Woodgrange estate – WW2 bomb damage

World War 2 reshaped the Woodgrange estate like no other period in its 150 year history. Records of bomb damage in London indicate that the area was hit on ten separate nights during the Blitz (1940-41) and on three occasions during the V1 and V2 bombing raids in 1944 (Fn 1).

The bombs transformed the estate's appearance, particularly at its western end, as a casual glance today will show.

For all of the bombing raids and the scale of the destruction, surprisingly few civilian deaths were recorded, according to West Ham's WW2 register.

 Bomb damage to Woodgrange estate during the Blitz

1940 

Sept 8 – Hampton; 9 – Osborne; 23 – Hampton; 28– Windsor; 

Oct 4  – Hampton; 

Dec 3 – Claremont

 

1941 

Jan 21 – Osborne; 

Mar 8/9 – 3 x Claremont; 19 – Hampton; 

Apr 17 – Woodgrange Methodist church and Claremont and Osborne.

 

Woodgrange estate bomb hits during V1 and V2 raids 

1944 

Jan 30 – Claremont; 

Feb 24 – Windsor; 

Jul 5 – Osborne.

Deaths were recorded on only two of the nights of bombing during the Blitz and on none during the V1 and V2 raids towards the end of the war.

The estate’s first civilian war deaths occurred on the night of 4 October 1940, when Hilda Humphries and Joyce Humphreys, both aged 23, were killed at 73 Hampton Road. We know little more about the sisters, as they did not appear to be living at the address on the night of the National Register, recorded just a year earlier in September 1939.

73 Hampton Road today - constructed after 4 October 1940 bomb

The bomb clearly destroyed the building, as the house there today is a replacement and of post-war construction. It stands out in contrast to the area's late Victorian dwellings.

The most devastating night of bombing for the estate was on 17 April the following year, when bombs destroyed the Methodist church on Woodgrange Road and hit the adjacent Claremont and Osborne Roads. A considerable bomb site was created, the uses to which it was put are considered below. It was the last night of the Blitz to hit the estate.

Woodgrange Methodist church after bomb damage of 17 April 1941

Five of the estate’s civilians were killed on the night of 17 April. Other people with home addresses outside of the estate may well have been killed, too.

The Register of Civilian Deaths records that Rosetta and Ruth Cohen of 3 Claremont Road, Lucy and William Bruce, next door at number 5, and Myer Cash, opposite at number 6, were all killed that night.

West Ham's Book of Civilian Dead - courtesy of Newham Archives

The 1939 National Register records that number 3 was occupied by six members of the Cohen family, all in the rag trade. Sisters Rose (aged 33) and Ruth (aged 17) were both single and a hand embroiderer and dress machinist, respectively.

Neither the Bruce family nor Myer Cash were shown to be living at their 1941 address at 5 and 6 Claremont on the night of the Register.

We have no details of which houses were bombed on each street during the bombing raids, but some of the hits were clearly serious, as indicated by some post war infill buildings on both Windsor and Claremont Roads.

Deaths were recorded on only two of the nights of bombing during the Blitz and on none during the V1 and V2 raids towards the end of the war.

A block of post WW2 bomb damage replacement flats on Claremont Road

Temporary Fire station on Claremont Road

Following the bombs of 17 April, a considerable bomb site was created. Originally, a plan was made to replace the damage with allotments, as part of the Dig for Victory campaign. This was later revised, and a temporary fire station was erected in preparation for any future raids on the immediate area (Fn 2). It was constructed between the bombed-out Methodist church and number 23 Claremont, which survives, as the first on Claremont Road.

Diagram showing layout and dimensions of temporary fire station on Claremont Road

The diagram above shows a fire engine room, a dormitory, an office/store, and a watch room, where phone calls about incidents were received and firefighters were ready to respond.

The buildings were temporary and likely constructed of corrugated iron.

