Genealogy Chat

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Phyllis Pearsall Dulwich Her creation is as famous as the London underground, red buses and black cabs and without it people would never be able to find their way around the capital. The humble A-Z street atlas is the book we reach for when we want to know exactly where to find Wigmore Street, Langham Place or Theobald’s Road. You’ll find it on the bookshelves of most London homes, in car glove boxes and just about every newsagents in the city. It seems such a simple idea that we have come to take it for granted. Now’s your chance to honour the brilliance of the woman born in Dulwich in 1906, who came up with the idea and walked 3,000 miles to make it happen - Phyllis Pearsall. She spent the first few years of her bizarre and often traumatic childhood in Court Gardens Lane. By the time she was 15 her father was bankrupt and had abandoned his family. Her mother and stepfather had turned her out on the streets and she'd moved to France to live the Bohemian life with her artist brother. The idea that changed her life came to her a few days after her 29th birthday after she returned to London and became lost trying to find the homes of people whose portraits she had been commissioned to paint. Within days, she had taken to the streets - all 23,000 of them - determined to sketch, index and publish them. Despite scepticism and ridicule, the A-Z was on the bookshelves of WH Smith in 1936.

Dulwich History Dulwich was originally a small hamlet of less significance than the neighbouring development of Camberwell. Today however it is much better known, mainly due to its famous schools and the Dulwich Picture Gallery. The first mention of Dulwich is in 967 when King Edgar gave the area to Earl Aelfheah. The land was later owned by King Harold and hence, after 1066, King William I. Dulwich appears to have ceased to exist by the time of the Domesday Book but it was soon re-established and in 1127 King Henry I gave the manor to the Priory of the Holy Saviour in Bermondsey who were the landlords until 1538. The Priory appears to have run Dulwich quite well, not having much involvement in local affairs beyond collecting its dues and maintaining order. Its court records survive and we know that in 1335 William Hosegard was accused of running off with the wife, and many possessions, of Richard Rolfe. In 1407 the jury found themselves fined for taking dinner before returning a verdict! Dulwich was a small hamlet bordering onto fields and petty crime was common: drunkenness, milking other peoples' cows and minor assaults were the norm. Throughout this era there was no church in Dulwich and the inhabitants had to travel to Camberwell to worship. In 1538 Henry VIII seized control of Bermondsey Abbey, and hence Dulwich. He sold the rights to Dulwich on to a London goldsmith, Thomas Carlton, for £609 18s.2d. In October 1605 his grandson sold up to Edward Alleyn, a famous Elizabethan actor, for £4,900. Alleyn had a major impact on the way Dulwich was run for many years. Alleyn built a college to help educate 12 poor children, and made provision for 12 elderly people. This college is now world famous as Dulwich College. Two other schools also benefit from his gift, James Allen’s Girls' School, founded in 1741 by the Warden of Dulwich College, and Alleyn’s School, a boys school founded in 1842. Significantly Alleyn gave the manorial rights and freehold of his land to the College who were then able to block the over development of Dulwich. The village centre had two famous pubs, The Crown, used by the labourers, and The Greyhound, used by the gentlemen. The Greyhound was also a stop on the coach route from Sittingbourne to Piccadilly. Today they are commemorated by The Crown & Greyhound pub, on the site of The Crown. In 1739 a spa was discovered and Dulwich Spa soon became popular with the visitors. It was later the site of Dr Glennie’s Academy, where Lord Byron was educated for two years. In 1817 the Picture Gallery opened helping to make Dulwich better known. At this point it was still a small, rural development with few links to the outside world. As late as 1792 there was just one public road, going to Sydenham. Dulwich is still a very rural part of London; the last farm closed down in the twentieth century. As with so much of South London, the main cause of sudden growth was the coming of the railways. In 1854 the Crystal Palace was moved to Sydenham and a railway was constructed to help visitors get there. The railway meant people were able to live further from work and the green of Dulwich began to vanish under new houses. In 1872 John Ruskin, dismayed by the development, moved to the Lake District. In reality Dulwich was less developed than the likes of Peckham and retains its village charm to this day. As the College owned most of the land sold to the railway firms it was able to fund its current fine buildings, designed by Sir Charles Barry. Like most of South London, Dulwich was hit by the bombing raids of World War Two with many civilians killed, and properties destroyed. Ironically one of the houses that was destroyed was once inhabited by the infamous Lord Haw Haw. During the war Dulwich was used as a training base by the Dutch government in exile to train agents before their return to the Netherlands. Dulwich remains one of the more attractive and affluent parts of South London to this day. The controls on development have allowed it to survive as one of the few remaining villages in London. Whilst it may not be recognisable from the days when it was the favourite hunting ground of Charles 1 its village origins are clear.