Twinkle Park Event

As part of Greenwich Council's Parksfest 2010 Twinkle Park presents Musical Notes this Saturday 17th July, 1 - 5pm.

Music from jazz quartet Paul Zec & Friends, Deptford Divas and Venavi Drummers and a drumming workshop from the latter.

Petanque, pond dipping and also creative fun with Artyparty Arts.

At 5.00pm it will only be a short stroll to the Dog and Bell in Prince Street.

Twinkle Park is in Borthwick Street on the corner of Watergate Street:

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McMillan Herb Garden

As part of the St Nicholas Community Festival on Saturday 12 June, the McMillan Herb Garden present three hours of postry and music featuring Paul the Poet, Leanne, Provoceteers, Bloco Maluco, Goy, Sons of Phycho Yogi and Ruthi Tooti.

The garden is here opposite St Nicholas Church.

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Marie Lloyd

On Wednesday 9 June I attended a Lewisham Council consultation at the 2000 Community Action Centre in Grove Street regarding proposed works in Fordham and Pepys Parks. A local artist Richard somebody or other who carves totem poles is apparently to produce works celebrating Peter The Great, Margaret McMillan and Marie Lloyd. What, I asked has Marie Lloyd got to do with Deptford? I was told that she lived here.

A quick google showed several results claiming that she lived in Lewisham Way from 1887 to 1894, but no references to back the story up.

Marie Lloyd was the stage name of Matilda Alice Victoria Wood who married Peter Charles Courtenay (a bookies runner) in Shoreditch in 1887. Their daughter Marie Matilda Victoria Courtenay was born 19 May 1888. Marie junior was cristened at St Leonards Church, Shoreditch on 1 July 1888 and the family's address is given in the baptism register as 25 Arlington Street. The 1891 census records the family as boarding at 32 Powerscroft Road in Hackney and gives Marie junior's birthplace as Dalston.

It is not until 19 January 1892 that there is any mention of Lewisham High Road. Both The Times and the Daily Graphic report that Marie had summonsed Peter after he had assaulted her. In the event he was bound over to keep the peace towards her. Their address was given as 196, Wickham Terace, Lewisham High Road. Lewisham High Road is now Lewisham Way and Wickham Terrace was the name for the villas behind what are now the Deptford Memorial Gardens.

Then in June 1894 a further court case was reported and it emerged that Marie had formally seperated from Peter in January that year having previously left him. Therefore Marie Lloyd lived in Lewisham Way for, at the most, two and a half years. Given that she toured extensively, both in the UK and abroad, it is unlikely she spent much time here at all. Marie Lloyd was a Hackney woman, quite rightly celebrated in that Borough.

Why not celebrate the pragmatic trade unionist, socialist, and first woman Mayor Beatrice Drapper, or the fiery radical communist Kath Duncan, both women who had a real impact on Deptford.

Fox paranoia and Deptford

Doing a routine Google News search for 'Deptford' I was surprised to read an article by somebody called Philippe Naughton from The Times dated 7th June 2010 containing the line:

"A 14-week-old baby boy in Deptford, southeast London, was bitten in 2002 when a fox crept into his house while his mother slept. "

Firstly I do not remember such a thing happening and secondly searching Google's News archive, The Newsshopper's archive and The Times own archive fails to shed any light on the story.

My searches do however reveal a review in The Independent of Blake Morrison's 2007 novel South of the River, which contains the following passage:

Harry the reporter, too, has foxes on the brain. Covering the disappearance and possible murder of a child on a Deptford estate, he wonders if a fox, rather than the boy's estranged father, is to blame.

This leaves me with the intriguing question: Is Philippe Naughton a real journalist or merely a product of Mr Morrison's imagination?

Some thoughts on the Common Toad

Yesterday Bob from Brockley quoted George Orwell from 16 May 1939. A few years later Orwell observed in his essay Some Thoughts on the Common Toad that:

Even in the most sordid street the coming of spring will register itself by some sign or other, if it is only a brighter blue between the chimney pots or the vivid green of an elder sprouting on a blitzed site. Indeed it is remarkable how Nature goes on existing unofficially, as it were, in the very heart of London. I have seen a kestrel flying over the Deptford gasworks, and I have heard a first-rate performance by a blackbird in the Euston Road. There must be some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of birds living inside the four-mile radius, and it is rather a pleasing thought that none of them pays a halfpenny of rent.

There were a number of gasworks in and around Deptford so it is difficult to be certain which site Orwell was referring to.

JOHN CROUCH 1915-1939, THE KING'S JOCKEY

Wally Crouch was born Walter Thomas Crouch in Portsmouth in 1877, the son of a shipwright. After his father died his mother remarried and he took the name of Armstrong. By the time of his Peckham marriage on 10th June 1899 to Blanche Phillips he had reverted to the name Crouch and gave his occupation as a Public House Manager. Wally and Blanche moved to Deptford firstly at 6 Lucas Street, then 29 Charles Street, but subsequently settling at 66 Speedwell Street. Various jobs as a labourer and painter (for the London County Council) came and went, interspersed with periods of unemployment.

By 1911 Blanche had given birth to eight children, but two had since died. More children were born and in 1915 a son John Lionel Crouch was born. After John’s death The Times carried a story that Wally had been a greengrocer and that John had looked after his father’s ponies. Perhaps Wally’s fortunes improved after the 1st World War, perhaps the story was made up, but John had a talent with horses.

