Place:Sutton (parish), Surrey, England

Watchers
NameSutton (parish)
Alt namesSutton (town)source: sometimes used
Sutton
Benhiltonsource: hamlet in parish
TypeParish (ancient), Civil parish, Urban district, Borough (municipal)
Coordinates51.3656°N 0.1963°W
Located inSurrey, England     ( - 1965)
Also located inGreater London, England     (1965 - )
See alsoWallington Hundred, Surrey, Englandancient county division in which it was located
Sutton and Cheam, Surrey, Englandurban district, then municipal borough of which it was part 1928-1965
Sutton (London Borough), Greater London, EnglandLondon borough of which it has been the principal settlement since 1965
source: Family History Library Catalog
source: Family History Library Catalog


"A Vision of Britain through Time" lists 40 English municipalities named Sutton or with Sutton in their names. Make sure you choose the right one.
the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Sutton is the principal town of the London Borough of Sutton in Greater London, England. It lies on the lower slopes of the North Downs, and is the location of the administrative headquarters of the borough. It is located 10.4 miles (16.7 km) south-south west of Charing Cross (a point in the centre of London from which distances are measured).

An ancient parish in the county of Surrey, Sutton is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as having two churches and two acres of meadow at that time. Sutton's location on the London to Brighton turnpike from 1755 led to the establishment of coaching inns, spurring its further development as a village. When it was connected to central London by rail in 1847, the village began to grow into a town, and there was significant Victorian-era expansion, both commercially and residentially. Sutton's expansion and increase in population accelerated in the 20th century as part of the suburban growth of London. It became a municipal borough with neighbouring Cheam in 1934, and has formed part of Greater London since 1965.

Governance

Sutton became part of the Sutton and Cheam Urban District in 1928. The urban district became the Sutton and Cheam Municipal Borough in 1934, and remained as such until the London Borough of Sutton was formed in 1965.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Origin of the name

The placename Sutton is recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book as Sudtone. It is formed from Old English 'sūth' and 'tūn', meaning 'south farm'.

Pre 1700

Archaeological finds in the region date back thousands of years, including the excavation of a Roman villa in Beddington. An implement from the neolithic age was found in Sutton town centre.[1] The Roman road of Stane Street formed part of the northern boundary of the parish.

Sutton was recorded as Sudtone in a charter of Chertsey Abbey believed to date from the late 7th century, when the Manor was granted to the Abbot of Chertsey by Frithwald, Governor of Surrey. Some sources state the name as Suthtone or Sudtana.

The 1086 Domesday Book records Sutton as spanning about 800 acres, and having about 30 houses and 200 people. It states that the Abbot of Chertsey held the manor. In 1538 it was sold to King Henry VIII and granted to Sir Nicholas Carew of Beddington. When Sir Nicholas was sentenced to death, the King seized the manor. Queen Mary restored it to Francis, son of Sir Nicholas. It later became a Crown possession again until King Charles II granted it to the Duke of Portland, who sold it in 1669. It changed hands regularly thereafter.


From the time of Domesday until the 19th century, Sutton formed a parish in the Wallington hundred of Surrey in the feudal system.

1700 to 1900

The road from London to Banstead Downs, through Sutton, was a haven for highwaymen in the 18th century. In 1755, two turnpike roads, which met at Sutton, were built: one from London to Brighton (Brighton Road), the other from Carshalton to Ewell (Cheam Road). The toll bars for the roads were originally located by the Cock Hotel, a coaching inn at the junction. The inn's sign straddled the Brighton road.

