Patrick Comerford
Islington, an inner-city area in north London, is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields and Regent’s Canal, and encompassing the area around the busy High Street, Upper Street, Essex Road and Southgate Road to the east.
Islington is known for left-wing and radical politics, and the local MPs are Jeremy Corbyn ( Islington North) and Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury).
I was in Islington briefly earlier this week because I have long been intrigued by the name of Quemerford Road. Despite the strong links over the centuries between the Comerford family in Kilkenny, Wexford and Waterford and the Comberford family of Comberford family of Comberford Hall near Lichfield and Tamworth in Staffordshire, the name Comerford actually derives from Quemerford, a small village that is now part of Calne in Wiltshire.
The first member of the family using the name of Quemerford village was Bartholomew de Quemerford, who was living 800 years ago, ca 1230-1240. By the early 14th century, Philip of Cummerford or Philip de Quemerford and his family were living in Co Kilkenny, and the spelling Quemerford continued to be used in the family in Kilkenny, Wexford and Waterford until the late 16th century.
As I caught the underground from King’s Cross to Caledonian Road to visit Islington earlier this week, I wanted to find out whether the name of Quemerford Road was linked with the early family members or was associated with Quemerford in Wiltshire.
Mediaeval Islington was a part of the estates of the Bishop of London and the Dean and Chapter of Saint Paul’s Cathedral. The first recorded church, Saint Mary’s, was built in the 12th century and was replaced in the 15th century. A greatest expansion in housing transformed the whole parish the 19th century. The population was 10,000 in 1801, but by 1891 it had expanded to almost 320,000.
At first, large well-built houses and fashionable squares attracted clerks, artisans and professionals to Islington. However, from the mid-19th century the poor were being displaced by clearances in inner London to build new railway stations and goods yards. Many of the displaced people moved to Islington, where houses became homes to many families, and Islington moved from being attractive for the ‘better off’ and became ‘unfashionable’.
Locations in Islington appear in many works by Charles Dickens, including: Oliver Twist (1837-1839), where Mr Brownlow’s house is in Pentonville, and several scenes are set in Islington; David Copperfield (1849-1850), in which Wilkins Micawber lives in City Road; and Bleak House (1852-1853), where William Guppy lives in Pentonville.
The completion of the Victoria line and the redevelopment of Angel tube station created the conditions for developers to renovate many early Victorian and Georgian townhouses in Islington and to build new developments. But Islington fell into a long decline, and by the mid-20th century it was largely run-down and a by-word for urban poverty.
The remaining Georgian terraces were rediscovered by middle-class families from the 1960s on. Many houses were rehabilitated, and the area became newly fashionable with gentrification. The new residents included people who were central in the New Labour movement, including Tony Blair before his 1997 general election victory. According to The Guardian in 2006, ‘Islington is widely regarded as the spiritual home of Britain's left-wing intelligentsia.’
Islington is the most densely populated borough in the UK, with a density of 138.7 people per hectare, compared to an average of 52.0 for London. It is a diverse district with private houses and apartments not far from social housing in neighbouring wards such as Finsbury and Clerkenwell to the south, Bloomsbury and King’s Cross to the west, and Highbury to the north-west, and the Hackney districts of De Beauvoir and Old Street to the north-east.
Quemerford Road, Islington, is a small, quiet residential road in London N7, near the Holloway area. It was formed and named at the end of 1911 from a section of what was previously Widdenham Road, which in turn dates from 1906. The street was named after Quemerford, a small village on the outskirts of Calne in West Wiltshire.
According to local records and local history, this specific portion of Widdenham Road was re-designated as Quemerford Road in December 1911. It connects Biddestone Road, Stock Orchard Crescent and Widdenham Road, all of which were part of the wider residential development of the Holloway and Barnsbury fringes of Islington in the early 20th century.
The name of Quemerford Road was formalised when the local council approved an order of the London County Council to rename ‘the street leading out of Stock Orchard Crescent.’
