General Brixton history - photos, stories etc

[CH1]

1888, according to this and a few other things on the web

Seems like I am taking us round the same loop again. I think the discussion (on Urban) started with a photo of a Radiogram with odd specifications in Bon Marché!
This is the beginning of an illustrated article in the Brixton Society newsletter from March 2023.

Brixton’s Power Station
Although Brixton was using electric light in Electric Avenue by 1895, much street lighting was
originally by gas, as were domestic house lights in the 1880s and before.
From 1892 the Lambeth Vestry (council) was made responsible for the public electrical supply in
Brixton, and in 1896 the South London Electric Supply Corporation Limited was registered and in
1897 took over future responsibility for supplying electricity to the majority of Lambeth borough.
The Corporation had an authorised capital of £325,000 comprising 65,000 shares of £5 each, with
594 shareholders in 1898. A power station was built in Bengeworth Road, Loughborough Junction
together with a high voltage distribution cable network. Part of the agreement with the Vestry was
that the Corporation would burn dustbin refuse receiving 11½d. per ton destroyed and would
provide current for 25 street lights free of charge. Electricity supply started in November 1899.

So there is a gap between the Vestry power station coming on line and Electric Avenue being "electric"
I rest my case.

The full article on the Bengeworth Road power station is on pages 6-7 in the attachment below.
Unfortunately the Wikipedia link at the end of the article is now dead.
Credit is given to Urban75 contributors for the aerial picture and map.
Edit - the Brixton Society article was written in March but published in the April newsletter.

 

[Mr paulee]

 

[Puddy_Tat]

View attachment 427199

tram in the photo is the one-off 'Bluebird' which was built in 1932 as a prototype for a new generation of London County Council trams. London Transport were not so keen on trams and it stayed a one-off. It's currently getting close to the end of a lengthy restoration at the Crich museum in Derbyshire

 

[Puddy_Tat]

another set of maps on the national library of scotland website - 1913 london county council municipal maps (includes some handwritten marking for proposed street name changes - the LCC did a bit of this to try and tidy up / reduce duplication).

brixton is about on the corner of 4 sheets, one here, full set here.

a chunk of brixton -

 

[editor]

 

[happyshopper]

View attachment 430096

You can listen to the My Dad Mr Brixton podcast for some context. Sorry, but I've forgotten which episode.

 

[felonius monk]

View attachment 430096

I thought the family moved to Bromley circa 1953. Did she move back to Brixton or was he actually visiting the house in Stansfield Road rather than his mother?

 

[CH1]

I thought the family moved to Bromley circa 1953. Did she move back to Brixton or was he actually visiting the house in Stansfield Road rather than his mother?

Eh? Yes Bowie's family moved to Bromley in 1953. I think Bowie had some sort of idea that Cortney Laws and his organisation were helping the needy of Brixton - which is why he "gave back" by helping set up the Carlton House part of Courtney's empire by way of a fundraiser.

I listened to some of the podcast a year or so back when it came out - but it never seemed to conclude? Has it concluded now?
What I was curious about was how Courtney's daughter Claudette would explain his being prosecuted by Lambeth Council for fraud.
It seems he died of a heart attack the day before his trial was due to open - so clearly a lot of the details of the case have never been made public, which they would have done had the trial proceeded.

I was working at Lambeth Accord when this happened, and our auditor, who was given to witty repartee said "What else could Courtney do?" when I mentioned the sudden unexpected death.
One very florid acquaintance also in the social services funded voluntary sector at the time reckoned that Courtney had 4 fax machines sending funds to Jamaica - and a lot of property acquired over there. That said this chap was in the "Hearing Voices Network" - so may have simply been fantasising.

I reckon we will never know the truth - unless Claudette has spilled the beans.

 

[GarveyLives]

I thought the family moved to Bromley circa 1953. Did she move back to Brixton or was he actually visiting the house in Stansfield Road rather than his mother?

Eh? Yes Bowie's family moved to Bromley in 1953.

In 1953, just as Caribbean migration to the Brixton area was gathering momentum, a six-year old David Bowie, or 'The Thin White Duke' as he once styled himself, moved out of Brixton with his parents to 106 Canon Road, Bromley South, and then on to Clarence Road, Bromley, in 1954, and then on Plaistow Grove, Bromley in June 1955.

Apparently, he reportedly "lost touch" with his mother at some stage in the early seventies, but resumed contact with her after he married his second wife in 1992.

In Spring 2001, it was reported that his mother, who was then in her late 80s, was understood to have died at a nursing home in St Albans, Hertfordshire.

It is unclear when it is claimed that his mother would have returned to live Brixton, such that she would have been living in a home that he had left 30-40 years earlier, at the time of the photograph in question. The same image appeared previously without any annotated claim that it showed him visiting his mother.

 

[CH1]

"We want information!"
Before I pop the question here are 2 stills from the film Black Joy filmed in Brixton in 1977
Roofline shot showing the star above the Empress Theatre in Brighton Terrace (demolished 1994)


The Atlantic - when it was a rather rough pub run by it's brewery Ind Coope. The Dog Star since 1995 approx.


And my question is .....
Does anyone remember a TV comedy - a one-off film-length show - which featured a mainly black cast and was shot in St Georges Mansions Railton Road by the look of it?
This was I think on ITV (before Channel 4 existed) and was a comedy or even a farce. Possibly along the lines of Tropic of Ruislip with people popping in and out of different flats.
It was definitely not a post-riot angst-ridden drama - though it might easily have been made & show in the early to mid 1980s.

 

[dbs1fan]

"We want information!"
Before I pop the question here are 2 stills from the film Black Joy filmed in Brixton in 1977
Roofline shot showing the star above the Empress Theatre in Brighton Terrace (demolished 1994)
View attachment 433136

The Atlantic - when it was a rather rough pub run by it's brewery Ind Coope. The Dog Star since 1995 approx.
View attachment 433137

And my question is .....
Does anyone remember a TV comedy - a one-off film-length show - which featured a mainly black cast and was shot in St Georges Mansions Railton Road by the look of it?
This was I think on ITV (before Channel 4 existed) and was a comedy or even a farce. Possibly along the lines of Tropic of Ruislip with people popping in and out of different flats.
It was definitely not a post-riot angst-ridden drama - though it might easily have been made & show in the early to mid 1980s.

St. George's RESIDENCES....

 

[friendofdorothy]

"We want information!"
Before I pop the question here are 2 stills from the film Black Joy filmed in Brixton in 1977
Roofline shot showing the star above the Empress Theatre in Brighton Terrace (demolishe
And my question is .....
Does anyone remember a TV comedy - a one-off film-length show - which featured a mainly black cast and was shot in St Georges Mansions Railton Road by the look of it?
This was I think on ITV (before Channel 4 existed) and was a comedy or even a farce. Possibly along the lines of Tropic of Ruislip with people popping in and out of different flats.
It was definitely not a post-riot angst-ridden drama - though it might easily have been made & show in the early to mid 19

Maybe ask Ian T irl?

 

[Mr paulee]

Still recognisable.