What the papers say about Claremont Road: (1) adverts for servants

We’ve dived deep into the British Library’s newspaper archive (available on subscription direct and via Find My Past) to find out what British newspapers have had to say about the Woodgrange estate’s Claremont Road since its construction in the late 1870s, and some fascinating stories have emerged.

Claremont Road 1913

The archive has digitized over 90 million pages from almost 2,500 different publications, and their contents can be accessed by increasingly sophisticated search engines and optical character recognition (OCR) techniques. A search for “Claremont Road Forest Gate” reveals over 1,600 references.

The most significant number of these (more than 10%, or 167) are advertisements for domestic servants, which paint an interesting picture. This article is the first in a series examining how the press has covered this street, focusing on the advertisements for domestic servants.

167 is almost certainly a serious underestimate of those placed for servants in the street. The most prominent local newspaper for nearly all of the period since Claremont Road was constructed, the Stratford Express, for some baffling reason (and despite numerous requests by local historians to fully digitize the paper), only has a handful of years, seemingly chosen at random, digitized and available through this source for examination.

Claremont Road c1910

 

Also, somewhat annoyingly, the national publication that has traditionally been the go-to for domestic servants' advertisements—The Lady, first published in 1885—has also not been digitized. Doubtlessly, buried within the pages of these two publications are many more advertisements seeking domestic servants for Claremont Road since its construction.

What follows is what we know and conclude about the lives of domestic servants in Claremont Road, primarily based on press accounts.

Census returns

We have previously examined the number of servants living on the road in our coverage of the 1881 and 1891 censuses (see here and here). In summary, these articles showed that in 1881, 50 (83%) of the 67 houses that had been constructed by then had a live-in servant, and 13 (22%) had both a female domestic servant and a “nurse” (live-in nanny).

A decade later, we examined 98 houses on the street, 80 of which had at least one servant, and 11 had two (typically the second was a nurse). All the servants in both surveys were women who were overwhelmingly young and unmarried.

Houses covered by adverts

For most of the time covered by the newspaper advertisements surveyed, there were approximately 160 houses on Claremont Road (fewer in the first few years, as construction had not been completed), and fewer since 1940, as around 25 houses at the Woodgrange Road end of the road had been destroyed by bomb damage.

Although over 80% of houses in the 1881 and 1891 snapshot census figures reported having domestic servants, we have found newspaper advertisements for approximately only 36% of them (58 houses) for the entire period covered by the survey (from 1880 onwards).

This suggests that either households found their domestics through other means (such as word of mouth, recommendations, agencies, or informal advertisements) or that the more obvious publication sources (Stratford Express and The Lady) offer a rich source of material for future examination once they become available through the British Newspaper Archive.

Approximately two-thirds of the houses on Claremont Road have triple frontages. Not surprisingly, adverts for those houses are disproportionately more likely to have sought domestic help than the double-fronted houses at the street's eastern end. A complete list of houses advertising for servants is included in the footnote. Anyone who would like a copy of the adverts for their home can be supplied with one on request.

One of the smaller, double fronted houses at the eastern end of Claremont Road

 

Pay

Only about a third of the adverts mentioned pay for the servants, and by today’s standards, the rewards were shockingly low. Almost all the advertisements sought live-in female help, typically for girls or young women in their teens and early twenties. Presumably, these individuals would have been perceived as being cheaper and less likely to get married or pregnant than older women.

The fact that they lived with their employers would have meant that they were at their beck and call almost relentlessly, but also that free board and lodging (and possibly work attire) was a considerable bonus to their meagre wages.

The pay offered to servants in the 1880s was in the region of £10-£12 per year (£1,103 - £1,324 in real terms today, using the Bank of England inflation calculator). Pay offered in the 1890s was more varied, but at current valuations, it was within the range of £862 to £1,675 per annum.

A typical 1880s advert- Leytonstone Express 1 Nov 1888

Rates increased considerably in the first decade of the twentieth century, suggesting that attracting very low-paid girls and young women was becoming more challenging. Pay in the first decade of the twentieth century was typically in the range of £1,800 - £2,500.

