The history of Hamfrith Farm

Mark Gorman (@Flatshistorian) continues his series on the farms of pre-suburban Forest Gate and district with a look at the history of Hamfrith Farm, some of which is today occupied by Godwin and Woodgrange schools.

Hamfrith (literally “Ham Wood”) was originally part of the lands of Stratford Langthorne Abbey, the great Cistercian monastery on the banks of the river Lea. In 1538, after the abbey’s dissolution Hamfrith, together with the rest of West Ham manor, was acquired by the king. At the end of the C17th George Booth was given a 99-year lease for the manor of West Ham for services to the crown. Booth later made a grant which divided the manor into two parts. He assigned Hamfrith farm (which had been made out of Hamfrith wood) to Sir John Blount, a director of the South Sea Company, for 69 years, starting in 1733.

After the South Sea Bubble burst Blount was ruined, and his estates were sold. The Stratford and Hamfrith property was bought in 1734 by John Tylney, later Earl Tylney. It was then inherited in his family until the end of the 18th century.

Map of Essex by John Chapman and Peter Andre 1777. The map shows Hamfrith incorrectly marked as "Wood Grange" (sic), Woodgrange farm is the collection of buildings to the south of the Eagle and Child pub.

Both parts of the manor remained Crown freehold until the end of the 18th century, but the demesne land (land in the manor retained by the owner for his own use) and the manorial rights were then sold separately. In 1787 the whole manor contained 290 acres demesne lands, and 54 acres of commons, most of which formed part of Wanstead Flats. The demesne lands were mainly scattered in the southern marshes, the only substantial tenement (occupied buildings) being Hamfrith farm, 128 acres lying north of the London-Ilford road, on both sides of the boundary between East Ham and West Ham, occupied by John Greenhill.

Map c 1800 showing the Greenhill holdings. Their land streches from Forest Gate in the west to what is now Manor Park, and bordered the southern edge of Wanstead Flats, as well as fields south of the road to Romford. Hamfrith farm was east of the Eagle and Child on the map.

 

By 1799, when the occupiers were William, John and Richard Greenhill, Hamfrith comprised 148 acres. William Greenhill bought the freehold of Hamfrith Farm (without manorial rights, which were sold separately) from the Crown for £8,642. At this stage the Greenhills had substantial holdings both north and south of the Romford Road. William Greenhill's father, John, was said to have been the first large-scale potato grower for the London market, probably from the middle of the C18th, and his son had continued to develop the business. By the 1820s the Greenhills were employing upwards of 100 workers, mainly Irish.

By this time, however, William Greenhill seems to have run into financial difficulties, as between 1824-8 he mortgaged the farm for a total of £9,000. He died in 1832, leaving over £50,000 (approx £4.7m today) and directing that Hamfrith should be held in trust for life, and should later be sold. Financial problems continued for his heirs, however, for in 1835 William's son, John, was declared bankrupt and the contents of Hamfrith farm were auctioned off, while three months later part of the farm itself, described as "130 acres of superior land, in the highest state of cultivation" was offered to let. John's brother, William, occupied Plashet Hall at the time, which also had farm buildings and 145 acres of farmland, much of it south of Romford Road.

 

Hamfrith Farm and "Potatoe Hall" on the 1797 draft Ordnance Survey map.

Their house, Plashet Hall, on Romford Road, was known locally as "Potato Hall". The name "Potatoe Hall" also appeared on the draft Ordnance Survey map, made in 1797 (see above), showing that the Greenhill's business was nationally recognised.

The trustees finally sold the entire estate of 300 acres, as well as Plashet House, "a most Desirable and Gentlemanly residence" in 1850. The farm was described as "superior and productive Market Garden land", but significant emphasis was also put on the extensive building frontage "to very excellent roads".

The estate was eventually bought by Samuel Gurney (see here), owner of the neighbouring manor of Woodgrange and Ham House, for £17,710. Hamfrith then comprised 131 acres, bisected by the main line Eastern Counties Railway. John Greenhill, despite having to sell off his interest in his father's estate in 1836, appears to have enjoyed a comfortable life after moving to Leytonstone, where he died in 1869.

The 1863 6-inch OS map, showing that Hamfrith Farm has become West Ham Hall with an entrance where Chestnut Avenue meets Avenue Road. The red line running through the map is the projected route of the Tottenham and Forest Gate Railway, opened in 1894.

