Category Archives: Wars

Rose Nursery

A weatherboarded cottage that was in Tramway Path.

From the 1911 commercial directory:

Arthur George & Ephraim SIMMONS, florists, Tramway path, Lower Mitcham

The 1915 street directory names the cottage:

Tramway Path, from London Road, Lower Mitcham

George THOMPSON, florist (Station Nursery)
Ephraim SIMMONS, florist (Rose Nursery)

The cottage is shown on this 1953 OS map:

1953 OS map

1953 OS map

An area in the south ward called Simmons’ Land was recorded in UDC minutes of 1917 as being of 13 acres. This land was used for allotments during the war. From the minutes of the Mitcham Urban District council, volume III, 1917 to 1918, 19th June, 1917, page 52.

Agnes Clarrissa Simmons, the daughter of Arthur George Simmons, married Private Percy John Hale in February 1916. She lived with her parents in Elmwood Road.


Maps are reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland.


Minutes of meetings held by the Mitcham Urban District Council are available on request from the Merton Heritage and Local Studies Centre at Morden Library.

Harold Francis Bidder D.S.O.

Lt. Col. Harold Francis Bidder, D.S.O. (1917), M.A., F.S.A.

Second son of George P. Bidder II, Q.C., of Ravensbury Park, Mitcham.
Born 1875; educated St. Paul’s and Trinity College Cambridge.
Married in 1918 to Vivian, eldest daughter of late H. M. Rush, of
Edinburgh; 2 sons, 1 daughter.

Barrister at Lincoln’s Inn 1899.

Joined 9th Battalion, Royal Sussex regiment in 1899, and served in South African War 1899-1902 and in Great War 1914-19 in France.
Lt. Col. Machine Gun corps 1917

Associate member of Chartered Surveyors’ Institute,
J.P. (1926) Surrey.

1 Brick court, Temple, E.C.4 (Central 1687) ;
The Malt House, Nettlebed, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon (Nettlebed 260).

Source: Kelly’s Handbook to the Titled, Landed & Official Classes, 1952 from Find My Past (subscription required)

According to Eric Montague in his book Mitcham Histories : 10 Ravensbury, pages 42-3, among his interests was archaeology, and he started the excavation of the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Ravensbury in 1891. He continued with this after WW1 and finished it in 1922.

He became the first president of the Merton and Morden Historical Society when it was formed in 1951, a position he held for 20 years until his death at the age of 92.