The higher pay rates presumably reduced the number of households able or prepared to employ servants. The number of adverts for servants decreased considerably in the decade before the onset of World War One, and it never recovered. We found only two advertisements in the entire post-World War One period—both from 1927. The rates offered were £1,868 and £2,773, respectively.

Yarmouth Independent 22 October 1927 - offering the equivalent of £1,868 pa.

The 1880s and 1890s saw the most significant demand for servants, which coincided with the lowest wages. The apparent decline in demand occurred in the first decade of the twentieth century, in contrast to the popular myth that the First World War caused the decline and collapse of domestic service as an occupation.

Most of the advertisements we have traced were for full-time, live-in servants, but there were occasional ones for “daily help,” such as the one below. It is from 1891 and offers a maximum of £5 per week (adjusted for inflation) for someone who would have had to pay for their accommodation elsewhere.  Another shows a maximum of 30p per week in 1917 (£15 per week at today’s rates), when there were considerable competing demands for women in the wartime workforce.

The hours of the “dailys” were rarely mentioned, but if the 1891 advert was typical, an 11-hour day (8am – 7pm), possibly six days a week, would have seemed likely.

11 hour day for "daily", West Ham and South Essex Independent 25 July 1891

 

Conditions

None of the advertisements provided a job description, so it isn't easy to accurately describe what work was expected or what the hours were. The nearest equivalent is for jobs as “nurses” when it was clear that the job was essentially that of a nanny who would have been employed in addition to a general housemaid.

The advertisement below, from 1888, is presumably for new house occupants, seeking two young women or girls. The nanny was expected to “Take entire CHARGE of Four, and to teach three young children English and music” for £10 per year (£1,103 today)! And for a ”GIRL, about 14, for housework” (no salary mentioned).

 

Essex Newsman 7 Jan 1888

A typical housemaid would have been expected to light the fires, carry coal to various rooms in the house, and perform household chores, including clearing up the mess caused by the soot from the fires. In an era before refrigeration, daily shopping was necessary, and most advertisements featured cooking – usually emphasizing “simple” or “plain” cooking.

Washing was an issue and an undesired task for servants (heating the water, transferring it to large vessels, hand washing many and heavy clothes with crude soaps, drying—particularly in bad weather—ironing in the pre-electric iron days, etc.). As recruitment became more expensive and difficult in the first decade of the twentieth century, would-be employers found it advantageous to offer “no washing” as an inducement to potential staff. 

An early C20th "no washing" advert - Leytonstone Express 5 May 1902

 

This would have coincided with the growth of commercial laundries. There was one between what is now the Fox and Hounds and Forest Tavern on Woodgrange Road (see the faint traces of signage in the photo below) and a larger one on Upton Lane (see the second photo).

Laundry to the left of the Fox and Hounds

 

Substantial Steam Laundry on Upton Lane - 1902 - now a petrol station. Location of Minnie Baldock's campaign on behalf of workers' conditions in 1911

The working life for women in these establishments was appalling – see the correspondence between local suffragette leader Minnie Baldock and workers at the Upton Lane establishment in the early twentieth century here.

It is reasonable to assume that the smaller the employer’s family was, the less demanding the work would have been for the servants, so – as with the washing issue – many adverts stressed small family sizes, where appropriate in the early years of the twentieth century, as potential inducements to the girls/young women they were seeking to attract.

Media used and timings of advertisements

Not surprisingly, the vast majority of advertisements accessed were in East London and Essex newspapers. However, the Daily Express became favoured in the early years of the twentieth century, at a time when the overall demand had reduced. Presumably, a national newspaper was used to advertise to attract a wider pool of would-be applicants as local sources dried up.

Daily Express 14 Feb 1904

 

A couple of adverts were placed when potential employers had a specific requirement. In 1902, the Percy Turner family of 89 Claremont Road felt a little homesick when they advertised in the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, seeking a locally based person to work for a Devonshire family.

Exeter and Plymouth Gazette 22 May 1902

 

In 1882, Mrs. Allen of 31 Claremont specifically requested a “churchwoman,” and the owners of 24 Claremont advertised in the Catholic Times in 1907, seeking “clerical references.” In 1891, Mrs. Bliss of 52 was quite clear, in an era when the temperance movement was most active, that she wanted “an abstainer.”