 

West Ham Hall c1890

John Gurney, grandson of Samuel, sold most of Hamfrith in 1872 to the British land Company, who in turn, in 1874, sold it to the Manor Park Cemetery Company. The eastern part was used for the cemetery, while the remainder was gradually developed by the Cemetery Company for building. Sebert Road, built up by 1878, runs through the centre of the Hamfrith lands.

The site of West Ham Hall is now occupied by Godwin primary school

Hamfrith farm-house had existed at least since the early 18th century. In the 19th century it became a gentleman's residence, with ornamental gardens. From the 1860s it was known as West Ham Hall. It stood on the north side of Sebert Road between Avenue Road and Cranmer Road. A carriage drive stretched north to the modern-day junction of Avenue Road and Chestnut Avenue.

About 1890 it was acquired by the Tottenham and Forest Gate Railway Company, which was then building its line, via Wanstead Park, to Woodgrange Park. West Ham Hall was still standing in 1893, when the company put it up for sale, with other surplus land. The house was bought by West Ham School Board, which demolished it. Today it is the site of Woodgrange and Godwin schools.

The main entrance to Hamfrith Farm was at the junction of Avenue Road and Chestnut Avenue. The farm gates were where the post box is today.

 

John Fothergill (1712-1780): Quaker, physician, philanthropist and botanist

John Fothergill was one of the earliest prominent Quakers to make Forest Gate both his home and a place of national significance.

He was born in Wensleydale, Yorkshire, in 1712, and, after an apprenticeship as an apothecary, studied medicine in Edinburgh.

After graduating, he moved to London and practised at St Thomas', on the south bank. He worked with the poor, often without pay, and at times subsidised wholesome food for his patients.

Ham House, as Fothergill renamed Rooke Hall
 - its grounds were to become West Ham
Park just over a century after Fothergill acquired it

He was a doctor in advance of his time, successfully treating what is now known as diphtheria, tuberculosis, migraine and influenza and introducing innovative methods to cure sore throats. He was a strong advocate of immunisation as a means of preventing smallpox, many years before it became accepted medical practice.

His reputation grew rapidly and he began to attract many of the rich and famous as his patients; among them, John Wesley, founder of Methodism and novelist Fanny Burney. As Fothergill himself put it: "I climbed on the backs of the poor to the pockets of the rich."

Such became his fame, that Fothergill had his portrait painted by Hogarth (see below).

Fothergill, by Hogarth

By 1774 he had the largest physician's practice in London, was said to work up to 20 hours a day and was reputed to earn the truly phenomenal sum of £5,000 per year (£700,000 in today's terms).

His medical fame and fortune provided him with an income to pursue his other - wide-ranging - interests, with notable effect.

Fothergill's first purchase of note came when he was fifty, and it was to become the foundation of his formidable non-medical reputation.

He bought Rooke Hall in 1762. This was a small estate of 30 acres that had belonged to the Rooke family for a century, from 1566. It then passed through the hands of Sir Robert Smyth and his descendants until it was purchased by Admiral Elliott. It was from Elliott that Fothergill purchased the property.

Fothergill extended and developed the house and grounds considerably - doubling its footprint to 60 acres. He renamed it Ham House. On his death it was sold, enlarged yet again, and soon became the property of the Gurneys (see here) and later West Ham Park.

It was, however, what Fothergill did with the property that made his stay there so significant. He was a keen botanist. He laid the enlarged lands out as flower gardens, surrounded by shrubberies, with a wilderness beyond. A watercourse ran through the land and the banks were planted with exotic shrubs.

Gilbert Stuart's portrait of John Fothergill (1712 - 1780)

Cartographers, Chapman and Andre, writing in 1777, described the grounds thus:

A winding canal, in the figure of a crescent, divided the garden into two ... occasionally opening on ... rare, exotic shrubs ... A glass door from the house gave an entrance into a suite of hot ... and green houses, nearly 260 feet in extent, containing upwards of 3,400 distinct species of exotics ... and in the open grounds ... nearly 3,000 distinct species of plants and shrubs.

Five years later, Sir Joseph Banks - botanist, president of the Royal Society for 41 years and advisor to George 111 on the establishment of Kew Gardens - said of the estate:

In my opinion no other garden in Europe, royal or of a subject, had so many scarce and valuable plants. It was second only to Kew in attracting visitors from overseas.

Sir Joshua Reynolds' portrait
of Sir Joseph Banks

He was able to stock his greenhouses and garden with unusual plants by paying plant hunters and sailors to bring back specimens of botanic interest from their voyages in the Americas, Far East and Africa.

