What's in a Name?

When I was 16 I started work and had to travel out of the area I knew well and catch a bus off to various places in West London. To do this I usually caught a bus to the Elephant, as I previously mentioned on this blog, and then the Bakerloo line up to Charing Cross where I changed onto the District / Circle to Earls Court, South Kensington etc.

Those from a later time might be puzzled and ask, "change at Charing Cross for the district line? But it doesn't go there. don't you mean Embankment? Of course today it doesn't so today they'd be right.

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A few years ago I was watching a old Dr Who film of Dalek Invasion Earth 2163 (I had seen it at the cinema when I was a kid - but let's not go there!) when I saw an anachronism which made me laugh. The "freedom fighters" were hiding in an old wrecked underground station, Embankment, but when the film was made Embankment station didn't exist. ....

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The history of the underground is one which has loads to offer, from innovation, to reuse of assets originally built for a different purpose to sharp business practice and even dare one suggest even darker episodes, (of which more another time), But whatever it was, it certainly wasn't a straightforward well-planned project.

Built by several private companies competing, often to the detriment of each other, as well as the public and their shareholders, the station complex which is now Embankment illustrates the chaos which resulted very well.

The oldest part of the station was opened on 30th May 1870 by the Metropolitan District Railway (now the District line) at the time that the company extended its line between Westminster and Blackfriars in conjunction with the building of the Victoria Embankment. Due to its proximity to the South Eastern Railway's Charing Cross station, the station was called Charing Cross.

So it remained until 1906, (though there were some plans for an express route that never materialised), when the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway (now the Bakerloo Line) opened its deep-level platforms beneath, and at ninety degrees to, the platforms of the Metropolitan District Railway. Though connected to the older station, the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway decided to name its platforms differently, as Embankment.

Then in 1914, the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway (now a part of the Northern line) opened a one stop extension south from its terminus at Charing Cross. This was built to make a better connect between the Baker Street and Waterloo, and Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railways, as both lines were by then owned by the Underground Electric Railways Company of London which operated two separate, and unconnected, stations at the northern end of the Charing Cross mainline station; Trafalgar Square on the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway. and Charing Cross on the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway.

The Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway extension was constructed as a single track tunnel running south from Charing Cross as a loop under the River Thames and back.

For the opening of the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway extension, the deep-level parts of the station were named "Charing Cross (Embankment)" although the sub-surface platforms remained as Charing Cross, but in 1915, this was simplified by changing the name of the whole station to Charing Cross. The Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway station at the northern end of the Charing Cross mainline station was renamed Strand at the same time.

In the 1920s, as part of the construction of what is now the Northern line, the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway was extended south to Waterloo and Kennington where it was connected to the City & South London Railway. The loop tunnel under the river was abandoned (although the present northbound Northern line platform follows its course) and two new tunnels were bored south. The new extension was opened on 13 September 1926.

So everything stayed until the Jubilee line came to town. As part of the new construction the two old stations, Trafalgar Square and Strand were to be linked, and new platforms added for the Terminus of the new line. Strand was closed for a long period for the work, then in 1976, shortly after I started work, the old Charing cross became Embankment, so that the merged Strand and Trafalgar Square stations could be named Charing Cross.

So the stations remain today, Embankment, where it belongs on the embankment and Charing Cross under the main line station of the same name.

How did the makers of the Dr Who film predict that in the 1960s?

The Duke of York's Column

Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square is not only famous nationally, but internationally; one of the icons of London. Yet a few hundred yards away, and not even that as the pigeon flies, stands another, neglected column, this one to a soldier. Yet he also played an important role in the Napoleonic wars, and even has a nursery rhyme commemorating him -
even if not a complementary one!

I first saw him across the rooftops from the canteen in the first building I worked in and at first glance I thought it was Nelson I could see, but quickly realised it wasn't and went in search of him

The column is in memory of the Duke of York, the second son of George III and stands at the top of the Duke of York steps overlooking the Mall.
He was, it's said, his father's favourite son but remained, however, somewhat in the shadow of his flashy elder brother, George, Prince of Wales, especially after the latter became Prince Regent due to the mental incapacity of the King.