News reports

Claremont Road domestic servants were explicitly mentioned in three news reports in the last two decades of the nineteenth century.

Suicide

The first case involved 16-year-old Constance Susan Hand, a nursemaid employed by the Berry family of number 56.

Eastern Post 2 April 1881

 

It would appear that she had only been employed by the family for two weeks and had received a letter from her fiancé breaking off their engagement. However, the coroner’s court heard that she was pleased this had happened.

On the day of her death, she borrowed 6d from her mother and bought vermin killer from Dyer’s, the chemist and druggist on Woodgrange Road.

She returned to number 56, appeared to have taken the poison, and was found by Mrs Berry, the employer, “convulsed and repeatedly calling on God to help her”. She died an hour later. Mrs Berry described her as a “very quiet, modest young woman”. The court could discover no cause for her suicide.

Railway accident

Six years later, another nursemaid, 24-year-old Ellen Taylor, the daughter of a Kent policeman, employed by Joseph Benton at 87 Claremont Road was involved in a strange, self-generated railway accident. 

Chelmsford Chronicle 5 Aug 1887

 

While in charge of two of her employer’s children on a train journey to Southend, she tested the carriage's door to ensure it had been adequately closed when they left Liverpool Street. It hadn’t been, and she fell out, sustaining injuries. She was taken to Chelmsford hospital, where her damaged arm was treated, and the family accompanied her back to Forest Gate.

Duped in a theft

The third case was less dramatic. “Miss Rayner,” a domestic servant of 26 Claremont Road, was an unwitting accessory to a theft from an ironmonger’s shop. The shop’s employee, who had duped her, was convicted of theft and given a one-month sentence with hard labour.

East End News 3 June 1896

Footnote. House numbers placing (sometimes multiple) adverts for servants: 3,6, 7, 13, 14, 18, 20, 24, 26, 29, 31, 35, 36, 39, 44, 50, 52, 53, 57, 59, 62, 63, 64, 67, 68, 72, 77, 78, 82, 84, 89, 90, 9, 92, 93, 95, 96, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 106, 107, 11, 113, 114, 124, 125, 131, 133, 136, 138, 140, 141, 145, 148, 158.

Western end of Capel Road

The chance receipt of a couple of photos dating from the 1930s of activity at the western end of Capel Road set regular contributor Peter Williams and his colleague and collaborator Mark Gorman in search of life on that strip of highway from the 1890s until the 1990s. Activity there during that period was very different from that in the primarily Victorian houses that populate the rest of Capel Road today.

The article references several sources that people researching the histories of their properties may find helpful.

The area today

The area covered by this article today is largely occupied by a row of houses built in the late 1990s – see photos below.

Modern houses at the western end of Capel Road (2016)

The history quest began with site photos of a petrol station (see later) located at 10 Capel Road. Half a century earlier, that site had been the location of Manor Farm, run by the Banes family, as suggested by these newspaper adverts from 1899 and 1907.

Barking, East Ham and Ilford Advertiser 18 February 1899

Westminster Gazette 28 October 1907

The site soon became occupied and managed by Thomas Henry Mullins, who gave the address (still known as Banes’ Manor Farm – see photo) for selling a cart (see below).

Banes Manor Farm sign, Capel Road c1907

Barking, East Ham and Ilford Advertiser 31 August 1907

Mullins was a Somerset-born dairyman who lived at 10 Capel Road during the 1911 census. He was one of many country- folk who migrated to towns and cities, maintaining their previous rural occupations. In his case, it was cow-keeping. Several cow-keepers lived near Wanstead Flats until the 1990s, when they let their often small number of beasts graze on the land.

Thomas Henry Mullins - 1911 census - Ancestry

The reasonably prosperous Mullins died in 1916, as this extract from the probate register indicates.

Thomas Henry Mullins - Probate Records, Ancestry

As these clips from the British Newspaper Archives catalogue indicate, the dairy would appear to have been wound up in 1921.

