1903 | Mitcham History Notes

From the tenth century, shires, or counties such as Surrey, were divided into administrative areas called Hundreds. (In the Danelaw this division was called a Wapentake).

Mitcham was in the Wallington Hundred. Tooting was in the Brixton Hundred. The boundary between the two was the River Graveney.

With the formation of the County of London (1888) and then the Borough of Wandsworth (1899), parts of the parish of Tooting-Graveney were in Mitcham because of this river boundary.

1893 OS Map – the V-shaped black line of dashes shows the boundary

So in 1903 the railway line was chosen as the new boundary and the area north of it went to Wandsworth Borough and the south of it to Mitcham.

1913 OS Map

After 1903, Tooting Junction Railway Station became part of Mitcham, as did Finborough Road and Tooting Old Hall.

Source: page 36 Mitcham Histories: 2 North Mitcham, by EN Montague.

Road named possibly after the Robinson Crusoe story. Crusoe Dairy Farm was named by its owner on the possible residence of nearby Tooting Hall by Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe.

1911 OS map

Builder Taylor & Kensett had building plans approved in 1903 for 12 houses, and in 1904 for 16 houses. They also had a woodyard in Crusoe Road, which caught fire in 1921:

EXCITING FIRE SCENES Whole Street in Danger. There were remarkable scenes at Mitcham yesterday — a portion of a street being in flames. Fire broke out at the timber yard of Messrs. Taylor and Kensett in Crusoe road, and burned fiercely that adjoining houses caught fire, and the whole street seemed in danger. Householders in considerable alarm carried their furniture and valuables out into the street, and there was scene of great confusion. The combined efforts of the brigades, however, succeeded in preventing the spread of the flames, but not before four houses adjacent to the timber yard had been considerably burned.

Source: Hartlepool Mail – Friday 02 September 1921 from the British Newspaper Archive

Number 52 was damaged by this fire. Minutes of the Urban District Council show that the tenant was Mr F. HAWTHORN, and the landlord was Osmasten Ltd of Barnes.

G. F. Hedges had building plans approved in 1904 for 13 villas.

World War 1 Connections
Sapper William Charles Crisp

Private Ernest Frank Hogg

Driver Horace Walter Hogg

Private George Francis Quin

Gunner Horace Concannon Richardson

Saddler Harry Stanley Wright

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