The London to Brighton stagecoach began in 1760, and the Cock Hotel was the 9am stop for coaches leaving the city. Regular contact beyond the town brought expansion and sophistication. Small businesses opened up, at first related to travelers and later to provide goods for neighbouring areas.[2] The toll bars moved away from the junction as Sutton expanded, remaining in use until 1882.[3]


Sutton railway station was opened in 1847. Following the arrival of the new, fast link to central London, Sutton's population more than doubled between 1851 and 1861, and the village became a town. New housing was built in the Lind Road area, and called "New Town". A pub built in 1854 on the corner of Lind Road was named the Jenny Lind, after the famous Swedish opera singer Johanna Maria Lind, who was visiting friends in the area in 1847 and enchanted locals with her singing. It has recently been renamed the Nightingale, also after the singer, who was known as the Swedish Nightingale.[2]

In about 1852 a residential school was built alongside the Sutton to Epsom Downs railway near Brighton Road. The building was designed by Edwin Nash and contained administrative, dining, dormitory and teaching areas. Boys were taught manual skills like shoemaking and metal working. Girls were taught such skills as needle work, laundry work, and ironing with a view to making them good servants, wives and mothers. Up to 1856, when large parts of it were destroyed by fire, the boys’ and girls’ sections were on the same site but after 1856 the girls’ were moved into a new building on the other side of the railway in Banstead Road (now called Cotswold Road).

Sutton Water Company was incorporated in 1863, and the provision of water mains allowed houses to be built outside the Thanet Sands area. The Lord of the Manor, Mr Thomas Alcock, sold land for housing, and Sutton's population more than doubled again between 1861 and 1871,[3] spurred by the development of upmarket Benhilton in north Sutton.


The High Street near the top was known as Cock Hill until the 1880s – the shops on the east side were built in 1880, ten years after those on the west side. The grand and decorative London and Provincial Bank building (now home to Barclays Bank) was built overlooking the historic crossroads in 1894. Designed in the French Renaissance architectural style, it is four storeys tall and forms a prominent local landmark. There is a series of arches at ground level, and an ornate entrance where the roads meet.[1][4]


In 1884 Sutton High School for Girls was founded by the then Girls' Public Day School Trust.

In 1899 Sutton County Grammar School (now Sutton Grammar School for Boys) opened.


In 1897 Sutton Masonic Hall was built in Grove Road. Freemasons have met there since its foundation, apart during World War II when the military requisitioned it and it served as a shelter for displaced people.[4]

In 1898 a new, larger Cock Hotel replaced the original one.

20th century

By 1901, the town's population had reached 17,223 as further housing was built and the High Street was developed.

In 1902 the Banstead Road site of the South Metropolitan Industrial school was bought by the Metropolitan Asylums Board. The site later became the Downs Schools and then the Downs Hospital. It is now shared between the Royal Marsden and Sutton Hospitals, the Institute of Cancer Research, and the site of a new school to be opened in 2019.[5]


The Sutton Adult School and Institute opened in 1910 in a large Edwardian building in Benhill Avenue. It later became the Thomas Wall Centre, named after the area's benefactor of Wall's sausage and ice cream fame. Thomas Wall's lack of education led to a desire to encourage learning in others, resulting in the establishment of a trust and the construction of the institute. The adult school is said to have had the best premises in the UK: by 1915 there were social clubs, a library, clubs for maternity and horticulture, debating and temperance societies, a legal advice committee, bible study and English literature classes, and what was claimed to be the finest public gymnasium in southern England.

During World War II bombing was not as heavy as in central London – 434 bombs in total were dropped on Sutton and Cheam, and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission lists 187 civilian casualties.

In 1950, in order to widen the High Street, the Cock Hotel was demolished. However, the inn sign and its fingerposts survive, overlooking the historic crossroads. The sign and fingerposts were given Grade II listed status by English Heritage on 18 April 2018.

In 1959 a local resident, George Edgar Alcock, started a campaign to preserve a unique avenue of copper beech trees. This campaign led the same year to the formation of the Sutton and Cheam Society, a local amenity group. A plaque commemorating Mr Alcock's life is situated at the junction of Christchurch Park with Brighton Road.

Surrey Research Tips

Government

Administrative boundaries of the county of Surrey (Surrey History Centre. The centre has a website with a number of useful indexes--titheholders in various parishes, deaths at the county gaol, etc.)

Registration Districts

  • Registration Districts in Surrey from their introduction in 1837 to the present. By drilling down through the links you can follow any parish through the registration districts to which it was attached.

