Peter Waterman, British and European welterweight boxing champion and elder brother of the actor Dennis Waterman, later ran a refreshment hut on Mitcham Common beside the Red House — serving football supporters near the dressing rooms off Croydon Road / Red House Road.
Born in Stepney on 8 December 1934, Waterman boxed from boyhood, won the ABA light-welterweight title in 1952, fought for Great Britain at the Helsinki Olympics that year, and as a professional took the British welterweight title (1956) and the European title (1957). After a hard fight with Dave Charnley in April 1958 he underwent brain surgery and never boxed again. He died suddenly in Islington on 16 January 1986, aged 51.
The Mitcham Common Conservators’ minutes pick up his Common story a couple of years later. On 14 September 1960 the Board recorded that Mrs Edwards had transferred the Refreshment Licence to Mr Peter Waterman, of 48 Palace Road, Streatham Hill, and granted him a three-year licence for the hut.
In January 1961 he asked for tarmac near the dressing rooms and drive-in, offering an extra £1 a week. Through the early 1960s the Board dealt with higher fees for car-park and football trade, earlier Sunday opening, and — in places where the OCR reads “Mr Waterson” — almost certainly the same licensee. By 1967–68 there were Public Health complaints about the huts at the Red House; meetings followed with Waterman and Merton Council, and the Council was expected not to press further once remedial work was done.
In May 1969 the licence was to be determined and tenders advertised, with the present licensee free to tender. The café remained a recurring Environmental Health item into the late 1970s. On 8 March 1978 the Clerk spoke to Mr Waterman’s Manager about the café and parking. On 7 June 1978 the licence was terminated: the police were content with closure, citing safety with lorries on Croydon Road. On 5 September 1979 the Board noted that the café had been emptied and that Waterman’s Manager should be told the structure was to be destroyed — the site tied in the index to the disused lorry park by Red House Road.
Local memory still links Waterman’s stand with match-day crowds near the Red House (properly the Jolly Gardeners on Mitcham Road / Croydon Road at the Croydon end of the Common — the “Blue House” opposite being the Ravensbury Arms). The minutes do not mention his boxing career or his better-known brother; they show a long-serving Common licensee whose hut served footballers and spectators until the late 1970s, when road safety and health concerns closed that chapter.
Sources: Mitcham Common Conservators Board minutes (esp. 14 Sep 1960; 11 Jan 1961; 1962–63 fees; 1967–68 Public Health; 14 May 1969; 8 Mar & 7 Jun 1978; 5 Sep 1979); Wikipedia / contemporary boxing notices for career outline; local naming of the Red House (Jolly Gardeners).