As a teenager John was apprenticed to Australian trainer Stanley Wootton at Epsom. In 1933 his name started to appear in the lists of runners and riders in the newspapers. In 1936 he rode 31 winners and in October it was announced that, at the age of 21, John was to be the King’s jockey. He was to receive a retainer so that he would always be available to ride the King's horses in preference to other owners. That winter John went to India to race in Madras.

Although Britain was preparing for war in the summer of 1939, things were looking good for John Crouch. He had bought and furnished a house in Epsom and was due to marry 19-year-old Barbara Hives (the daughter of the head stable lad to trainer Walter Nightingall) on 1st July.

On Monday 19th June John and Barbara posted the wedding invitations and the next morning John made his way to Heston Aerodrome to fly to Newcastle to ride that afternoon. The British American Air Services DH.89A Dragon Rapide John was flying in reported its position by radio when passing York at midday, but it never arrived in Newcastle. The weather in the northeast of England was poor that morning and the rain kept many race goers at home, but there was surprise when John Crouch failed to arrive.

That Tuesday evening the BBC broadcast appeals for news of the missing aeroplane. The following day the Royal Air Force searched for the plane but it was not until 5.00pm that Robert Redfearn, a postman, and his friend Richardson, a newsagent spotted the burned out wreckage near the summit of Dora’s Seat, Ettersgill Fell, County Durham, miles from the nearest habitation. The bodies of John Crouch, Glaswegian pilot F.S. Appi and wireless operator J. Elmslie were found close to the wreckage.

John Crouch’s funeral took place on Monday 26 June 1939 at Epsom Parish Church and he is buried in Epsom cemetery.

Barbara eventually married in the spring of 1945.

The Jacob Brothers - Mayors of Deptford

Benjamin Joseph Jacob became the first Mayor of Deptford on Friday 9th November 1900. He served two consecutive terms (until November 1902). His younger brother Jesse Jacob was Mayor for the municipal year 1906-7.

Benjamin was born on 10 March 1836 and christened at St Pauls Church, Deptford on 13 April. Jesse was born 27 July 1840 and christened at St Pauls on 24 August . Their parents were Benjamin and Sarah Jacob nee Cooper). Benjamin and Sarah had married at St Botolphs, Bishopsgate on 1st July 1833 and Benjamin was their second child and first son, Jesse the fourth child and second son. Benjamin senior was a lighterman. The family lived at various addresses around Creek Road and Deptford Green, but by 1861 had moved to 2 Deptford Bridge. By then there was another boy and two girls.

For many years Sarah's younger brother Will Cooper lived with the family. Will was clerk to the Queen's Proctor. (The Queen's Proctor was a lawyer appointed by the government to intervene in various cases most notably where there was suspicion of collusion between parties in divorce actions.) Another uncle was the Revd Dr Robert Halley (married to Benjamin senior's sister Rebekah) a prominent Congregationalist minister and academic.

Both sons served their apprenticeships as Lightermen and at some point went into partnership with their father as B. Jacob & Sons (later incorporated as B. Jacob & Sons Ltd). Various tugs and lighters were built or bought including a Thames Barge named Jesse in 1865. As well as moving goods on the Thames itself the firm unloaded goods from ships in the river into lighters and delivered to wharves on Deptford Creek.

Benjamin Joseph married Mary Elizabeth Wade in 1861 and Jesse married Ellen Bavin in 1865. Benjamin and Elizabeth had at least six children: Louis, Helen, Walter, Benjamin, Annie May and Reginald. They lived in Warwick Street (near to where Warwickshire Path is now), 64 Lewisham High Road (now Lewisham Way) and finally 29 Pepys Road. Jesse and Ellen had two children Maria Annie and Harry. They lived at 33 Douglas Street (now Douglas Way) and then 52 Florence Road, where Ellen died on 4 October 1888. Jesse and the children then moved to 60 Wickham Road.

Jesse stood for election, apparently unsuccessfully, as a Thames Conservator in 1897. (The Conservators were the forerunners of the Port of London Authority.) During his first term as Mayor Benjamin gave evidence on behalf of the Company of Watermen and Lightermen to the Royal Commission whose findings led to the formation of the Port of London Authority. During he second term he was a guest at the King's Levee in the St James's Palace Garden Party.

During his time as Mayor Jesse was at the Broadway Theatre in New Cross on 16 December 1906 when the Dickens Fellowship Dramatic Society gave a performance of a play based on Dombey and Son in aid of the Lord Mayor's Cripples Fund. Jesse promised a donation of £5 but subsequently donated 5 guineas. A few weeks later Jesse's son Harry died at 60 Wickham Road on New Years Day 1907. The Duchess of Albany visited Deptford on 14 May 1907 and Jesse welcomed her to the Deptford Fund Refuge at St Peter's Hall, Brockley. On 12 July 1907 Jesse attended the centenary festival dinner of the City of London Truss Society. Jesse died at 60 Wickham Road on 27 January 1908, less than three months after his term as Mayor ended.

Mary Elizabeth died on 29 June 1911 and Benjamin Joseph on 24 January 1918.

Postscript
Benjamin Joseph's son Reginald followed his father onto the river and was Master of The Company of Watermen and Lightermen in 1922.

B. Jacob & Sons Ltd carried on, until going into voluntary liquidation in 1967 and being wound up in 1968, presumably as a result of containerisation.