Such was his influence on botanists of the day, he had species of plants named after him - for example Fothergill's Geranium and Fothergill's Lily.

Fothergill.  Although devoted to his botanic collection, was too busy with his medicine, which funded it, to devote much time to cultivating it.

He was rarely at Ham House, but paid 15 gardeners to tend his impressive collection. He was not just a collector, but a recorder and cataloguer of his stock A very detailed catalogue of it survives in the British Library (see below).

Above - the opening plate of the
catalogue of Fothergill's collection.
Below, the first page of the
detailed description of each plant

He also employed four artists, full-time, to make drawings, in vellum of each plant in full bloom. Below is a rare, surviving, black and white print of one of the Fothergill collection. 

Cortex Winteranus - one of the
thousands of drawings of Fothergill's
collection, painted on velum

The 18th century was the golden age of botanical drawings, and Fothergill engaged some of the finest artists to help him capture the images, including George Ehret (1708 - 1770) and John Miller (1715 - 1792). Below are surviving examples of their work, in full colour.

As for the Fothergill collection; it was sold on his death, along with his house and plant collection. Bizarrely, the prints were bought by Catherine the Great of Russia (1729 - 1796) - see photo, below. She was a keen horticulturalist and had had medical encounters with Dr Fothergill, so was well aware of him and his works.

Catherine The Great (1729 - 1796)
 bought Fothergill's botanical prints
and took them to Russia

The collection of 2,000 prints are now believed to be housed in the Komarov Botanical Institute, St Petersburg, part of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

They have never been shown in public and attempts to view them have been thwarted. It would be a fine gesture if the Corporation of London and St Petersburg's municipal authority could jointly mount an exhibition of this magnificent and historic collection.

The Komarov Botanical Institute,
St Petersburg - present home
to the Fothergill collection

As with the other Quaker polymath dignitaries who have lived in Upton over the years, Fothergill had a wide range of interesting pursuits. In addition to his innovative medical practice and - literally and metaphorically - ground-breaking botanical work, he played a full part in civic society.

He, for example, advocated the proper registration of births and deaths, sixty years before the national register was established and promoted the use of public baths, as a health measure a century before they became popular.

He was subsequently elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquities in 1753, and the Royal Society, a decade later.

The front plate on the first volume
of Fothergill's collected works

Like a fellow future Quaker resident of Ham House, Samuel Gurney, he was an active prison reformer. Just as Gurney had supported his sister, Elizabeth Fry, in the cause, so, a generation earlier Fothergill provided support to John Howard - after whom today's prison reform pressure group is named. Fothergill worked with Howard to try to get programmes of employment for ex-prisoners in order to facilitate their rehabilitation - quite a novel idea at the time.

Again, just as Gurney had become active in public affairs (education, campaigning against capital punishment, slavery etc), so too - in the previous century - had Fothergill. He was the founder of Ackworth public school, in Pontefract, Yorkshire. It was co-educational from its foundation and offered free education to poor Quaker children.  It survives today as one of only eight Quaker schools in Britain. 

Indeed one of the school's four houses remains named after him.

Ackworth school, today

Fothergill had close associations with pre-independence America,  and worked, to no avail, with Benjamin Franklin trying to prevent the succession of the American colonies in 1776, having been elected a member of the American Philosophical Society six years previously.

An illustration Fothergill sent to
Philadelphia, to help illustrate
a lecture on anatomy there.

On Fothergill's death, in 1780, the house and gardens were sold up and the plant stock dispersed. The garden and greenhouses, however, together with many of the trees survived Fothergill's tenure in the property.

The greenhouse function has continued until the present day. For almost a century and a half the Corporation has used them as a nursery, producing plants and shrubs for prestigious Mansion House events.

Until now, that is ... the Corporation has recently decided to "out-source" the function and bring to an end almost two and a half centuries of botanical pride and excellence to a small corner of Forest Gate. The Park Management Committee and Corporation of London are currently considering alternative uses for the space occupied by the now redundant green houses and nursery.

And so another bit of Upton's great history (like the Old Spotted Dog pub and Clapton FC) is facing extinction from those with cash signs in their eyes and minimal regard for local heritage.

Fothergill is still remembered in West Ham Park today, as a flower bed and rockery, named in his honour, survive - see extract from park map, below.