As many aristocratic sons did, he made a career in the army and in 1793, the Duke of York was sent to Flanders in command of the British contingent and as a result, his father promoted him to the rank of field marshal, and then Commander-in-Chief. So no nepotism there then!

His arrival at his second field command coincided with a number of disasters befalling the force, and as these military setbacks were inevitable given the Duke's lack of combat experience, the lamentable state of the British army at the time and the intervention of pure bad luck during the campaign; the Prince is perhaps unfairly, pilloried for
all time in the rhyme...

...The Grand Old Duke of York,

The grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men.
He marched them up to the top of the hill
And he marched them down again.
And when they were up, they were up.
And when they were down, they were down.
And when they were only halfway up,
They were neither up nor down.

Particularly unfair, as given his experience of the poor performance of the army in Flanders, he carried out many significant structural, training and logistical reforms during his service as the army's commander-in-chief. These reforms contributed to Britain's subsequent successes in the wars against Napoleon.

Another change he made, and one closer to the heart of many a squaddie was the introduction of "Beer money". The nickname was given to an allowance, started in 1800, that was given to non-commissioned officers and soldiers. Actually it was only a penny per day and was a replacement for a daily issuance of beer or spirits while troops were on home
service. The allowance continued until 1873 when it was rolled into the soldier's daily pay. So nothing extra in fact and one wonders if the penny would cover what the soldiers would actually spend on beer in a day!

When he died in 1827, the entire Army gave up a day's wages in order to pay for a monument to the Duke. Accounts vary as to how voluntary this was but that was the source of the money used to raise the column which was started in 1833 and finished a year later.

Inside the column is hollow and a spiral staircase of 168 steps leads to the viewing platform around the base of the statue. This however has been closed to the public for many decades. Though was once open in the afternoons for entry on payment of a fee.

The great height of the column - 123 feet 6 inches (37.64 m) - caused wits to suggest that the Duke was trying to escape his creditors, as the Duke died ￡2 million in debt. (An enormous sum in 1827! )Though I have also heard it said when Nelson's column was built the Navy insisted his column had to be higher as befitted a member of the senior service.

The stonework was designed by B. Wyatt in Aberdeenshire granite, the Tuscan column is topped by  the statue of Duke of York in the robes of the Order of the Garter, sculptured in bronze by Sir Richard Westmacott RA  it weighs in at well over 7 and half tons!!


Well, there he stands still, walked past by many who know little of him, and yet who know the rhyme belittling him. Sadly forgotten though maybe with his reforms, as important in his own way in beating Napoleon as either Nelson or Wellington.

The grand ol' Duke of York, appropriately, at the top of his own little hill of steps.

Laurie Smith

Nelson and Wellington

What does Trafalgar Square and Nelson’s column commemorate? The easy answer is Nelson’s victory over Napoleon’s forces at Trafalgar in 1805. Or more cynically keeping a German family on the throne and republicanism from these shores.

Napoleon Bonaparte was the scourge of the European monarchies, and the ruling elites of the day were determined to stop him. The Duke of Wellington, with the help of the common soldier and the Prussians, defeated Bonaparte ten years after the Battle of Trafalgar. But what monument is there to Wellington himself? There is a Wellington Arch and Wellington Barracks but they do not feature so prominently in popular consciousness as Trafalgar Square and Nelson’s column.

Wellington Arch sits on the roundabout on Hyde Park Corner (it has been moved a couple of times). But there is no statue of Wellington on top. There used to be but it proved too unpopular.

Between 1803 and 1805 Bonaparte amassed an invasion flotilla of 2,343 ships with the intention of invading Britain. This flotilla was kept in its home ports and prevented from invading by the Royal Navy’s Channel Fleet of 30 plus ships under Admiral Sir William Cornwallis; Nelson played no part in this. It was Cornwallis who put together the fleet that Nelson commanded at Trafalgar.

Nelson was of relatively humble origins. Progress through the ranks of the British Navy was on merit and Nelson became a popular hero and commander. Ashore he was mobbed by crowds as a celebrity would be today. Unfortunately for him but fortunately for his heroic status, he died at the height of his popularity during Trafalgar. Although Trafalgar could not stop Bonaparte it did give Britain naval supremacy. Nelson was no radical but Trafalgar was the cup final in a naval world series that would not be challenged for 100 years or more.

