to do with ‘dirt’ archaeology the majority of items in fact concern industrial activity a fact which raises the question as to why such important topics as industrial history of the Thames estuary it relegated to a relatively minor role in a document which says that it is about something else.

The document says something should be done in a co-ordinated way and provides an action list - who could disagree with such an approach

The following are some of the areas they find of interest
- prehistoric marine activity - the Roman port - Thames shipbuilding -  major pre-Norman buildings, - shipping -  barge wrecks - other wrecks -, track ways -  fish traps and ponds, -oyster pits -  salt works, - sea  walls  (eg Greenwich peninsula) - fishing - fish processing remains - hospitals - industrial housing (they give Thamesmead as an example) - military activity (i.e. Woolwich) - civil defence etc, - military architecture - ordnance storage

The items which they note and describe as industrial include:
Salt - copperas - glass - boat building and repair - hydraulic power and steam - electric power = armour - gunpowder - chalk - brick earth - gasworks - telegraph cables (eg at Greenwich) - water disposal (eg at Crossness) - food-processing - specialist metals and chemicals - papermaking- inshore fishing - canals - railways - docks - wharves - military dockyards - storage piers.

The action plan comes complete with the recommended framework and specific objectives. These include: 
o investigate the role of shipbuilding in the area and undertake research on cargoes and movements - to develop an understanding of the historical context of sea defenses and an understanding of construction methods of sea walls -  to research  the relationship between leisure resorts and industrial communities - to assess urban growth and industry -  to establish a basic inventory of defence sites - with a detailed study of those which illustrate technical development -  to establish an inventory of industrial sites and identify industries to be targeted for detailed research -  to undertake research as a basis for comparative studies and develop a methodology

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Reviews and snippets October 1998

November 3, 2019, 5:50 am
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 Reviews and snippets October 1998

Report of the inaugural; meeting of the Society and the first Annual General Meeting
The first speaker of the official launch of the new Greenwich Industrial History Society was Councillor Bob Harris, Deputy Leader, London Borough of Greenwich.  Bob spoke about the vision for industrial heritage in the borough.  Great changes were taking place and the time for a Society like this had now come. He gave some details of future plans in the borough - items of these will be run in this newsletter in due course.

Denis Smith. Chair of GLIAS, President of the Newcomen Society gave the concluding address at the meeting.  He congratulated the society on its first meeting which reminded him very much of the early days of GLIAS. He drew attention to the many achievements in Greenwich and reminded us of the early industrial engineering innovations for which Greenwich people had been responsible.  He noted many references to seventeenth century industry in John Evelyn's diary - had anyone analysed the diary with this in mind. For instance almost the first use of the word ‘Coke’ related to Greenwich.  He met on to talk the achievements of the Royal Observatory and Royal Military Academy.  It was clearly a scandal that the ‘end result’ of the manufacturing processes at the Arsenal i.e. the guns themselves, were all that were mentioned.  In the late 18th century Woolwich and the military complex was a great forcing ground of scientific expertise and some recognition of that should be made.

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NEW BOOKS
Greenwich by Barbara Ludlow This is in what used to be the ‘Old Photograph’ series which has now been renamed ‘The Archive Photographs’series by Tempus publications

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Cinema Theatres Association are advertising a new publication - The Granada Theatres by Alan Eyles, including information about on Woolwich Granada – a Cathedral of the Movies

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Remember Greenwich by Iris Bryce. Joint winner of the National Life Story Award. Iris Bryce’s book portraying her childhood in Greenwich has been praised by many notable authors including Penelope Lively and Melvin Bragg.”Iris Bryce has had distinctive experiences of her own which she chronicles beautifully. She also has the rare gift, however of discerning common experience in a highly distinctive way. The book is a valuable contribution to both literature and social history it is deserves to be widely read.

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The River Thames Society have sent us a copy of their latest Thames Guardian which contains an article on the Great Steam Ferry at Greenwich by Clive Chambers.  The article gives some of the background to ferries between Millwall and Greenwich and goes on to describe the steam ferry in some detail. He describes his own attempts to ‘dive down one of the shafts’ and an interview with ‘an old dockworker’ who said that a diver had been killed trying to make repairs.

