Tag Archives: Stephen Chart

1927 The Last Vestry Clerk

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MITCHAM VESTRY CLERK.
INTERESTING SURREY RECORD.

Mr. R. M. Chart, of Mitcham, deputy chairman of the Croydon County Bench, has notified the Mitcham Council that on March 31st he will cease to be the vestry clerk for Mitcham, a post which he has held for 39 years all but three days, and which has been held by his direct ancestors for 166 years without a break. Mr. Chart is the last of the Mitcham vestry clerks, the office being abolished under the new Rating and Valuation Act, but the duties will be carried on by his son, Colonel Stephen Chart, who is clerk to the Mitcham Council.

The first vestry clerk for Mitcham was Mr. R. M. Chart’s great-grandfather, who was appointed in 1761 at a salary of £3 a year, and held the post for 44 years. His grandfather, who built the present Mitcham parish church, held it for 41 years, and his father held it for 42 years. All these men held the post until they died, and were parish clerks as well. Mr. R. M. Chart, who is 76 years old, still does the work of more than 12 public appointments, and takes an active interest in most local affairs. He was a member of the Surrey County Council for 25 years, for nine years as alderman.

Source: Surrey Mirror – Friday 04 March 1927 from the British Newspaper Archive (subscription required)

Athel Russell Harwood

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Born in January 1863, died 25th March 1943. He left £17,723 6s. 5d. in his will (£750,000 in 2015 money).

He built two houses on the glebe lands, opposite the post office (which became the telephone exchange), and called them Athelstan and Thrushcross. He sold Athelstan and lived in Thrushcross until his death.

He gave £100 to the local Horticultural Society and another £100 to the Mitcham Cricket Club.

In the 1911 census, he was listed as being a collector to the gas company, and lived with his wife Caroline, aged 43 and daughter Kathleen, 22. In addition they had a live-in domestic servant, Nellie Howe, aged 16.

From 1926, his address in the electoral registers is 308 London Road.

He was the first annual subscriber to the Wilson Hospital. In the Mitcham Tooting Advertiser of 29th March 1943, Colonel Stephen Chart, the chairman of the hospital said that Mr Harwood had left £2,000 to the hospital subject to the payment of 10 shillings per week for life to one of his wife’s relatives.

According to this historic inflation calculator, £2,000 in 1943 is the equivalent of £84,000 in 2015.

A photograph of 1887 shows him as captain of the fire brigade.

He also suggested the planting of trees for the coronation of King George VI in 1936 and gave £50 towards the cost. The road King George VI Avenue, leading from the Blue House Bridge to the entrance of the Wilson Hospital, was completed in 1937.

Sources:

1. Ancestry.com. England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1966 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010.
Original data: Principal Probate Registry. Calendar of the Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration made in the Probate Registries of the High Court of Justice in England. London, England © Crown copyright.

2. Ancestry.com. Surrey, England, Electoral Registers, 1832-1945 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013.
Original data: Surrey Electoral Registers. Surrey History Centre, Woking, Surrey, England.

3. Source: Mitcham Histories 12 : Church Street and Whitford Lane, page 108
NB: Montague has the spelling Thrushcroft for his house instead of Thrushcross as in the electoral registers etc.

4. Mitcham and Tooting Advertiser, 29th March 1943 page 1