The British merchant and the industrialist were to gain power, wealth and empire from this naval victory. The British army of the time was not so egalitarian. Wellington’s commission was bought for him by his brother. Wellington may have been an effective general but he was no democrat. After his return from Waterloo he became a Tory MP and Prime Minister. After his first Cabinet meeting he is reported as saying “An extraordinary affair. I gave them their orders and they wanted to stay and discuss them.”

He got the nickname the ‘Iron Duke’ not because of military prowess but because of the shutters he had on his house to protect him from the mob. He was booed on the streets for the troops cutting down civilians at a meeting for democracy in Manchester (the Peterloo massacre).

Basically he was an old style aristocrat trying to halt social change. So what does Trafalgar Square commemorate? Not so much a decisive naval victory or the death of a popular hero, more a period of change and the birth of the ‘middle classes.’ And Wellington Arch, a fading era.

John Clark

Victoria embankment

One of my earliest memories of having, what you might call, a more adult conversation with my father was on a sunny late morning walking along the Victoria Embankment. It would have been the mid 60s and I don’t have a clue where we had been and I can’t even guess why we were walking along the north side of the river between Blackfriars and Westminster when we lived in Peckham but I clearly remember we were and that it was a warm, sunny, halcyon day.

There are some interesting, (well at least I think so), stories to tell based around this area not the least of which is that the place I was walking on that sunny morning so many years ago is a man made construction completed in 1870 to carry both the underground, and the sewers to
clean the river; however I don’t intend to go into that story as we could fill the magazine with it. Suffice to say that if you go into Embankment Gardens beside Villiers Street to can see where the riverside once was from the position of the river gate entrance of the Duke of Buckingham. In doing this 37 acres of new land was reclaimed from the River.

Oddly however there is a much older construction on the “new” riverside than Buckingham's Gate, in fact it is the oldest man-made construction in London. From further back in history, even than the woman for who it is named, Cleopatra’s Needle was originally built and stood in Egypt, around 1500BC. (If you remember Cleopatra was a consult to Julius Caesar who landed in Kent in a mere 55bc).

It was erected on the Victoria Embankment in 1878 following a long sea voyage and the loss of a crew which had been bringing it to London as a “gift” to the British people in recognition of Nelson’s victory over the French fleet, at the Battle of the Nile in 1798. It is made of granite and the obelisk is 68 feet high and 180 tons in weight.

A couple of odd facts about the pink-granite monolith that it stands on a pedestal, supposedly guarded by two sphinxes, I say supposedly ‘cos the Victorian designers got it wrong, in order to guard the Needle they should face out; instead they face in towards it. Under the Needle buried in the pedestal are two earthenware pots, containing various objects. This very early version of a time capsule holds a portrait of Queen Victoria, iron ropes and cables, a hydraulic jack, copies of an engineering magazine, and portraits of 12 of the most beautiful Englishwomen of the time!

Just as Cleopatra’s Needle forms a centrepiece between Waterloo and Hungerford Bridges, (where because of it’s presence the embankment has been given an Egyptian theme with the benches made with sphinxes and camels for arms), another monument also stands on the embankment forming the centrepiece between Hungerford and Westminster.

Completed in 1923 the Royal Air Force Memorial is a simple monument in Portland stone surmounted by a gilded eagle. The original intention was for the eagle to face inwards to the embankment but the design was altered at the last moment so the eagle faced across the river, symbolically to France. The position was not the first choice, discarding a proposal to join the Army and the Navy in building a memorial opposite Buckingham Palace, the Royal Air Force Memorial Fund had hoped to raise a Cross on the ground between Westminster Abbey and St Margaret’s Church; a hope that the Dean of Westminster was unable to approve because he preferred not to consider a memorial for the Royal Air Force alone. So offered a site at the head of the Whitehall Stairs, that’s where the memorial went.