Location of temporary fire station today - between the post war flats and 23 Claremont

The devastation created by the bombs at the western end of Claremont, Windsor and Osborne roads remained for almost a decade and a half, as a chilling reminder of the Blitz, as the photographs below, dated March 1955, show. 

The height of the trees that grew after the bombing, as shown in many of the photographs below, indicates just how long the site had lain derelict.

1955 Across Claremont, to Windsor

1955 From opposite 21 Windsor, looking west

1955 Looking across Claremont to Osborne

1955 Looking across Claremont

1955 Looking along Windsor

1955 Looking along Windsor

1955 Looking along Woodgrange, Osborne to the left

1955 Looking from junction of Osborne and Woodgrange

1955 Windsor Road - then bomb damage

The photographs were taken by West Ham’s planners as they prepared for post-war reconstruction of the area. The photographs are in Newham’s archives, for whom we are most grateful for the right to reproduce them.

Meanwhile, West Ham’s architects were working on plans to build on the site. The diagram below is their 1954 redevelopment plan.

West Ham architects' plans for bomb site along Woodgrange Road

Not all buildings are completed. What is now Donald Hunter House (Fn 3), originally Telephone House, was built in 1958.

Donald Hunter House, constructed 1958 on site of bomb damaged Windsor/Woodgrange Roads

The Methodist church was similarly at work to replace its bombed-out premises.

Modern Methodist church on Woodgrange Road, while still functioning

 

Footnotes

1.    1.  Bomb Census survey 1940-1945 - The National Archives

2.   2. E7 Now & Then: Claremont Road temporary WW2 fire station

3.   3. E7 Now & Then: Woodgrange Road developments

150th anniversary of Woodgrange estate

This July marks the 50th anniversary of Forest Gate's Woodgrange estate being granted Conservation Area status by the council, later ratified by the government. The designation was deliberately timed to coincide with the centenary of the start of construction on the estate.

We have already published several articles about this estate – see the appendix for details. This one marks the beginning of a series of new blogs on the estate's developments over the past century and a half. It explores the estate's origins, while situating its development within a wider historical and social context.We hope to mark the 150 years in other ways over the coming months, which we will showcase as they happen on this site.

 Origins

Glasgow developer Thomas Corbett purchased 110 acres of land on which the estate was built from the Gurney family for £44,000 in January 1877, (see Fn 1).

Archibald Cameron Corbett (1856 - 1933), son of Thomas and main developer of Woodgrange estate

Initially, 1,160 houses were constructed on the Woodgrange between 1877 and 1892, including all existing ones, as well as houses on Romford Road and shops on the eastern side of Woodgrange Road. The lengthy 15-year construction period is partially explained by a slump in the building trade in the mid-1880s, during which construction was halted. When it resumed towards the end of the decade the newer houses - on the eastern end of the estate - were built to more modest standards, reflected in cheaper prices - see below.

Although many suffered bomb damage during World War II (details of which will be covered in a future article in this series), we are not aware of any others having been demolished for reasons other than this subsequently.

Such was the success of the Woodgrange estate that Corbett’s heirs went on to develop six other large estates in east and south east London: Clements House, Ilford (93 acres, starting in 1893), Grange House, Ilford (74 acres, 1894), Downshall, Seven Kings (107 acres, 1898), Mayfield, Goodmayes (100 acres, 1899), St Germans, Hither Green (278 acres, 1896), and Eltham Park (334 acres, 1900).

Location, location, location

So, why did Corbett pick Forest Gate for his first significant estate development in London? The straightforward answer lies in two words: transport and opportunity.

The railway boom of the early and mid-19th century brought the Eastern Counties Railway to rural Forest Gate in 1839, when its population was only 5,000 (see Fn 2). At that time, the area was mainly occupied by market gardens, and there were only almshouses (see Fn 3) on the stretch of Woodgrange Road between the railway station and the then Princess Alice pub on Romford Road.

The railways brought Forest Gate within a 20-minute journey of the heart of the City of London, making it an ideal suburb for middle-class, clerical and managerial workers serving booming City institutions.