The Gazette - 5 July 1921

It's not entirely clear what happened on the site for the next decade and a half, but by 1937, it featured in a Watsonian Sidecars brochure, selling motorcycle spares. This advert was accessed via an eBay search, which can be an excellent source of images for historical research.

Watsonian Sidecar brochure, 1937

The location was soon converted into Bradley’s Autodrome – a service station, Hillman car dealer, and car repair business. See below.

West Ham and South Essex Mail 06 January 1939

This would have been when the photos that provoked this research were taken. The first is a photo of the petrol pumps, located on the site of the modern houses.

The second is a West Ham-registered car with a number plate dating to the 1930s awaiting a fill-up. A close inspection shows that the service station sold both BP “Ethyl” and Shell products, indicating that the garage was independent and not tied to a sole supplier.

Strangely, the location was described as doubling up as a refreshment room run by Morris James Gregory (see this 1940 Trade Directory). 

1940 Trade Directory

We have no further details of this business. However, a photo emerged recently on Facebook, spotted by a friend of the blog, Tony Morrison, showing these tearooms occupying the site next door, 11 and 12 Capel Road. Unfortunately, it is undated.

A collection of photos in the Newham Archives, dating from 1957, shows that  Autodrome was still an active business. 

Above - 1957 Newham archive photos of the Autodrome, Capel Road

An advert in Commercial Motor magazine from the 1970s suggests was by then trading in Land Rovers and other commercial vehicles.

Commercial Motor magazine, via Google Books

At some time after this notice was placed, the site was taken over and run as a Q8 (Kuwait) fuel station, bearing the familiar logo below. The green posts at the foot of the 2016 photo, above, of the houses now occupying the site were from the Q8 forecourt. They have subsequently been removed. Unfortunately, we do not have pictures of the service station under this badging. We would be grateful to anyone who could supply any.

Q8 logo - on Capel Road service station - 1990s

Capel Point

Tony Morrison’s eagle-eyed skimming of Facebook uncovered a photo showing pre-WW2 1-4 Capel Rd, adjacent to the garage – below.

Front of pre-war 1-4 Capel Point (via Facebook)

These houses were bomb-damaged, and the pictures from the Newham Archive 1957 series on bomb damage clearly show an Anderson shelter at the rear of 1-4 Capel Road.

Back of 1-4 Capel Road, 1957 - Newham Archives

The houses were demolished to be replaced by Capel Point below around 1965.

Capel Point today - source: Google Maps

Footnote. Other articles, by Peter Williams,  about Capel Road can be found here and here.

Forest Gate Freedom Walk

Peter Ashan began a series of Freedom Walks in east London in 2007, during the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade. These walks aim to reveal the hidden history of the contribution of people of colour to the east end of London and the struggle against inequality. Below, we feature some aspects of his Freedom Walk of Forest Gate. 

Portrait of Peter in a mural in Wood Street, Walthamstowe

Full details of Peter’s other walks and work can be found in the footnote. 

  

Forest Gate Youth Zone, Woodford Road  

 

Tony Lee Fielding (1944-2006) was born in Jamaica and migrated to England in 1960 to be with his parents in Hackney. 

Forest Gate Youth Zone, where Tony Lee Fielding was a youth worker

He began a career as a youth worker with Waltham Forest Council in 1975. In the mid-1980s, he established Sing and Deliver, which provided opportunities in the performing arts, such as singing and street dance. These activities occurred in youth centres in Waltham Forest and further afield, such as Forest Gate Youth Zone.   

 

The programme included his Inner-College Vocal Search, which took place at various colleges in London.   

  

Eagle and Child Pub, Woodgrange Road  

  

Before it became a pub, The Eagle and Child, now the Woodgrange pharmacy, was a Pleasure Garden and Tea Room dating back to 1744. Venues like this were popular in England during the c18 to c19, where the wealthy could enjoy music, dancing, food, and drink, particularly tea, for a fee. 