Currently a new monument is being built, the Battle of Britain Monument which is being sited on an existing panelled granite structure 25 metres long. This structure was originally designed as a smoke outlet for underground trains when they were powered by steam engines. It has been filled up and blocked for many years.

A walkway will be cut obliquely through the middle of the structure, and bronze reliefs, depicting aspects of the Battle in the air and the back-up on the ground, will be placed along either side.

I feel this is quite appropriate as both the RAF Memorial and Cleopatra’s Needle were damaged by enemy bombs in the last war, which I remember my father showing me – along with the remains of a pavement artist’s work which had been abandoned there from the day before.

Whenever I walk down the embankment today, especially in the sun, I think of him – not much has changed there since that day. I only wish I knew why we were there – and where we’d been.

Laurie Smith

Connections ...

This was written, as were the rest of these early posts, for a Union Branch Magazine I edited. This was written by John Clark - my first guest contributor.

When walking round the Branch area the past is often very evident, famous buildings abound, but not all the history is quite so obvious, and there can be some odd, but interesting, obscure historical links. Neither should all the information you find be, necessarily, interpreted in terms of today’s values, or even language.

The Lion that now stands at the approach to Westminster Bridge has previously featured in an article in Crosstalk; originally it graced the Red Lion Brewery situated on Belvedere Road not far from Waterloo station. In Victorian times Lambeth was not a fashionable area.

The great landowners south of the Thames, the Duchy of Cornwall and the Archbishop of Canterbury left Lambeth to industrialisation, questionable entertainment and slums. The area often featured in stories from the likes of Dickens. But real people lived real lives there, one such was George Merrit. George lived at 24 Cornwall Cottages on Cornwall Road with his pregnant wife Eliza and their six children.

One Saturday morning in February 1872, shortly after two o’clock in the morning, he was on his way to work as a stoker at the Red Lion Brewery when, as he approached Belvedere Road, a number of gun shots rang out. On arrival at St Thomas’ Hospital it was found that two large-calibre bullets had severed George’s carotid artery and severed his spine, he did not survive in spite of the quick response of the police. On hearing the shots the beat officer, PC Henry Tarrent blew his whistle to summon help, two other constables heard the summons and rushed to assist Tarrent – the sort of response that one could hope for, but not expect, even in today’s age of radio.

This was an unusual crime even in the violent Victorian society, for guns had not become fashionable amongst criminals. Not until after the First World War when millions of soldiers returned to civilian life trained in their use did the prevalence of guns in crime begin to increase.

George’s murderer it turned out was mentally unstable. At his trial he was found “Not Guilty” due to his insanity, detained at Her Majesty’s Pleasure and committed to an asylum.

The most famous asylum in London if not the country was St Mary’s of Bethlem founded in 1247. In 1815, after a number of moves Bethlam Hospital relocated from London Wall to the building that now houses the Imperial War Museum in what is now known as Geraldine Mary Hamsworth Gardens, though formally known as Bedlam Park. The Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines bedlam as a scene of uproar and confusion. It is often said Bedlam is a corruption of the name Bethlam, personally I think it has more to do with the building being built by James Bedlam between 1812 and 1821. (Sydney Smirke added the dome later in 1846.) By 1863 the building was no longer suitable and the criminally insane patients were transferred to Broadmoor. This is where the murderer of George Merrit was incarcerated. Bethlem now forms part of a NHS trust based near Croydon with a unit on Denmark Hill. Broadmoor is now considered to be a hospital rather than an asylum.

Other local examples of asylums in a traditional sense of the word from a time before the welfare state are: an asylum for the blind, which was situated just along from the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth Road. Today a brick wall surrounds much of the site, behind which is a large excavated pit, containing the sidings for the Bakerloo Line.

Towards the New Cross end of Old Kent Road is Asylum Road named for a large complex, a building built in the classical style.
This building used to house the Licensed Victualler’s Asylum. I have often wondered what the criteria were for admittance.