The opportunity for Corbett was the Gurney family's financial hardship (Fn 4), which owned much of the land in Forest Gate. This enabled him to buy the land, and Forest Gate suddenly became a thriving suburb. The area's population of 5,000 when development started grew to over 20,000 by the time the estate was completed.

Distinctive features of the estate

Unlike most housing developments in the Victorian era—well illustrated elsewhere in Forest Gate—Corbett insisted on the adoption of uniform design standards for every house on the estate. Therefore, although each house is unique, there are multiple variations in construction features—such as different bricks, some with verandahs and others without, some with single-storey extensions, others with two-storey extensions, and some with none, as well as the existence of bay windows and cellars or their absence.

1878 sales leaflet for Woodgrange estate properties

At a single stroke, the estate’s architectural design skilfully achieved both individuality for each house, within an overall coherent design setting.

When it came to selling the houses, Corbett severed the properties from the land on which they were built and disposed of them separately, thereby generating two sources of income from the estate. Middle-class individuals purchased the houses on 99-year leases, and the properties' freeholds were sold to institutional investors, who collected an annual ground rent from the leaseholders.

Larger houses at the western end of the estate would normally sell for around £530, with an annual ground rent of 8 guineas (£8.60). The smaller double-fronted houses at the eastern end of the roads would generally have sold for £330, on a 99-year lease, with a ground rent of £6.30.

Corbett was firm in his insistence that the estate's appearance be maintained to a high standard, thereby benefiting the freeholders by preserving the value of their investments. Leases required purchasers to decorate the interior and exterior of the houses at regular intervals and to keep the exteriors looking smart in specified ways. 

An estate office, located at the end of Hampton Road (now number 2), was established to ensure compliance with the standards.

Hampton Road, early 20th Century. Property on far right, Corbett's estate office.There to ensure conformity to appearance standards of houses on the estate maintained.

Trees were planted at regular intervals along the roads, and roundabouts were installed to enhance the estate's appearance, which was particularly important as it was then car-free. The teetotaller Corbetts included restrictive covenants in leases that forbade the sale of alcohol from any of the properties.

Affluent and aspiring

The fact that Corbett named all the houses on the estate (Windsor, Claremont, Osborne, Hampton, Richmond and Balmoral) after royal residences suggested he was appealing to aspiring would-be home owners.

A glance at the 1881 and 1891 censuses of Claremont Road (see Fn 5) – the first to enumerate the Woodgrange estate - gives an indication of how successful Corbett had been in identifying and satisfying his target market of residents. City workers and people in marine-related occupations (the estate is only three miles north of the then bustling London docks) predominated.

In 1881, 83% of houses on Claremont Road had at least one live-in domestic servant, usually a maid of all works, and 22% of houses employed two live-in servants, typically a nanny and a maid of all works. The servants were predominantly single women from East London or Essex, earning roughly £12-£16 per year, plus board and lodging (See Fn 6).

The construction of Essex’s then-largest synagogue on Earlham Grove, just a short walk away from the estate, in the early years of the twentieth century, made it an attractive location for the resettlement of successful Jewish immigrants and their children from the Whitechapel area and altered the demographics of the Woodgrange houses. (see Fn 7).

We are lucky to have a number of surviving Edwardian postcards of the estate (see Fn 8), which show what a fine state the area was in, maintained by careful leaseholders who adhered to the Corbett demands.

Edwardian Windsor Road

Edwardian Claremont Road

Edwardian Osborne Road

Changing demographic and occupant profiles

A combination of changes to the country’s workforce profile after World War I and the impact of the 99-year leases on the houses in the estate significantly altered the occupational makeup and appearance of it between the wars and subsequently.

The number of women in domestic service in Britain declined by almost one third between 1881 and 1921, largely accounted for by the death of over 700,000 men during the war, and the consequential “substitution” of women into formerly male employment. One result was a significant decline in the number of servants living in the estate’s houses.