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Greenwich Peninsula Walk.  The Greenwich Society has produced a trail round the Greenwich Peninsula written by Diana Rimel and illustrated by Peter Kent. The Walk was followed on Open House day with touts led by Diana Rimel, Mary Mills and Barbara Ludlow. It is understood that part of the walk at the end of Riverway will close before Christmas - so get in quick.

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Lewisham Local History Society Newsletter. has revealed that the Master Shipwright’s house at Deptford Dockyard 1705 has been acquired by William Richards and Chris Mazieka who intend to restore it as a private residence



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Reviews and snippets May 1999

November 3, 2019, 7:38 am
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Reviews and  snippets May 1999

Crossness.
 The project at Crossness Engines Trust is very much in Greenwich. The April Crossness Engines Record gives some detail of current work at the Trust. Restoration work on the engines is proceeding well. More of the astounding decorative iron work has been cleaned and painted. The project has been given an Easton and Anderson beam engine by the Museum of London. This is the engine that once stood at the Addington Well pumping station near Croydon. It was made by the Erith Iron Works in Wheatley Terrace Road, in Erith, and was inaugurated at the Addington Well by the Archbishop of Canterbury, no less, on 2nd August 1888. The engines ran at 13 - 15 rpm and provided 1.5m gallons of fresh water to the people of Croydon every day

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Woodlands Local History Library has on loan an album of photographs of the shipbuilder, Alfred Yarrow, and his family. Copies of this album were presented to all the staff when he left his Blackheath home - today the Woodlands Library - to take his ship building business to the Clyde. Woodlands is having the pictures copied and they should soon be available

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The April GLIAS newsletter contains several items of interest to Greenwich and Woolwich based readers. Brian Sturt has given some details about the refurbishment of locomotives from Woolwich Arsenal after the First World War. He refers readers to pages 80-90 of the Locomotive History of the Southeastern and Chatham Railway by D.L.Bradley

Brian also raises some issues about the Greenwich Railway Gasworks referring to an article by himself in SEGAS Standard and disagrees with Mary Mills’s conclusions about the railway gas works in the previous newsletter

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Convoys. We have been sent two cuttings from Lloyds List of February 1999. The first one concerns 
Convoys on the old Royal Dockyard site in Deptford.  This says three customers have left Convoys for the new Finnish terminal at Tilbury and they expect their tonnage to be halved. Convoys, owned by News International hope to attract new business  and say they are in a ‘brilliant position’.  They have plenty of storage capacity and a ‘mixed’ bag of warehousing.

The second cutting concerns the barge Seawork Solidarity at the Riverside Wharf in Charlton. This is to serve the new asphalt plant open by Situsec Roadstone, an operation which will create many jobs and reopen the previously derelict wharf

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A first novel by Greenwich artist and Society member Terry Scales was published in April - Bermondsey Boys - narrates the adventures of a group of friends in the post war period, all of whom live in the newly established prefab villages appearing thon throughout south London.  Of particular interest to members is an episode based on Terry Scales own experience as a young docker on the Bermondsey waterfront when a terrible accident occurs during the unloading of a ship’s cargo.  after five years in Camberwell School of Art the contrasting lifestyle there struck him forcibly and a new book to be published in 2000 will throw light on the working practices of the once great Port of London
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An Arsenal for Labour. This is a unique study of a consumer corporative society and it’s involvement in South East London which grew to become one of the co-operative movements biggest retail businesses.  At the same time it developed a distinct and remarkable political tradition which set it apart from other cooperative societies.  Faced with widespread discrimination in the early part of the century the movement established its own political party, the Co-operative Party, which subsequently developed electoral agreements with Labour. Most cooperators supported this approach, The one notable exception was RACS which chose direct affiliations to the Labour Party because it believed there should be only be one main party of the left in Britain and that should be Labour. RACS held to this view wholeheartedly and maintained it consistently for the next 70 years.  This study traces  how RACS came to this policy, noting how was shaped by historical and geographical influences. It also examines the organisational and financial implications, in particular how it affected Royal Arsenal relations with the Labour Party, the Co-operative Party and the wider co-operative movement.