GENUKI provisions

The website GENUKI provides a very comprehensive list of reference sources for the County of Surrey. It includes:

  • Archives and Libraries
  • Church record availability for both Surrey and the former Surrey part of Greater London
  • 19th century descriptions of the ecclesiastical parishes
  • Lists of cemeteries
  • Local family history societies
  • A list of historic maps online

History

  • The Victoria History of the County of Surrey is a series of three volumes available online through British History Online. The volumes were written over the past hundred or so years by a number of authors and cover various sections of Surrey. A list of the volumes and what each contains can be found under the source Victoria History of the County of Surrey. Both volumes 3 and 4 contain areas which are part of Greater London and parts of modern Surrey.

Maps

  • The National Library of Scotland has a website which provides maps taken from the Ordnance Survey England & Wales One-Inch to the Mile series of 1892-1908 as well as equivalent maps for Scotland itself. The immediate presentation is a "help" screen and a place selection screen prompting the entry of a location down to town, village or parish level. These screens can be removed by a click of the "X". The map is very clear and shows parish and county boundaries and many large buildings and estates that existed at the turn of the 20th century. Magnification can be adjusted and an "overlay feature" allows inspection of the area today along with that of 1900. The specific map from the series can be viewed as a whole ("View this map") and this allows the inspection of the map legend (found in the left hand bottom corner. Becoming familiar with the various facilities of these maps is well worth the trouble.
  • Victoria County History chapter on Sutton

Greater London Research Tips

A reminder that Greater London was not formed until 1965 and covers a much greater territory than its predecessor, the County of London formed in 1900. The City of London was only a part of the County of London. A map of the boroughs of Greater London is reproduced on all Greater London borough pages. A map of the boroughs of the smaller County of London is reproduced on all County of London borough pages.


Researching ancestors in London will probably be more successful than researching ancestors in the rest of England, particularly for the period before 1837 and the advent of civil registration. Baptisms, marriages and burials are available online for County of London parishes, and possibly for parishes throughout Greater London as well.

  • Anglican Parishes in London is a wiki here on WeRelate listing the places of worship of the established church throughout London. The churches are grouped within the post-1965 boroughs and for each is the street address, a link to the Booth Map (inner boroughs only), the time span for which the database AIM25 holds records, the FamilySearch Wiki link (see below), the Wikipedia link, and further notes. This is a work-in-progress and not all churches are listed as yet, but it is a guide to a great deal more information on those for which information has been gathered.
  • The London Metropolitan Archives (40 Northampton Road, Clerkenwell, London EC1R 0HB) holds records relating to the whole of Greater London. Ancestry (subscription necessary) has produced transcriptions and provides images of lists of baptisms, marriages, and burials in churches across Greater London. Many of these lists start in 1813 and stretch into the 20th century; some start even earlier.

Maps

  • A street-by-street map of London (both sides of the Thames, and stretching from Limehouse, Stepney and Greenwich in the east to Hyde Park and Kensington in the west) drawn by Edward Mogg in 1806. Blows up to a very readable level. Highly recommended viewing. Shows named areas on the edge of the County of London (1900-1965) as the small villages they were in 1800. Streets in the City are named, but churches are missing.
  • The Phillimore Atlas and Index of Parish Registers edited by Cecil Humphery-Smith and published by Phillimore & Co Ltd (edition of 1995) provides a map of the City of London indicating all the parishes and includes dates of commencement of registers for parishes formed before 1832.
  • Wikipedia has an expandable map of the area of devastation of the 1666 fire. The map includes the location of Pudding Lane where the fire started.
  • A map of London in the 1890s provided by the National Library of Scotland. There are a few steps between the home page index and the individual maps which may be difficult to follow for those who don't know London, but the maps themselves are produced at the scale of 5 feet to the mile on the original and are very clear. Houses on streets are marked, but not numbered.
  • Ordnance Survey map of London 1900 (provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time) showing London parishes just after the reorganization of 1899. The map was originally drawn over a street map at a scale of 1 inch to the mile and can be blown up to inspect a single borough. Only the major streets are marked and are only visible at maximum magnification. The City of London is an inset in the top right hand corner.
  • Ordnance Survey map of Middlesex 1900 (provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time) showing the parishes remaining in Middlesex after the reorganization of 1899 when much of the former area of Middlesex had been transferred into London.
  • Ordnance Survey map of Surrey 1900 (provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time) showing Surrey parishes (chiefly Southwark) just after the reorganization of 1899 when the most urban parts of Surrey were transferred into London.
  • Ordnance Survey map of Kent 1900 (provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time) showing Kent parishes just after the reorganization of 1899 when the western part of Kent had been transferred into London.
  • Ordnance Survey map of Essex 1900 (provided online by A Vision of Britain through Time) showing Essex parishes (West Ham, East Ham, Ilford) which were absorbed into Greater London in 1965.