By the late 1920s, the unexpired terms of the 99-year leases on the Woodgrange houses were dropping below 50 years, so the houses themselves were becoming less attractive as long-term homes and acquisitions. Houses on the estate were changing hands at ever-lower prices in the inter-war years due to their shortening leases.

As a result, the composition of households on the estate changed markedly. Over time, there were significantly fewer large families with live-in domestic servants. Many of the once-stylish owner-occupied middle-class houses began to be converted into Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs).

We will examine this in more detail in future articles, as we analyse the 20th-century census and National Register results for Claremont Road.

The consequences were that the overall standards of upkeep of many houses declined, as absentee owners chose not to improve properties with shorter lifespans, or simply sit back and collected rents, with no regard for the condition of the properties they let.

The Woodgrange estate suffered significant bomb damage (Fn 9), particularly at the western end of Windsor and Claremont Roads, which we will reflect on in a future article.

Post-World War 2 immigration into the UK, and Newham in particular, also altered the nationality of origin of many of the estate's residents, as the larger houses met the needs of larger families.

Conservation Area status

Post-World War II, prospective homeowners on the estate began to consolidate their leases by purchasing the freeholds, to extend their ownership duration. During the early 1950s, the now short leases of the houses were trading for very small sums, and prospective owners were acquiring the freeholds from the institutions that owned them, often paying twice the price of the lease for the privilege.

The owners of the newly united properties began restoring the estate to its “v, des res” status, investing in improving and maintaining their houses as owner-occupied dwellings rather than letting them fall into disrepair.

In an inspired act of heritage conservation and recognition, Newham Council designated approximately 70 acres and about 600 houses of the original estate as a Conservation Area in July 1976 to safeguard its significant architectural heritage. This was officially ratified by the government the following year to acknowledge and celebrate the estate's centenary.

Standards to be adhered to in properties on the Woodgrange estate, following adoption of Conservation Area status

The area was expanded in 1979 to include the original Corbett shops on Woodgrange Road (40-66). The designation has preserved the properties' external, road-facing appearance since then.

That status has led to a renewed interest in maintaining the estate's features and condition, as well as in attracting the type of families Corbett originally envisioned. Modern status symbols on the estate are no longer domestic servants, but many of the highly expensive cars that adorn the drives of some of the houses.

More recently, almost turning full circle, the construction of the very successful Elizabeth Line, calling at Forest Gate, together with almost boon town status of Stratford has increased the desirability of living on the estate.

As a consequence, house prices skyrocketed over the last forty years, reaching nearly 3,000 times their original value - treble the rate of general inflation over the period, according to the Bank of England!

 Footnotes:

1.   Woodgrange Farm and the Growth of Modern Forest Gate – here; Woodgrange Estate - the early years -  here; and Archibald Cameron Corbett – the man and his houses - here 

2.   Forest Gate's early transport history - here 

3.   Pawnbrokers of Forest Gate - here 10 July 

4.   Samuel Gurney (1786 - 1856) - Forest Gate's most influential resident - here 

5.   Upstairs, downstairs (Claremont Road in the 1881 census) - here ; Claremont Road 1891 census - here 

6.   Adverts for servants in Claremont Road - here 

7.   The rise and decline of Forest Gate's Jewish Community - here 

8.   Edwardian postcards of the Woodgrange estate - here 

9.   Claremont Road, temporary WW2 fire station - here 

From “Lascar” to Forest Gate resident

Local historian and Newham resident Asif Shakoor describes his grandfather’s journey from being an Indian seafarer a century ago to a Forest Gate resident and his family’s subsequent history in the area.

I was born, raised, and educated in Newham, studying at the University of East London, but until recently, I had no idea that my family’s connections with the borough go back more than 100 years.

During a visit to Pakistan, I was given a wooden box containing fading documents, leading me to research the seafaring life of my grandfather, Mahomed Gama.