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 Deptford Creek Surviving Regeneration. Is the latest from the Deptford Forum publishing stable.  over 20 surveys of the area’s history ecology and potential for renewal and nearly 3 years of debate are brought together to tell the story of Creekside.  This book aims to celebrate the unique asset we have inherited, predict the impact of change and influence the processes to regeneration whenever special places are threatened

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North Woolwich Pleasure Gardens. The Great Baby Show

November 3, 2019, 7:46 pm
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EXTRA EVERYTHING AND EVERYTHING EXTRAORDINARY 


part 3  History of the North Woolwich Pleasure Gardens
by Howard Bloch

THE GREAT BABY SHOW


One of the last events which was organised by Charles Morton at North Woolwich was a mammoth two day fete for his own benefit. For this he invited a large number of artistes and decorated the garden with flags.  On the first day the programme included The Great Vance, Miss FitzHenry as Captain MacHeath in The Beggars Opera, Farini & Son performing on the high wire and The Storming of the Magdala and a balloon ascent by Henry Youens. Most of these performances were repeated on the second day, although Vance’s place was taken by George Leybourne who says ‘Up in a balloon’ and ‘Sparkling wine and music’.

Morton considered taking the gardens for another season but decided that too much financial risk was involved in a venture ‘so utterley at the mercy of the elements’.

He was succeeded in 1869 by William Holland. Holland styled himself ‘the People Caterer’ and was one of the most versatile and flamboyant of music hall managers. Broad shouldered, rotund, frock-coated and with a long waxed moustache which stuck out several inches and gave him the appearance of Emperor Napoleon III.

In order to meet the competition from other pleasure gardens, Holland engaged many leading music hall artists and variety acts and organised an ever growing range of entertainments. Among the stars were George Leybourne, and his rival the Great Vance, Herbert Campbell, Arthur Lloyd, Nelly Power, James Fawn, J.H.Milburn, G.H.Macdermott and the spiral ascensionist,  Leonati.

Not content just to provide ‘one thousand and one amusements’ for 6d., he constantly sought ‘novel, curious and attractive events’ with which he hoped to attract an even larger number of visitors.

The first of many shows was ‘the baby show’ in July 1869, which drew very large crowds - about 20,000 on the first day and was widely reported in the newspapers. On the day about 500 mothers with their babies travelled from all over the country to North Woolwich. ‘Babies, babies everywhere’. 

The platform at North Woolwich Station was crowded with them, the entrance to the gardens was all but choked up with local babies in the arms of their local mothers who had come to witness the arrival of the competitors from town.  The long avenues and winding alleys of the spacious gardens were dotted with them long before the show commenced. 

The man in charge of the weighing machine outside the entrance tent, made a little fortune by putting them on the scale and for a full hour he did nothing but shout out ‘One Stone .. something’ and pocket pennies - as baby after baby was plumped down on the Union Jack which formed the roughly extemporised cushion on the chair.

The feeling of the hour was contagious. Everybody praised everybody else’s baby, and even the few fathers who had simply brought their wives and children out for a holiday, without a thought for the competition, could not resist the ‘good zings that fell to their share of the compliments showered so thickly around’. 

After being weighed the mothers and babies went into a large theatre and marquee where they sat in long rows on benches separated from the visitors by a single rail.  There were, we are told, plenty of fine children; one of eight months and another of eighteen months bidding hard for the chief prizes. The youngest mother was fifteen and a few months and the youngest child was six weeks - except in the notable case of a triplet of babies who were but eighteen days old and whose mother nursed one at a time while a friend held the other two. They were in wretched contrast to a baby giant - who looked like a living copy of the Infant Samuel Johnson as Hercules strangling the snakes in Sir Joshua’s famous canvas.  The puny three called forth pity more than curious interest.  They were very old looking - one in particular resembling a piece of antique ugliness in a picture of Holbein’s. They were also very small, their poor little arms and legs being no bigger than a man’s finger.