Registration Districts

  • Registration Districts in London, Registration Districts in Middlesex, Registration Districts in Surrey, Registration Districts in Kent, and Registration Districts in Essex are lists of the registration districts used for civil registration (births, marriages and deaths, as well as the censuses). There are linked supporting lists of the parishes which made up each registration district, the dates of formation and abolition of the districts, the General Register Office numbers, and the local archive-holding place. This work has been carried out by Brett Langston under the agency of GENUKI (Genealogy United Kingdom and Ireland) and UKBMD - Births, Marriages, Deaths & Censuses on the Internet, and has been updated into the 21st century. If the only information about an individual has been obtained from UKBMD, the name of the registration district is considered a "placename" within WeRelate and can be used to provide a broad estimate of the location.

Cemeteries

  • Deceased Online includes four of the "Magnificent Seven" cemeteries (Brompton, Highgate, Kensal Green, and Nunhead) in its inventory of 65 London cemeteries. Transcripts for Abney Park are free with registration online at www.devsys.co.uk/ap/. Ancestry (international subscription necessary) has "London, England, City of London and Tower Hamlets Cemetery Registers, 1841-1966". That leaves West Norwood without comprehensive online access to burial records. (Deceased Online and Ancestry may have increased their provision since this was written in 2016.)
  • As of October 2019 Ancestry has a file titled "England & Scotland, Select Cemetery Registers 1800-2016" which includes Abney Park Cemetery, Greenford Park Cemetery, Acton Cemetery, Ealing & Old Brentford Cemetery, Havelock Norwood Cemetery, Hortus Cemetery, South Ealing Cemetery, Queens Road Cemetery, and Chingford Mount Cemetery.
  • The City of London Cemetery, at Manor Park, near Wanstead in the London Borough of Redbridge also contains remains transferred from former parishes in the City of London whose graveyards have been replaced by streets and commercial buildings.
  • Brookwood Cemetery, beyond the Greater London borders in Surrey, was opened in 1854 for burials for Londoners. See the Wikpedia article.

Other online sources

  • See the FamilySearch Wiki under "London" and also under "Middlesex", "Surrey", "Essex" and "Kent" for key information about Greater London's jurisdictions and records, plus links to indexes, reference aids and Family History Library holdings.
  • GENUKI has a long list of websites and archive holders in addition to London Metropolitan Archives above. (The list from GENUKI is not maintained so well that there is never a dead link in it. However, it is often worth googling the title given on the page just in case the contributor has reorganized their website and GENUKI has not picked it up.)
  • GENUKI also has a list of the Archives and Local Studies Libraries for each of the boroughs of Greater London.
  • The London Encyclopaedia by Ben Weinreb and Christopher Hibbert. An e-book available online through Google, originally published by Pan Macmillan. There is a search box in the left-hand pane.
  • London Lives. A very useful free website for anyone researching their London ancestors between the years 1690-1800. This is a fully searchable edition of 240,000 manuscripts from eight archives and fifteen datasets, giving access to 3.35 million names.
  • London Ancestor, a website belonging to one of the London family history societies, has a list of transcriptions of directories from the 18th century, listing in one case "all the squares, streets, lanes, courts, yards, alleys, &C. in and about Five Miles of the Metropolis..." In other parts of the same website are maps of various parts of 19th century London and Middlesex.
  • The proceedings of the Old Bailey, London's central criminal court, 1674-1913. A fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court. This website is free to use.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Sutton, London. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.