LORD WEDDERBURN QC

Deptford born academic lawyer and life-long Charlton Atheletic supporter Lord Wedderburn QC died on Friday. He was the son, grandson, great grandson and great-great grandson of scale makers.

Born Kenneth William Wedderburn in Deptford on 13th April 1927 Bill lived for most of his childhood above the family business F Wedderburn Scale Makers & Contractors at 467 New Cross Road. 467 is now part of that wondrous Deptford conflation Housemartins estate agents and Lewisham People before Profit's Come the Revolution cafe. I suspect that 467 has been rebuilt at some point since the second world war.

SCALE MAKING
The earliest known scale-maker in the Wedderburn family was Jabez Wedderburn c1797 - 1880 whose descendants in Southampton and Australia are still in the scale-making business today. Jabez's fourth child and second son, also called Jabez 1827-82, arrived in Deptford from Islington sometime before the 1871 census that found him and his scale making business based at 9 Deptford Bridge. Jabez junior's son Frederick married Anne Coote at St Mary's Lewisham shortly after his father's death, but then disappears from the records before buying 467 New Cross Road in the mid 1890s. On 21st August 1895 his son Herbert John was baptised at St Paul's Deptford after being born on 27th July. Herbert followed his father into the scale-making business and after serving in WW1 married Mabel Ethel Hollands in 1924. Telephone directories show 467 New Cross Road as F Wedderburn Scale Makers & Contractors until and shortly after Herbert's death in 1978. Sadly, despite the business being at 467 for over eighty years I am unable to find a photograph.

CHARLTON AFC
Lord Wedderburn's son posted on a message board this morning that Herbert had first taken Bill to see Charlton when Bill was aged only two. This would place the young Bill at the Valley in Charlton's first season in Divison Two. A few up and downs since then, but Bill stayed loyal and when elevated to the House of Lords took the title Lord Wedderburn of Charlton.

ROBERT WEDDERBURN
The Guardian, Independent and Times obituaries, and this Telegraph article (but not the Telegraph obit) all make much of his purported ancestor, the radical black orator Robert Wedderburn. It is possible, but the evidence for a link to Robert Wedderburn strikes me as a bit thin, there were a number of Robert Wedderburns in London at the beginning of the 19th Century and many records from the time have been lost and those that we have lack detail.

YOGA AND FINANCE

The Iyengar Yoga Institute, 470 New Cross Road, nestles between Addey and Stanhope School and one of the houses in front of the Zion Chapel.

The shield in the centre of the pediment bears the words ‘’Established 1866’’, but enter the front garden and you find a small plaque underneath the left hand window that tells you that it opened as the Yoga Institute on 14 December 1994.

What was established in 1866 was the New Cross Building Society but in the 1880s the house was the private residence of William George Fulcher who died on 11^TH March 1887. The earliest mention as the building society’s headquarters is in 1901.

The society was there until 1984 when the Registrar of Friendly Societies closed it down. The society went to the High Court and won, but the Court of Appeal re-instated the Registrar’s decision. It had been a relatively small society until the mid 1970s but in 1977 the board had embarked on a plan to expand the society. The assets grew from £ 6 million in 1974 to £103 million in 1982, but the reserves failed to grow in proportion to the society’s business.

The Master of the Rolls Sir John (later Lord) Donaldson in the leading Appeal Court judgment commented:

“Another disturbing feature was the decision to raise £10m through the wholesale money market…”

By the middle of this decade the closure and judicial comment had been forgotten and rapid expansion and raising loans on the money markets had become the normal way of doing financial business in the UK.

By 1987 the buiding had become Deptford Seventh Day Adventist Church, but they subsequently moved to Devonshire Drive in Greenwich.