Plumstead, 1800 – 1900:
The Building of a London Suburb
Page 4

by Barbara Ludlow

The Plumstead Common Riots, 1876

The people of Plumstead strongly opposed the ambitions of Queens College stating that they had the right to graze cattle, geese and other livestock, the right to cut turf and to dig for sand and gravel on the Common.

Also they claimed the right to use the open space for sports and other pastimes. Eventually hundreds of people joined in demonstrations for the purpose, digging gravel and sand for their own use.

These actions attracted the attention of John De Morgan, a leading light of the Commons Protection League. On 1st July 1876 he spoke to a crowd of about 1,000 local people in front of the Old Mill beerhouse (the windmill had been converted into a beerhouse in 1853). De Morgan then took the crowd around the common with the intention of removing recently erected fences.

The authorities, afraid that the revolution had started, arrested him and other demonstrators charging them with riotous assembly, and disturbing the peace. John De Morgan went to prison for seventeen days. The riots concentrated the minds of politicians and, in 1878, the Plumstead Common Act ensured that about one hundred acres of land remained as public open space forever. The Act was passed just in time as some roads had been built across the Common effectively dividing it into the two portions that can be seen today.

Between 1870 and the early 1900s roads to the north of Plumstead Common Road were made between the Herbert Estate and the Slade. The ancient Plum Lane soon ran between roads in which superior Victorian and Edwardian houses approached the heights of Shooters Hill.

William Dawson, a successful brick and tile maker, lived in a large house called “The Links” in parkland behind his works, which bordered Plumstead Common Road. He had gradually sold off other land for housing, and had become a developer himself. At the beginning of the 20th century he closed his works between Palmerston and Macoma Roads in order that they could be completed. His house was demolished and, in 1905, the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society opened “The Links,” a terrace of elegantly designed shops. This provided a much needed and smart shopping area for the new up-market estate.

In 1872 the Woolwich Union Workhouse was opened between Plumstead High Street and Tewson Road. No longer would the poor of Plumstead have to go to Lewisham Workhouse. They now had a grim, gothic Union Workhouse of their own in the middle of their community. After its closure in 1929 the workhouse became St. Nicholas Hospital. Now even the hospital has gone – the site has been redeveloped for housing.

In 1889 the County of London was created and the people of Plumstead, once villagers, became Londoners. All this with the stroke of a pen!

In 1900 the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich came into being and the ancient parish system of government and the later Board of Works disappeared. Woolwich, Plumstead, and the still rural Eltham were joined together under one administration. Plumstead entered the 20th Century with a population of 68,327, a massive increase from the 1,166 villagers resident at the beginning of the previous century.

The benefit to Plumstead of being administered by the new local authorities: Woolwich Borough Council, and the London County Council soon became apparent. Within a few years a range of well-designed modern amenities became available to Plumstead people.

Woolwich Council promoted the use of electricity in the home and workplace by building a combined refuse incinerator and electricity generating station in White Hart Road, Plumstead. This very advanced concept became operational in 1903.

One year later Plumstead Library was opened in the High Street, and, in 1907 Plumstead Baths and Washhouses were built on an adjacent site. In 1919 Plumstead Museum was opened on the first floor of Plumstead Library. The library and the museum still flourish but the baths have been demolished to make way for a small housing development.

In 1900 the London County Council Tramways Act (Electric) was passed in order to run a network of electric trams throughout the county of London. The new local electric tram service, which ran from Woolwich along Plumstead Road and High Street to Abbey Wood, was a boon to people who lived and worked locally.

The Bostall Estate, Abbey Wood

Between 1900 and 1914 the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society built over one thousand homes on land that they had bought at Abbey Wood at the eastern extremity of Plumstead. In 1915 the population of Plumstead was 77,357 by 1919 it approached 80,000.

After World War I the workforce in the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich declined very rapidly causing a consequent reduction in the population of Plumstead to 76,778 in 1921 then to 70,200 by 1932.

In the 1920s and 1930s Woolwich Council built large new estates on green field sites in Eltham. The new growing new suburb at Eltham had a long-term effect on the growth and prosperity of Plumstead, which had been Woolwich’s first and oldest suburb.

Suburban Necessities: Churches, Schools, Shops and Public Houses

The majority of people living in the new houses in the Burrage, Herbert, and Plumstead Park Estates were from many parts of the British Isles (which then included the whole of Ireland). In common with all immigrants, they brought their own culture with them. There was a need to build new churches and chapels.

St. James Church, Burrage Road was built in 1855. St. Margaret’s Church, Plumstead Common, which was to supersede the ancient church of St. Nicholas as the main parish church of Plumstead, in 1859. Ironically, St. Margaret’s has been demolished and St. Nicholas has reverted to being the main parish church. Two more churches were to be built: Christ Church, Shooters Hill in 1856 - 1869 for the residents of the Herbert Estate, and All Saints, Ripon Road in 1881.

Many Irish people had settled in the Woolwich area from as early as 1800 and before, attracted by work at the Royal Arsenal and Royal Naval Dockyard, and it was largely for them that the new St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church was built in New Road, Woolwich in 1843. Fifty years later in 1893 St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church was built in Conway Road to serve the Catholic population of Plumstead.

Plumstead was noted for its large population of non-conformists. Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians competed with each other for the allegiance of the working classes. Two important non-conformist chapels were the Cage Lane Evangelical Free Church of 1879, and the People’s Hall of the Evangelical Free Church at the Slade built in 1880. However, the largest of all was the Plumstead Great Wesleyan Hall in the High Street, which opened in 1905. The group with the most fascinating name was the Plumstead Peculiars who had a chapel in Waverley Crescent until about 1934. It then became the Plumstead Particular Strict Baptist Chapel.

The Plumstead Board of Works was formed in 1856 as part of the Metropolitan Board of Works, London’s first strategic authority. The School Board for London, formed after the 1870 Education Act, had responsibility for education within the Metropolitan Board of Works district. Thus, education in Plumstead became the responsibility of the new Board. Previously, children had attended church schools: St. Margaret’s School, built in 1856 on Plumstead Common (Plumstead Central School), or Christ Church School, built in1857 on Shooters Hill.

Among the earliest Board Schools to be built in Plumstead were: Bloomfield Road, Burrage Grove, Brewery Road, and Plumstead High Street. The Slade School of 1884 was designed by the famous School Board for London architect Edward Robson. By 1910 there were about ten state schools in Plumstead. The original names of these schools are used above but they were all subsequently renamed.

The corner sites of many roads in the new suburb of Plumstead were occupied by either a shop or a beerhouse. The Beerhouse Act of 1830 allowed a householder, on purchasing a licence for two guineas (£2.10p), to sell beer from a room in the house. In addition to the beerhouses purpose built public houses were also constructed. The Lord Herbert in Herbert Road was built c.1870 on the edge of the Herbert Estate. Most of the public houses in Plumstead belonged to the North Kent Brewery on the corner of Lakedale Road and Brewery Road. However, the oldest public houses like the Volunteer and the Plume of Feathers were, of course, in the High Street at the heart of the old village.

Corner shops like those at the northern end of Herbert Road and Acacia parade were convenient for local families but, inevitably, it was the main shopping areas in Woolwich, Woolwich Market, and Plumstead High Street that were the biggest draw for shoppers from Plumstead.