The baby show was followed up in September 1870 with the first of the annual barmaid shows at which ‘there was not the slightest impropriety of any kind’ and in subsequent years by a cat show, postmen’s races, market basket races, and a happy couple contest.

In August 1875 Holland exhibited Admiral Tom Trump (Jean Hannema) who he claimed was the smallest man in the world having a height of 26 inches, a weight of 26 pounds and able to speak fluently in five languages.

This article appeared in the May 2000 GIHS Newsletter

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John Penn and Sons

November 3, 2019, 7:54 pm
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John Penn & Sons  
further notes by Richard Cheffins




Peter Trigg’s note in Greenwich Industrial History last autumn (Vol.2, No.5) on John Penn & Sons prompts me to add a few extra notes.  The firm was started in 1799 by John Penn Snr (1770-1843), a Bristol millwright, originally to produce agricultural machinery.  The first marine engines were, I believe, produced in 1825 and under John Penn Jnr (1805-78), who took over from his father on his death, this, and the marine boilers produced at the firm’s Deptford works at Palmers Payne Wharf, became the firm’s main activity.  The Engine Works were not in Blackheath Hill but in Blackheath Road.  Transport of the heavy engines to the Thames-side was difficult enough as Deptford Bridge and its approaches on the Greenwich side were not widened until 1878-82 under a Metropolitan improvement scheme.  Had the works actually been up Blackheath Hill, the laden horse-drawn wagons could scarcely have negotiated the incline.

In fact it is not strictly true to say that the Engine Works were even in Blackheath Road.  Its main entrance were always in Cold Bath Lane, now appropriately named John Penn Street, and for more than half of its existence it did not even have a frontage on Blackheath Road.  It acquired this in 1861 when the Holwell Charity sold its Greenwich estate to Penn for the princely sum of £21,500.  Shortly afterwards, two rows of houses in Blackheath Road, Cold Bath Row and Holwell Place (wrongly named Holywell Place on some maps), over 30 houses in all, were demolished in the expansion of the works.

An undated manuscript estate map ‘Plan of an estate situate in the Parish of St. Alphage in the County of Kent, property of the Trustees of the Holwell Charity’ (? late 1830s) shows the restricted site of the Engine Works at that date.  The Penns occupied the large corner house opposite the George and Dragon public house as their residence with a garden alongside the present Lewisham Road back to John Penn Street.  There were some sheds at the rear of the garden (such is the level of detail of the map) but the Engine Works themselves were somewhat to the west of this, separated from it by the gardens of five further properties.  There may have been some limited expansion between the date of the map and 1861, and the factory may have been world famous as early as 1857 as Peter Trigg asserts, but major expansion began only in the 1860s.

John Penn retired in 1875 and died three years later.  In 1884 his widow erected the Penn Almshouses in South Street in his memory, now the John Penn and Widow Smith Almshouses (the Widow Smith Charity was a separate one which merged with the Penn Charity after its almshouses in East Greenwich were destroyed in the Second World War).  The Business was continued by his four sons and was converted into a limited liability company in 1889.  Already a decline was beginning and the merger ten years later with the mighty but ailing Thames Ironworks & Shipbuilding Co. was a defensive measure.  As ships grew larger, the Thames became less suitable for shipbuilding and, although Penn exported his engines worldwide, the bread and butter of the business was the Thames shipbuilding industry.  Some economies could be expected from integrating in one firm shipbuilding and the production of ships’ boilers and engines.  The move was only a short-term success.  Receivers were called in December 1911 and the firm was finally wound up in 1914.

The last original building of the Engine Works, the Pattern Shop of c.1863, early fruit of the expansion following the acquisition of the Holwell Estate, lay alongside Ditch Alley which bisected the enlarged works.  It was on the council’s draft list of buildings to be added to the Statutory List of buildings of architectural or historical importance but, before it could be added, it was demolished.  It was on the Broomfield Bakery site which occupied the Penn site east of Ditch Alley; the bakery closed  in 1992 and, after several years of indecision giving the Council ample time to secure listing, the site, including the derelict Pattern Shop, was cleared for redevelopment.  The site of the Pattern Shop is now part of the car park for Wickes DIY and the Petsmart superstore.  Part of the Boiler Works at Deptford survives.