Footnote
Thanks to the Friends of West Ham Park, whose recent exhibition on Fothergill, in the park, has provided assistance with the contents of this article. Views in the article are should not be taken as theirs.

Samuel Gurney (1786 - 1856) - Forest Gate's most influential resident

We have written, in passing, frequently about Samuel Gurney - who has probably been Forest Gate's most influential (both locally and nationally) resident. And here we touched on his literal and metaphorical monumental legacy.

This article presents a biography of the man, himself.

He was born on 18 October 1786 in Earlham Hall, Norfolk. The buildings - see photo - now constitute part of the University of East Anglia.

Earlham Hall - the family seat - today,
 as part of the University of East Anglia

The Gurney family can be traced back to the Norman Conquest, when ancestors were given areas of Norfolk as part of William 1's English control and pacification process.

The family had lived in Earlham Hall, as tenants, for over half a century before Samuel was born. Sixteen years before his birth, they established a local Norfolk bank - Gurney's.

As Quakers, the family were denied access to many of the traditional routes of the sons of the rich and famous - university, the army, some professions etc - but not banking. Like the Jewish community, many members were almost forced into the looked-down upon (by the upper class) fields of commerce and banking in order to make a living.

In 1800, aged 14, the young Gurney was placed in the counting house of his brother-in-law, Joseph Fry, in St Mildred's Court, Poultry in the City. Joseph was married to Samuel's older sister, Elizabeth - the prison reformer.  The "favour" by Joseph to Samuel was later returned - see later.

Samuel Gurney (1786 - 1856)

In 1807 Gurney joined the firm of Richardson and Overend, which, over the course of the next few years, became the most significant retail bank in England.

The following year, Samuel married Elizabeth, daughter of James Sheppard of Ham House (which was to become the family seat and provide the grounds 65 years later for West Ham Park - see here). Samuel inherited and moved in to the property on the death of his father-in-law (in the days before the Married Women's Property Act) in 1812.

Samuel and Elizabeth had two children by the time they took possession of Ham House and set about making alterations to it, that made it a Georgian house of distinction. At the time it had about a dozen live-in servants.

Ham House, pre- destruction

In 1809 he borrowed money from his father and father-in-law and bought into the bank in which he was working and had it re-branded as Overend, Gurney and Co.

During the financial crisis of 1825 his bank lent money to a number of other London banks in temporary financial difficulties. For the next 30 years it was to be the largest discounting house in the world. Thus, Gurney became known as 'the bankers' banker' and many firms began to deposit money with his institution in preference to the Bank of England.

Having impressively stamped his mark on the banking world, Gurney devoted much of the rest of his life to his two main passions - land acquisition and disposal in Forest Gate and a variety of (even today) impressively liberal philanthropic endeavours.

Philanthropy

Chronologically, the philanthropic endeavours came first. They are worthy of - and have been recorded in - many histories. For brevity's sake, the more significant of them were:

• Supporting, financially, his sister Elizabeth, the prison reformer and brother-in-law Joseph Fry - who had kick started his career. The Frys were hit in the financial crises of the mid 1820's and were forced to sell their grand house in Plashet - now host to Plashet Park and the borough's registration offices. Gurney rented them Cedar House, next to his own home of Ham House, in Portway. (This later became home to the Territorial Army - ironically for a property owned by pacifist Quakers).

Elizabeth Fry - reading to
prisoners in Newgate Prison

• Supported another brother-in-law, Edward Buxton and his father Fowell Buxton - in the anti-slavery movement. He attended the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840 - see picture (in National Portrait Gallery) - below, and was for a while chairman of the organisation.

Gurney, front row, far left at the 1840
 World Anti-Slavery Convention

• Played a significant part in helping to established the African state of Liberia, as a home for slaves freed from Europe and America. Such was his contribution to the establishment to the country, that he had a town named after him there.

• Was a staunch opponent of capital punishment; and was threatened with prosecution himself for refusing to prosecute a man who forged his signature, knowing that the result would be capital punishment for the offender.

• Was patron of two non-conformist British and Foreign Society Schools (see here for details) in Stratford: one for boys and another for girls. He left an annuity of £150 - c£15,000 today - for the future development of the two schools in his will. This passed to West Ham School Board, on its formation - and now rests with Newham Council.

•  Was the national treasurer for the non- conformist British and Foreign Schools Society from 1843, until his death in 1856. He left the Society £5,000 (c £500,000 today), on his death.