Asif’s grandfather Mahomed Gama

He was born in 1895 in Mirpur, in the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir in British-ruled India. I discovered he joined the British Mercantile Marine at a young age and made multiple voyages during the First World War.

On the Royal Albert Dockside, there is a newly created road named ‘Lascars Avenue.’ Most passers-by will not know that ‘Lascar’ was the name given to Indian sailors employed as ship’s crews. My grandfather would have been employed on a ‘lascar’ contract.

Mahomed Gama was one of the 51,000 Lascars, predominantly Muslims from present-day Pakistan and Bangladesh, constituting 17.5% of all seafarers on British ships in 1914. They were paid a mere fifth of what their white British counterparts earned (£1. 1s vs. £5. 10s). The 1894 Merchant Shipping Act had bound Indian seafarers to return to India on ships as part of the crew or face criminal prosecution.

However, some chose to jump ship due to the lure of better jobs or the harsh onboard conditions. By the First World War, small Lascar communities had sprung up in dock areas of London, Glasgow, Cardiff, and Liverpool.

The antique documents included a certificate showing that Mohamed Gama had served on several journeys on the SS Khiva. Researching the crew list at the UK National Archives, I discovered that the vessel had terminated at the Victoria Docks on 8th December 1917.

 

SS Khiva

The vessel stayed there for a month before sailing for New York. The crew lists held in the USA named my grandfather as a fireman on board this ship. On the same list, I found the Indian revolutionary and seafarer Amir Haider Khan, who recalled in his memoir that: ‘the vessel had to be kept in London until the end of the year for cannon flagging and some other alterations to prepare for her new role of carrying supplies and men from the USA to the United Kingdom and France'.

During its service, SS Khiva transported thousands of troops’ military supplies from New York to the frontline in France between April 1917 and November 1918 – the last arriving on what was to be Armistice Day. The ship returned to normal service in January 1919. My grandfather was awarded the British War Medal and the Mercantile Marine War Medal in recognition of his service on the SS Khiva.

 

World War 1 Service medal (left) and Mercantile Marine war medal (right) awarded to Mahomed Gama

I also discovered documents that showed my grandfather had docked at unspecified London docks on the SS Medina in December 1915 and on the SS Mooltan in December 1913, when he was only 18.

Knowing that my grandfather had stayed in present-day Newham, possibly as early as 1913, led me to wonder where and how he would have lived. The historian Rozina Visram has written about various facilities set up for Indian seafarers near the docks.

One was set up by the Seamen’s Hospital Society and known as the Royal Albert Hospital. It was located near both Victoria and Albert Docks from 1889 until 1937 when it moved to Alnwick Road. Other local facilities included the Coloured Men’s Institute, founded by a South Asian Methodist minister, Kamal Chunchie, at 13-15 Tidal Basin Road.

 

Seamen's Hospital c1900

After leaving the Merchant Navy, my grandfather settled in the United Kingdom in 1952 and was employed by BIRMID Midland Motor Cylinder Company, and the tube manufacturing firm, Accles, and Pollock in Oldbury, where he was employed as a labourer, between 1959 and 1965. It was from Accles and Pollock that he bought my father his first push bike.

In 1954, he brought my father to live with him in the UK, and in 1965, he stayed a month with my father and uncle, who were by then settled in Newham. They stayed at 73 Osborne Road, Forest Gate, in January 1965. My father moved there after he absconded from Cape Hill school in Smethwick.

My father told me that his first employment was as a shoe polisher based on Woodgrange Road at the site of the former Percy Ingle bakers. He then completed a motor mechanic apprenticeship with Jessups of Romford. He later became the first South Asian class one HGV driver after passing an HGV driving test on 7 July 1976 at Purfleet Test Centre in Essex.

My grandfather died soon after, on 16th August 1965, whilst in Pakistan. I never knew my grandfather, yet I have this sense of connection that cannot be expressed in mere words. I look at the places connected with him and wish I could have witnessed those historical events.