The justifiable fame of John Penn Jnr should not rest entirely on his work in the field of marine engineering; he has one other claim to fame.  In 1868 he build what was probably the world’s very first wind tunnel for F. H. Wenham of the Aeronautical (later Royal Aeronautical) Society, then based on Blackheath.

This article appeared in the May 2000 GIHS Newsletter
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Letters from May 2000

November 3, 2019, 8:05 pm
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Letters from May 2000

From John West
Referring to the query from Dennis Grubb regarding his great grandfather’s brickfield I hope the following information will be of help.

Edward Grub  Hope Cottage 2 Plumstead   1881
Henry Grub  Barnes Cray  1851
Henry Grub  Sydney Cottage 3 1881
Thomas Grub  Stonham’s Brickfield,Crayford  1841
Thomas Grub  Skittles Lane  1851
Thomas Grub  Cemetery Brickyard, Plumstead  1882

I obtained this data from an Index to Kent Brickmakers by David Cuffley, put out as a microfiche by North West Kent Family History Society. 

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From Anna Townend
With reference to the group’s visit to White Hart Depot can I follow up my interest in the remaining Blind Workshop’s stone which are stored there - on the ground outside the buildings that is.

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From Diana Rimel
What an interesting Industrial History Newsletter for March 2000 with mostly short, easily absorbable well written articles and packed with information on forthcoming activities, events, etc. The Index is excellent too and will help all of us who use past material. I will be setting up more new courses/venues for Goldsmiths in the future and will let you have details of what I hope will be an exciting programme when it is agreed.  All the best and congratulations again.

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From Robert Cox
I am at the moment writing up the various power companies which were provided with Willans and Robinson steam turbines. The South Metropolitan Electric Light Co, with  power station at Blackwall point had two in 1905 and I am wondering whether anyone has ever come across any references to this,.  Willans and Robins also provided two 5000 JKW turbines and Dick Ken Alternators for the LCC Tram Power Station instead of further reciprocating engines by Musgraves of Bolton who had already installed four of these.

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From Bernard Elmer
My father was injured in a boiler explosion in the Greenwich/Deptford area some time in the late 1890s/early 1900s. He was badly scalded and reputedly left for dead, until workmates discovered he was still alive and wheeled him on a handcart to the Miller Hospital. He survived but was heavily scarred as a result of the accident. I have made some attempts to discover the date and place of the explosion in which he was injured but without success. 

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From Julie Tadman (by email from Australia)
I have just received my copy of "The Enderby Settlement Diaries" from New Zealand.   Barbara Ludlow has found some fascinating information about my ancestor, ggg grandfather William Bracegirdle the fisherman, and we have also discovered that my great grandfather's brother James also went to the Auckland Islands as an apprentice aboard the Sir James Ross early in 1850.  I do not know if they actually met there, one would hope so. The Mitchell Library in Sydney apparently has the major source of information about the settlement so I shall make arrangements to look at it when we go down in a few weeks time.  It is only a three hour drive from Canberra.  The English records are mostly missing or destroyed, from what I have read.

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From Jon Garvey
Does anybody have any information on the bakery run by the Tyler family in Tyler Street Greenwich during the late 19th and early 20th century? The business was started by my maternal great great  grandfather, William Tyler. Other branches of the family had  bakeries in Thaxted, Cambridge (which ran until the 1980s) and in Bocking, where the Tyler family can be traced to the 16th century.
How big was the business, and what became of it? The family had links with non-conformism, and indeed Henry Tyler built a mission hall in Old Woolwich Road which is still there, though now housing an architect's practice. Any local information would be much appreciated

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From David Riddle
At the weekend I noticed that work was in hand on the main buildings in the large so-called Angerstein Triangle site, the area of land off Bramshot Avenue and immediately facing the backs of  houses in the lower section of Westcombe Hill across the width of the A102.
The roof had been removed from one of the large buildings, and on further checking it was noted that the buildings at the northern end of the site had already been largely demolished, and a new fence was being erected around the perimeter.
The Planning Office inform me that the site, previously owned by RailTrack, was sold to a Dartford company called Fort Knight, and planning permission was granted on 1/11/99 to this company to erect an 'engineering works'.
[Editor’s note: The site was that of the ‘Angerstein Works’ - previously a chalk pit. Last year one of members made an arrangement with Fort Knight for access - but no-one turned up to let him in!)