Samuel Gurney in 1840

• Although a Quaker, he was non-sectarian in his approach to education. So, he also supported Church of England schools. In 1853 he donated land on the corner of Woodgrange Road and Forest Street to build Emmanuel (later St Saviours) National School.

• Toured Ireland in 1849 and made many donations to those affected by the Potato HUnger of that decade.

• Established the Poplar Hospital for Accidents in 1853, to look after injured dock workers, in the first instant.

• In 1856, his will gifted £800 - c £78,000 today - for the "maintenance and winding up of clocks in public places" in Forest Gate, including one to be erected on Forest Gate Congregational Church. Since 1860 the income has been given to West Ham, now Newham, Council.

Local land acquisition and disposal

Having inherited the area of what is now West Ham Park from his father-in-law in 1812, Gurney was quiet on the local land acquisition front until his effective retirement from his successful banking career.

His transactions and their subsequent disposals, however, have shaped the area, making what is recognisably Forest Gate, today.

in 1851 he bought the 131 acres of Hamfrith Farm/estate for £17,710 - c £2,250,000, at today's prices - from the Greenhill estate. This was roughly the area between Romford Road and Wanstead Flats, to the east of Woodgrange Road, as far as Station Road, Manor Park.

Two years later he bought the 200 acres of the Woodgrange farm - most of the Forest Gate area to the west of Woodgrange Road.

He also acquired about 250 acres in what was then Little Ilford (now Manor Park) and acquired the Lordship of the manors of Woodgrange and Hamfrith.

He promptly resold much of the land he had acquired, to become the West Ham and Jewish cemeteries, as well as the Industrial School on Forest Lane (see here and here, for details).

Ever the astute businessman, he clearly saw the development opportunities with the arrival of the railways into Forest Gate (see here); and in the short period  remaining in his life, began to package some of the land up, with a view to housing development resale.

So, from 1855, development started on the Gurney and Dames estates - to the west and north of Forest Gate station (see here, for details).

He died on 5 June 1856 and was buried in the Friends' burial grounds in Barking. He was survived by 9 children and 40 grandchildren. His oldest son died soon after and the estate subsequently transferred to his grandson, John.

Within 10 years, however, the bank that Samuel Gurney established and built became mired in severe financial difficulties, by diversifying into greedy, risky projects (sound familiar?) and faced bankruptcy. Many shareholders, including members of the Gurney family, lost fortunes and faced financial ruin.

It was this crash that spurred the rapid building boom in Forest Gate, as grandson John disposed of land and property in order to stabilise family finances.

Most notable among the disposals was the sale of the family home, in 1872, to become West Ham Park (see here), for a knocked down price of £15,000 - c £1.5 million, today.

The grounds of Ham House, before being
 turned into West Ham Park, in 1874

Also, in 1872, he sold most of the north side of what had been the Hamfrith estate to the British Land Company, which, in turn sold some to the Manor Park Cemetery Company (see here) and enabled the development of much of which in estate agents-speak is now known as "The Forest Gate Village".

Thomas Corbett acquired much of the south side of the Hamfrith estate and developed it into what is now the Woodgrange estate, between 1877 and 1892 (see here).

The period 1870 - 1890 saw the development of the western end of Forest Gate, from lands that had been part of the Gurney estate. This lead to the construction of Hamfrith, Atherton, Sprowston (see here), Norwich and Clova Roads,. as well as Earlham Grove (see here).

So, Quaker, banker, philanthropist, land-owner, Samuel Gurney stands as the man whose property dealings lay the foundations of Forest Gate, as we know it today.

He is most visibly remembered locally not in Forest Gate, but by the obelisk and drinking fountain in the grounds of St John's church, in Stratford. It is interesting that there should be a monument to a Quaker in the grounds of a prominent CofE church - but such was the regard in which he was held locally.

An 1861 drawing of the Gurney
memorial, soon after its erection

The monument is 40 feet high and made of granite. It was unveiled in 1861, having been designed by Gurney's fellow Norfolk-man, John Bell.

The inscription reads:

In remembrance of Samuel Gurney, who died on 5th of June 1856. Erected by his fellow parishioners and Friends (Quakers) 1861.

When the ear heard him, then it blessed him.

 (ed: this is a paraphrase from the Book of Job) 

One final point. Although the bank that Gurney turned into such a success bombed a decade after his death, its entrails survive as part of what is now Barclays Bank. If only he had been around in 2008 to offer them his counsel, prior to the banking crash of 2008.