But I learned that the cluster of names of Quemerford Road, Stock Orchard Crescent, Widdenham Road, Hillmarton Road, Beacon Hill and Biddestone Road all come from places in Wiltshire and all were suggested by John Poynder Dickson Poynder (1866-1936), 1st Baron Islington, who was MP for Chippenham (1892-1910) in Wiltshire and owned much property in both Chippenham and Islington.
Quemerford Gate Farm belonged to the Street family in the 18th century. It was bought by 1774 by the Revd James Mayo, Vicar of Avebury, and by the early 19th century it belonged to Thomas Poynder, lord of Hilmarton Manor. Quemerford Gate Farm descended with Hilmarton Manor and Upper Whitley farm in the Poynder family until 1914, when it was sold by John Dickson Poynder, Lord Islington.
Hilmarton is a village in North Wiltshire, between the towns of Calne and Wootton Bassett.
Stock and Stockley are immediately west of Quemerford and the Poynder family owned Stock Orchard Farm from 1822 or 1823. By 1885, the farmhouse at Stock Orchard had been demolished and all the buildings of Stock Orchard Farm had been demolished by the late 20th century.
Biddestone is a village 3 or 4 miles west of Chippenham. Widdenham is a small, isolated rural locality within the civil parish of Colerne and near Box in the Wiltshire.
Lord Islington, John Poynder Dickson-Poynder (1866-1936), who gave the names of Quemerford and other places in Wiltshire to these streets in Islington, was a Conservative and then a Liberal politician, and was the Governor of New Zealand in 1910-1912.
He was born John Poynder Dickson on the Isle of Wight 160 years ago on 31 October 1866, the son of Rear Admiral John Bourmaster Dickson and Sarah Matilda (née Poynder) Dickson, and was educated at Harrow and Christ Church, Oxford. He was still only 17 In 1884 when he succeeded to the title of baronet given to the Dickson family in 1802 for their naval exploits.
When he succeeded to his maternal uncle’s property four years later, he added the additional surname of Poynder in 1888 and became known as Sir John Poynder Dickson-Poynder. The Poynder estates in Wiltshire included a farm in Quemerford, Hilmarton near Calne, and Hartham near Corsham.
His wife Anne Beauclerk Dundas (1869-1958), was a granddaughter of Robert Cornelis Napier (1810-1890), Baron Napier of Magdala, Viceroy of India and Governor of Gibraltar, whose military career included the Anglo-Sikh wars and the Indian Mutiny in India, the Opium Wars in China, and British invasions of Abyssinia (Ethiopia).
Dickson-Poynder became High Sheriff of Wiltshire in 1890. He was MP for Chippenham in 1892-1910 elected first as Conservative, but then joining the Liberals in 1905. He also was a member of London County Council (1898-1904). As a captain in the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry, he went to South Africa in March 1900 during the Second Boer War. Later he was aide-de-camp to Lord Methuen, who lived at Corsham Court in Wiltshire. He was decorated with the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in 1900, and later was an honorary major in the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry.
Dickson was Governor of New Zealand in 1910-1912. On his appointment he was made a peer with the title of Baron Islington of Islington, and as Lord Islington he was asked to name some of the streets in Islington, including Quemerford Road, drawing on the names of his properties near Calne in Wiltshire.
Lord Islington was the last Governor of New Zealand to hold the title before it was changed to Governor-General. He was made a KCMG and Privy Counsellor in 1911, and in 1912 became President of the Royal Commission on the Public Services of India.
During World War I, he held minor government positions as Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (1914-1915), and Under-Secretary of State for India (1915-1918). He was given higher grades of knighthood in 1913 (GCMG) and 1926 (GBE).
Lord Islington died 90 years ago on 6 December 1936 aged 70 at Hyde Park Gardens, London, and was buried at Hilmarton, Wiltshire. His titles of baron and baronet died out with his death, but the names he gave to tree-lined suburban streets in Islington, including Quemerford Road, survive to this day.