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Letters from March 2000

November 3, 2019, 8:13 pm
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Letters from March 2000

From Mrs. Bates
I am enclosing two pictures of instances which stick in my memory of visits to the Gas Works when we were children.  One is a photo of an Armistice Day occasion. My father, whose title was Mechanical Superintendent, was at Ordnance Wharf from about 1927 to about the outbreak of WW2, when he went to work at Vauxhall Gas Works.  Before he became land based he spent a few years on the coastal run between Greenwich and the North East (Tyneside) bringing coal for the Gas works. Before that he had been in the Merchant Navy travelling all over the world.
The other photo is of the damage done to the wharves in the floods and storms of 1938. There was a lot of damage done down the river at this time.

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From John West
Referring to the query form Mark Smith regarding Wiedhofft, the New Cross photographer: Frederick Wiedhofft had a studio at 338 New Cross Road (near Deptford Town Hall) from 1897-1914. He also had branches at Holland Park, Highgate and Forest Gate.
Information about other Lewisham and Greenwich Photographers can be found in my ‘The Studio Photographers of Lewisham and Greenwich 1854-1939’ (1995). This work covers all the districts that now comprise the London Boroughs of Lewisham and Greenwich, copies which can be seen at Lewisham Local Studies Centre and Greenwich Local History Library.

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From Dennis Gubb
I do hope you do not consider this as junk mail!  I am trying to trace my history and have reason to believe my great Grandfather had a brickyard/kiln somewhere in Woolwich. His name was Henry Grubb.On my grandmother’s side it seems her father Henry Farr, was killed at the Arsenal in a train accident. I would appreciate if you were able to shed some light on these facts.

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From Roger Backhouse
I came across the magazine of Thames Ironworks in Stratford's local history library. A strange mixture but lots on various engineering projects undertaken including a railway footbridge at Ilford, dockworks at Vladivostock and the building of the Fuji for the Japanese Navy.  I have read that Thames Ironworks once produced cars but I can't trace any details. Also I have seen a reference to a "Silvertown" electric car pre 1914 and wondered if that was built in Newham. (Walter Hancock's pioneer steam carriages were built in Stratford - 175 anniversary coming up but no interest yet from the local museum people.)
The magazine justifies the 8 hour day and rails against a northern cartel rigging the market for naval vessels.  Also gives details of the "Good Fellowship" scheme , a form of bonus distribution based on reduction from estimated costs.   And information about the Cycling Club, operatic Society
etc.

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From Graeme Petit
I found your web pages purely by chance, whilst looking for Angerstein's wharf railway photographs, it led me to an article on John Penn and Sons, by Peter Trigg, and I spotted a potential namesake - Francis Pettit Smith - The Pettits were mill operators before this time (1700's/1800's), and were involved in wind and water mill manufacturer at Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk at some stage. Some of their products ended up going south - I wonder if there is a connection?
Also, I'm looking for articles on New Cross (Gate) 

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From Julie Tadman
I have just found your site on the net, and read with a great deal of interest all that is on it about the area.  Really fascinating stuff, and congratulations for the quality of all the information. My great grandfather was an apprentice on the "Samuel Enderby" on its voyage to the Auckland Islands from August 2nd 1849  and return April 1852. His family lived in the area, with various family members leaving England and emigrating.  His father is buried in Shooters Hill cemetery. Could you advise where to go for some information on the voyage of the "Samuel Enderby"?    I have his
applications and copy of certificates for Second and First Mate and Captain from the (Australian) NMM, excellent and invaluable information which poses as many questions as it gives answers. I would also like to gain an appreciation of the life and times in the Greenwich, Deptford areas over the early nineteenth century.



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