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines asylum as sanctuary; protection – any of various kinds of institution offering shelter a place of refuge to distressed or destitute individuals. But language is not fixed and changes over time. When Shakespeare wrote for the theatres on the Southbank dictionaries had not been invented and he even spelt his name in various ways during his life. The tabloid press today often distorts the meaning of language, often not in a pleasant, useful way but to make political mischief. They have coupled the word asylum with the idea of people seeking economic advantage, and to perpetrate benefit fraud, rather than those seeking refuge from persecution.

What was to become the OED was first published in 1928. It took more than seventy years to complete and consisted of twelve large volumes. (The second edition was published in twenty volumes!)

The compilation of the OED was thorough and meticulous; volunteers were sought, sent reading lists and books. The volunteers were asked to read through the selected works compiling on slips of paper quotations that defined key words, words both new and obsolete, from living authors and from those long since dead.

One volunteer that contributed more than any other, both in terms of quantity and quality, to the dictionary over many years was Dr W C Minor of Crowthorne, Berkshire. The strange thing was that he never attended any meeting or dinner of the organisers of the dictionary, and depending upon which account you believe, Dr Minor’s circumstances were not known to them for some years.

It was not until the Editor of the dictionary arranged to call on Dr Minor after twenty years of correspondence that Dr Minor’s circumstances became more widely known. Crowthorne is the village where Broadmoor Asylum is located and Dr Minor was a long term resident there, a resident because of his murder of George Merrit.

Dr Minor was a surgeon who had served as such on the Northern side in the American Civil War. One account suggests that it was his experiences in that war that triggered his mental illness though another account suggests that his illness arose from the effects of a very promiscuous life style. Today he would probably described as schizophrenic and one of the few who are violent.

The OED, the American Civil War, a forgotten murder in our Branch’s area, a Minor connection? Absolutely, but an interesting one.

John Clarke

The South Bank Lion.

On the southern approach to Westminster Bridge stands the South Bank Lion. I often wondered, as I travelled over Westminster Bridge on a No 12 bus... why? Who or what does it commemorate? How old is it? For it looks new, hardly worn at all. Yet it was standing there before I was born, and was already well over a hundred years old then. For this is no ordinary stone lion but a piece of remarkably resilient pottery, fired in a kiln and over a century and a half old.

 In 1769 Eleanor Coade set up her ‘Lithodipyra Manufactury’ on the site of the present Royal Festival Hall, taking over a factory and improving on the artificial stone that was made there using a secret formula. Eleanor Coade’s “Manufactury” created the most weatherproof stone ever made. It was used for statues and decoration on a number of buildings including the Norwegian Embassy, the National Gallery, the Royal Opera House, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s. Coade Stone memorials and tombs were also used to immortalise people including Captain Bligh. Whose memorial can also been seen nearby in the churchyard of St Mary’s at Lambeth, (also know as the Museum of Garden History), on the south or east side of Lambeth Bridge.  

The 13-ton lion was one of two originally made to stand above Lion Brewery near Hungerford Bridge and coloured red. The lions survived the Second World War, when the Lion Brewery was blitzed. One was moved to Westminster Bridge in 1951 as part of the Festival of Britain, the other went to the Rugby Union Football ground at Twickenham. After the Festival our lion was moved to the entrance of Waterloo Station, but returned to its present home in 1966 when the station entrance was remodelled. 

This is a particularly apt spot being roughly on the site of a gallery opened by Eleanor Coade in 1799 to display over 1,000 examples of Coade stone. Our Lion, whose paw carries a date of 1837 and the initials of its designer William Woodington, was, when moved from the top of the brewery, found to have a time capsule in a recess in it’s back containing two William IV coins.  

The factory closed in 1840 and the formula was lost. The ingredients of Coade Stone have been analysed and, from the name given to the process, people have worked out that the process involved firing the mix twice, for days at a time, at temperatures high, enough to almost liquefy the stone. (“Lithodipyra” is a composite of the Greek words for stone, twice, and fire.) 

The true secret of its perfection and durability, however, lies buried with its creator. Eleanor Coade, whose factory was responsible for so many memorials, asked only that she be buried in a “decent and frugal manner” and lies in her unmarked grave at Bunhill Fields. So the South Bank Lion, made in a way we cannot replicate today, represents, for me, that we should never underestimate those great people of the past. 

 Laurie Smith