Woodgrange Pharmacy, on the site of the Eagle and Child pub/Pleasure Garden and Tea Room

  

The British East India Company began importing tea from China in 1664. The prosperous preferred to add sugar to their tea. This became the main crop enslaved African labour was forced to grow in the Caribbean. Exploited Indian labour on tea plantations meanwhile grew the tea, in what became the British Empire in India.   

  

Portrait of Ranjit Singh 1780-1839, Woodgrange Road   

 

Ranjit Singh was the first Maharaja and founder of the Sikh Empire. The Artful Skecha painted his portrait on the side of a block of flats.  

 

When Ranjit Singh died in 1839 his empire was weakened by rivalry and the East India Company sought to exploit this internal weakness to expand its territory in India. His youngest son, Maharaja Sir Duleep Singh, 1838 to 1893, became, aged five, the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire in 1843, with his mother, Maharani Jind Kaur, ruling on his behalf.  

Portrait of Ranjit Singh on block of flats on Woodgrange Road

  

Two wars between the Sikh Empire and the East India Company (1845 -1846 and 1848- 1849) saw the East India Company victorious, and they renamed the area the North West Frontier Province (of India). 

   

Duleep Singh was exiled to Britain at 15 and befriended by Queen Victoria, who became godmother to several of his children, three of whom he had when married to Bamba Muller (1864 to 1887). Bamba’s mother, from Ethiopia, and her father, from Germany, were suffragettes. 

 

Two of their daughters were socially significant activists in their own right.   

Princess Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh (1871-1942) has been called by the Holocaust Memorial Trust the “Indian Schindler” for her role, when living in Germany, in helping several Jewish people to escape from the Nazi’s, to safety in Britain.   

Princess Sofia Alexandra Duleep Singh (1876-1948) was a particularly well-known suffragette activist in the Women’s Social and Political Union.  

  

Durning Hall Community Centre, Earlham Grove 

   

Newham Monitoring Project (NMP-1980-2016) used Durning Hall for meetings and fundraising events. I remember attending at least one NMP party there, with a female DJ playing music reflecting the diversity of east London, such as Bhangra, Funk, and High Life. 

Newham Recorder reporting the murder of Akhtar Ali Baig

  

NMP brought the diverse communities of east London- White, Black and Asian - together to challenge racism. It was formed in 1980, as part of the Asian Youth Movement after the racist murder of Akhtar Ali Baig as he left East Ham Station. 

   

One of its founders was Gulshun Rehman, who also founded The Newham Asian Women’s Project. (see here and here for further details of the NMP) 

  

Hazel Goldman, Earlham Grove 

  

Among the many diverse communities who have made Newham their home is the Jewish community, escaping anti-Semitism in Europe. Hazel Goldman’s family has lived in Britain since the 1880s. Her grandfather Shmula Peprzhik, upon arriving in England in 1913, had his name anglicised to Harry Goldman. 

Helen Goldman (photo: Forest Mag)

  

The family moved to Forest Gate in the 1950s and were members of the Earlham Grove Synagogue (consecrated in 1911—demolished in 2004—see here for further details). It was the first in Essex and the largest in Newham. 

   

Hazel attended Chelsea School of Art and worked for Freeform Arts Trust, leading its Community Design and Technical Services Department and has continued to work within community arts ever since. From 1984 to 2002 she was an Executive Member of Pepetual Beauty Carnival Association in Stoke Newington, leading its design team, as well as supporting the development of the first accredited courses in art and design, through carnival arts at a UK college. 

  

Her work can be seen in the Forest Gate Community Garden on Earlham Grove.   

  

Newham Black Performing and Visual Arts Workshop (NBP&VAW) MacDonalds drive-in Romford Road 

   

The N.B. P & V. A. W. was founded in 1980 by Tony Cheeseman, who became its first Development Worker.  His co-founders were Pearla Boyce, Harian Henry, Peter Mavunga and Nathalie Pierre. Benjamin Zephaniah was the organisation’s patron.  

Tony Cheeseman

 

Its workshop tutors included Hakim Adi: History; Rosette Bushell-Adi: Dance; Sandra Agard: Poetry; Joe Blackman: Creative Writing and Colin Paddy: Sculpture. 

