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We promote and encourage research into Dulwich's fascinating past and are always keen to welcome new members. We write for the Society’s publications, give talks and guide local walks. We curate exhibitions, produce information boards and contribute to celebrations such as the Dulwich Festival. We have information on nearly all the houses in Dulwich: if you email us your address we can tell you its age and who lived there.
Local History Group terms of reference (PDF)
Contact: Ian McInnes,
A blue plaque is a historical marker installed in a public place to commemorate a link between that place and a famous person, event, or building. They can be part of the official scheme administered by English Heritage or organisations like Southwark Council. Dulwich has blue plaques commemorating one building and the people listed below, many of whom are detailed in our 'Who Was Who in Dulwich'. A Google map shows the locations of the blue plaques in Dulwich.
Helene Aldwinckle (1920-2020)
76 Farquhar Road, SE19 1LT
Bletchley Park codebreaker, broadcaster & gallerist
John Logie Baird (1888-1946)
3 Crescent Wood Road, SE26 6RT
Inventor, electrical engineer, and television pioneer
The Local History Group answers a wide variety of enquiries from the general public. Here are some examples of recent queries.
WW1 bombing raid on the Covered Courts
Birth of Cecil Sharp on Denmark Hill
J T Helby at Glengarriff, Half Moon Lane
Melford Road builders
The Van den Boks at 8 Crescent Wood Road
History of the Lordship Lane Estate
Morkyns Walk on Alleyn Park
Amalie Jencken of Dulwich Common
Michael Pope of St Peters on Thurlow Hill
Ivor Gustavus Cummings.
Dulwich is rich in historical resources such as old maps, plans and photographs and you can trace the history of the area over time, using the census, electoral registers and other archive material. Here are some good places to start:
Southwark Archives, 211 Borough High Street, London SE1 1JA
tel: 020 7525 0232
email:
website: Southwark Archives
King’s College Hospital was established in 1840 when the physician Robert Bentley Todd persuaded the Council of King's College London to spend £25,000 converting a workhouse on Portugal Street, near Lincoln’s Inn Fields, into a teaching hospital. It soon developed into a general hospital covering the slums in the nearby area and need was so great that patients soon slept two to a bed. In 1861 the workhouse was replaced by a new building costing over £100,000 but as the surrounding area was redeveloped the slums disappeared, leading to a decline in demand for the hospital so in 1913 King’s moved to Camberwell.
Duncan Bowie has generously made his new book, Two Hundred Years of Dulwich Radicalism available in pdf form here: (PDF). Hard copies are available from local Dulwich bookshops or from the Society at
Kingsley Dene was by far the biggest of the four houses built on Green Lane (now Greendale) on the Dulwich side of the railway line. Its site is now Green Dale Close and the JAPS car park. Built by Arthur Stanton Cook around 1884, Kingsley Dene’s first resident was Henry Briginshaw. Born in 1845 the son of a Putney baker, Henry became a butcher with shops in Rye Lane but he was not always the most honest shopkeeper and was fined for inaccurate scales. In 1871 he married Jane Clark and they lived in Brixton with their two children before moving to Kingsley Dene.
Bertie Sheldrake was an East Dulwich pickle manufacturer who converted to Islam and became king of a far-flung Islamic republic before returning to London and settling back into obscurity.
Bertie William Sheldrake was born in 1888, the grandson of Gosling Mullander Sheldrake who had started a pickle business, his factory was behind his house in Albany Road, Walworth. Bertie’s father, William, worked for the firm as a commercial traveller and with his wife, May, brought up their son and three daughters in various houses in the area, always close to the factory (which later moved to Cobourg Road), sometimes sharing with another family, as was common then.
'Pond Cottages', the picturesque cluster of houses lying to the immediate south of the Mill Pond adjoining College Road, Dulwich, were not originally intended for residential use, as might be deduced from their somewhat eccentric lay-out and lack of any coherent style of architecture. Comparison of old leases reveals that from 1663 (and possibly much earlier - there were at least four 'tylemakers' in Dulwich between 1400 and 1420) until the 1780's the site was used for manufacturing tiles and, later on, bricks. In his 1808 Report, the College Surveyor William James wrote: "It would be advisable to give every encouragement to Builders, and for that purposes I recommend the College to allow the Tenants to make Bricks on their Land, free from Royalty, to be employed only on the College Estate".
".... today, parts of the ancient village, which goes back beyond Domesday Book, are reminiscent of the battlefields of France in the last war." It is difficult to imagine that this could ever have been a description of Dulwich, but it comes from a booklet, The Wardens' Post, published during Spring 1946, after the end of World War II. The editor was George Brown, sometime Warden of Post 60, a well-remembered local resident, Dulwich historian, and former editor of The Villager. The booklet, dedicated to "all our comrades who wore the silver and gold of London's Civil Defence", is one of a number of records of the Air Raid Wardens' Post 60, which have been presented to the Dulwich Society.
The Census return for 1851 gives a fascinating picture of Dulwich before the impact of the railways and the Crystal Palace, when it was still part of the administrative county of Surrey and a village in every sense. The census enumerators took their own idiosyncratic route in carrying out their duties, so that it can be difficult to link households with particular buildings. Occasionally houses are named, and it would be possible (although this has not been done for the purposes of this survey) to arrive at definitive answers to such problems of identification by consulting College leases. Allowing for a few houses which may have been included incorrectly, this appraisal is concerned with the Village, the Common, Half Moon Lane, Dulwich (now Red Post) Hill, Herne Hill, the west side of Lordship Lane, and the Penge (now College) Road, in other words the College Estate excluding Sydenham Hill.