Blue Plaques of South Battersea
By Jeanne Rathbone
Jeanne Rathbone, local historian and Battersea Society member, has been instrumental in securing plaques to commemorate notable Battersea residents, in particular women who have been under-represented in both local and national commemoration schemes. Read about her tour introducing eight former residents who have been honoured.
On a hot Saturday in July, Jeanne led a well-attended walk to six South Battersea residences already bearing a plaque and the home of two sisters who certainly deserve this recognition. After gathering outside Clapham South station, our first stop was 3 Thurleigh Avenue, home of Gus Elen, 1862-1940. Elen, a music hall performer and comedian, lived here from 1898. The plaque, bestowed by the Greater London Council, was unveiled in 1979. Elen’s success was notable from 1891, performing cockney songs in a career lasting over thirty years as a “coster comedian,” in a uniform of striped jersey, peaked cap turned toward one ear and a short clay pipe in the side of his mouth. In character he was bad tempered and pugnacious. Elen was scouted to go to the US and made several appearances as a top attraction at music halls across London. He retired in 1914 but in 1935 performed in a Royal command performance and frequently in charity events. Away from the stage, he bred poultry, took up photography, became a keen fisherman and enjoyed shooting. He is buried in Streatham Park Cemetery.
Next stop was 40 Nightingale Lane, home of H. M. Bateman, 1887-1970. Bateman, a cartoonist and caricaturist, moved here from Clapham with his parents in 1910, at the age of 23. The neighbourhood provided rich pickings for his satirical exposés of middle-class suburban manners. Bateman was noted for his “The Man Who…” series and from an early age created drawings that told funny stories. He studied first at Westminster School of Art, then transferred to New Cross Art School (now Goldsmith’s College). He became the most highly paid cartoonist in the country, sought after by advertisers, engaged in the US and Australia, published in Europe. During World War I he was sent to the front as an artist and to entertain troops by demonstrating his technique for making caricatures. In his 40s he gave up cartoons for painting and after battles with Inland Revenue departed for Gozo, Malta. There he painted every day until his death at age 84. His daughter Diana was a founder member of the organisation that set up the UK Cartoon Museum; his daughter Monica and granddaughters Lucy and Tilly Willis all became artists.
Just a few steps further on is Helensburgh House, now Elizabeth House at 99 Nightingale Lane. The seclusion of the area attracted Charles Haddon Spurgeon, 1834-1892. He was an English Particular Baptist preacher, pastor for 38 years at Metropolitan Tabernacle Independent Reformed Baptist church in Elephant and Castle. In 1867 he instituted an orphanage in Stockwell, now a children’s charity called Spurgeons; he also founded Spurgeon’s College in 1856 in South Norwood Hill which trains men and women for the Baptist ministry. He authored sermons, an autobiography, commentaries, and so forth and was known for his spellbinding oratory. By the age of 22 he was preaching to audiences of more than 10,000 people and was known as the Prince of Preachers. He died in Menton, France and is buried at West Norwood cemetery following a funeral procession witnessed by vast crowds. He remains influential among Christians. The building was later a maternity home and is now retirement flats run by the Wandle Housing Association.
Next door at 105 Nightingale Lane is Nightingale House, originally Ferndale. This was the last home of the boxer Ted “Kid” Lewis, born Gershon Mendelhoff, 1893-1970. The plaque was unveiled in 2003 by his son, Morton. Lewis held a record nine titles at three different weights and was the first competitor to be elected to the Boxing Hall of Fame. His career started with the Judean Club in Whitechapel where he was “The Smashing, Dashing, Crashing Kid.” Described by Mike Tyson as “probably the greatest fighter to ever come out of Britain,” he compiled a record of 173 wins (71 knock-outs), 30 losses, 14 draws and 65 no decisions. In the US during World War I, he was encouraged by the British Embassy to remain there and join the propaganda effort and he became a boxing instructor with the US Army. He retired from boxing in 1929 after which he served as a boxing referee, a bookmaker, seller of fine wines and spirits, a security officer and a travel agent. He also took on some acting roles and made numerous celebrity appearances. During the 30s, he was briefly involved with Oswald Mosley and in the 60s with the Krays. Married to his American wife Elsie for forty-five years, he spent the last four years of his life at Nightingale House and is buried in the East Ham Jewish Cemetery.
There is a blue plaque and stone memorial here to Sydney Stern, 1st Baron Wandsworth, JP 1844-1912. Educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, Stern was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1874, worked in his father’s merchant bank, Stern Brothers, and was elected Liberal MP for Stowmarket in 1891. In 1895 he was made a peer, served as a Justice of the Peace and was made honorary colonel 4th battalion of the East Surrey Regiment. In 1907 he gave the home and grounds of Ferndale for the establishment of the Home for Aged Jews Nightingale Lane. Unmarried, he left over £1M for the establishment of a new school in Stowmarket, now Lord Wandsworth College, for the children of agricultural workers who lost parents.
Deserving of a plaque are sisters Ida Cook, 1904-1986 and Louise Cook, 1901-1991 who lived at 24 Morella Road. They helped rescue 29 Jews from the Nazis during the 1930s and in 1965 were honoured as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in Israel. The two civil servants became avid opera lovers and began following their favourite performers to the US, Austria and Germany. Ida Cook also became an author, writing 112 romance novels as Mary Burchell for Mills and Boon. Her earnings from the books and their opera-related travels provided the means for the rescue missions. Ida was the second president of the Romantic Novelists Association and in 1950 wrote her autobiography, We Followed Our Stars, later re-edited as Safe Passage.
The final stop of this tour was 26 Bolingbroke Grove, formerly Linden Lodge School, now Northcote Lodge School. This is the site of the Battersea Society plaque honouring Sir George Shearing, OBE 1919-2011. Shearing was a jazz pianist who composed over 300 titles, including the jazz standard “Lullaby of Broadway.” Shearing was born at 67 Arthur Street in Battersea, blind from birth and the youngest of nine children. At Linden Lodge School he studied classical piano and learned to read music in Braille. Offered several scholarships, he chose instead to perform at the Mason’s Arms in Lambeth, joined Claude Bampton’s Blind Orchestra and in 1947 emigrated to the US where he formed the George Shearing Quintet America. He performed for three US Presidents and in 1993 received the Ivor Novello Lifetime Achievement Award. His later years were spent in New York and Chipping Camden and in 2004 he released his memoirs, Lullaby of Birdland, written with Alyn Shipton who in 2017 unveiled the Battersea Society plaque