   

One of its aims was to give African Caribbean youth opportunities to learn about and develop their skills in the arts. Its original headquarters was above a bicycle shop at 324 to 326 Romford Road. It is now Forest Gate MacDonalds.  

MacDonald's, Romford Road, site of NBP&VAW

  

Workshops were organized in drawing, painting, creative writing, spoken word poetry, singing, dance, and Black history.  

 

From 1986 to 1989, they collaborated with the Newham African Caribbean Centre on 627 to 633 Barking Road, now known as the Barking Road Community Resource Centre.   

    

Clapton Community FC, Disraeli Road   

 

Walter Daniel John Tull was born 28^h April 1888 in Folkestone and died on 25^h March 1918 near Favreuil Pas-de-Calais Aged 29. He was a professional football player and officer in the British army. His father was Daniel Tull, an African Caribbean, born in Barbados and his mother Alice Elizabeth Palmer, white English, born in Kent. Walter was soon orphaned and faced and overcame many adversities, including racism, throughout his life to become an inspiration for justice and equality.   

Walter Tull

 

He played football for amateur club Clapton at the Old Spotted Dog Ground from 1908 to 1909 and was in the team that won the FA Amateur Cup, the London County Amateur Cup, and the London Senior Cup. The club is proud of the part he played in its history and will soon name the passage behind the ground Walter Tull Way. There will also be an information panel with a QR code erected on the ground, directing visitors to more information about him. 

  

From 1909 to 1911, he played for Tottenham Hotspur in the 1st Division of the FA Football League, making him one of the first Black outfield football players to appear in the league. From 1911 to 1914, he played 111 games for Northampton Town in the Southern League, which the legendary Herbert Chapman then managed. In 1917, he signed up to play for the Glasgow Rangers, becoming their first Black player. 

  

He joined the British Army in 1914, becoming the first Black officer to lead white troops into battle, rising in the ranks to become a 2nd Lieutenant, and died in battle.   

  

  

West Ham Park 

    

The park owes its existence to the perseverance of Dr Gustav Pagenstecher (1829-1916).  He was born in Westphalia Germany to a Franco/Caribbean mother and his wealthy German father, who died when Gustav was 5 years old.  

Gustav Pagenstecher (1896)

 

Gustav was home-educated. It is believed he left Germany in 1852 for England to avoid military service.  In England, he worked as a tutor for a family in Norfolk, and later became a tutor for MP Sir Edward Buxton’s family. He joined Buxton in visiting Ham House (the site of what was to become West Ham Park) in 1860 to meet Buxton’s Gurney relations. He was also Buxton’s secretary in Parliament. 

  

In the 1870s, John Gurney, owner of the Ham House estate, was keen to sell it, as the family was in financial difficulties due to the collapse of their bank. John Gurney asked Gustav for help selling the estate. He persuaded Gurney to consider turning the estate into a public park.  

 

Gustav identified the Corporation of London as the potential owners and managers of the park, and found other wealthy donors willing to contribute to the cost of creating a public park. 

  

He was the deputy chairman of the Parks Committee until 1916 and wrote the first history of the Park. From 1886, he lived in Cedar Cottage at 206 The Portway, adjacent to the park. 

  

He regularly returned to Germany during summers and in 1914 returned to England to find that he was expected to report daily to West Ham Police Station as an alien. He was caught up in the anti-German policies of the British Government during World War One. 

   

The way he was treated during this period is said to have contributed to his death two years later. There is very little information about him in the park, apart from a small plaque in the Pagenstecher Winter Garden opened in May 2015. (See here and here for more details on Pagenstcher and the Park) 

 

Footnote. Peter’s original Freedom Walks were of Leyton, Leytonstone, and Walthamstow. He then added walks around Ridley Road, Hackney, Green Street and Newham (which we hope to feature soon), and Battersea. In 2023, he added walks in Chingford North and Chingford Mount. 

 

Peter has also produced a book, Freedom Walk: The roots of diversity in Waltham Forest, to support his work. You can obtain this from him at the email address below. 

 

Peter welcomes enquiries from local community groups interested in him providing a Freedom Walk for them, at: peter.ashan.pa@gmail.com