June 2020 Editors: Fiona Fowler & Maya Donelan
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Newsletter June 2020 Editors: Fiona Fowler & Maya Donelan No. 106 CHAIRMAN’S LETTER I looked at the Fulham Society’s February Newsletter, sent out less than 4 months ago, and it was all about climate change. That was then our main concern. There was no mention of coronaviruses or covid-19. So much has changed in a very short time. Like so many others, we had to cancel all our planned outings and I very much doubt we will be holding a Summer Party this year. We have been learning new skills as we hold our meetings via Zoom or Microsoft Teams or some other virtual means. Useful as they are, I personally hope that come the autumn, life will be getting back to normal and we can meet in person and that we will be able to reschedule a few of the events. We have interesting articles on why there are so many military men buried in Fulham Cemetery, on a fascinating woman, Fanny Eaton and on the Hammersmith/Fulham boundary (always most confusing!). We update you on other matters and I am only sad there are no events or outings to include. I hope you are all well, keeping safe and managing to enjoy the little extra freedoms that we are gradually acquiring. Fiona Fowler FULHAM CEMETERY AND THE FORMER FULHAM HOSPITAL The daily walk has meant many of us have explored parts of Fulham that were less familiar. Maya spent time exploring Fulham Cemetery, which lies between the Fulham Palace Road and Munster Road, just south of the Lillie Road Recreation Ground. Fulham Cemetery was established by the Fulham Burial Board in 1865. It was originally designed by architect John Hall with an entrance lodge and two chapels (only one of which survives). It is bounded by stone walls, piers and railings with lime trees along the boundary with Fulham Palace Road. The main avenue from the entrance on Fulham Palace Road to Munster Road was laid out when the cemetery was extended in 1874 and it was extended again in 1880. By 1908 it was becoming full and North Sheen Cemetery was opened to cater for the parish needs. And the old cemetery was subsequently referred to as Fulham Old Cemetery. It is now more likely to be known as the Fulham Palace Road Cemetery and is, once again, open for burials. Among those buried in Fulham Cemetery are numerous local dignitaries and a large number of soldiers from the two main wars. It contains the graves of 238 Commonwealth service personnel, 179 from World II, and 57 from World War I. A section was put aside for war burials, near the Cross of Sacrifice that commemorates the dead of both world wars. Those whose graves have no headstones are listed by name on a screen wall memorial in this main war graves plot. But what is interesting is the large number of the military head stones scattered throughout the cemetery and not gathered together in the main war graves plot. The reason for this becomes apparent when one walks up towards Hammersmith, past the Charing Cross Hospital. This modern hospital is on the site of the former Fulham Workhouse which opened in 1849 with accommodation for 450 inmates. In 1884, the Fulham Union Infirmary was erected in St Dunstan’s Road just north of the Workhouse to provide minimal medical care to the workhouse sick, with two doctors and 31 nurses to look after 486 patients, a large proportion (34%) of whom were chronically ill or senile. In 1889, a chapel was added, designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield who, as a son of Bishop Blomfield, Bishop of London, had been born at Fulham Palace in 1829. In 1905 a Nurses’ Home, Brandenburg House, was built opposite the Infirmary on the west side of Fulham Palace Road (later a subway would link the Nurses' Home to the Infirmary). At the beginning of WW1 wounded soldiers from the Ypres battleground were brought to Fulham. In 1915 the War Office took over the workhouse and Infirmary - as it did with several other Poor Law institutions - and they became the Fulham Military Hospital. The Hospital had almost 1,000 beds. The large workhouse dining hall was utilized for meals by convalescent soldiers, and weekly entertainments were also held there. In December 1915, there was a Royal Visit to the Hospital by HM Queen Mary. During the war the Army improved and upgraded conditions at the Hospital. By 1917 there were 1130 beds, including 318 for German prisoners. In 1918 Fulham Palace was vacated by the Bishop of London and became a convalescent home for 100 soldiers with shell shock. The war ended just as the Spanish flu epidemic began to affect staff and patients and a great number of them died in November 1918. Many soldiers died at the hospital and were buried in Fulham Cemetery. Later in the early 1920s when the Imperial War Graves Commission was founded and formal headstones were provided for the military dead, it was decided to put headstones on the original graves rather than dig up the bodies and move them to the formal “military cemetery site”. The present site in the cemetery contains only World War II graves. At the beginning of WW2 the Hospital received wounded soldiers from Dunkirk but during this time the hospital was heavily bombed. In 1946 talk of rebuilding the hospital began in earnest and in 1948 it joined the NHS. The workhouse building was demolished in 1957. Plans for rebuilding the hospital had stalled but in 1959 came the unexpected news that Charing Cross Hospital would be coming to Fulham. Despite local protest, Fulham Hospital became part of the Charing Cross Group. Building works for the new hospital began at the centre of the site, where the former workhouse and Board of Guardians offices had been. The Fulham Hospital was demolished piece by piece and finally closed in 1973. The new Charing Cross Hospital (Fulham) was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in the same year. Fulham Society | Page 2 | Newsletter June 2020 FANNY EATON (1835-1924) Fanny Eaton was born on 23 June 1835 in Jamaica. Her mother was Matilda Foster, a woman of African descent, who may have been born into slavery. The young Fanny was recorded as 'mulatto', a pejorative and outdated term once used to describe someone of mixed race. The Atlantic Slave Trade had been abolished in 1807, but it was only in 1834 that slavery was abolished entirely in Britain's colonies. Despite new legislation, many enslaved individuals remained bound to their former masters as 'apprentices' for another six years, until further laws were passed in 1838 to abolish the apprenticeship clause. Eaton and her mother made their way to England sometime in the 1840s. By 1851 she is recorded as living with her mother in London and working as a domestic servant. In 1857 she married James Eaton, a horse-cab proprietor and driver. Together they had 10 children and when James died in his forties in 1881, his wife was left to raise and provide for all of their surviving children. It was during this period of Fanny Eaton's life as mother and new wife that she began modelling for the Pre-Raphaelites. We know that Eaton was employed regularly by the Royal Academy around this time. Records show she was paid 15 shillings for three sittings in July 1860. It is likely that she met many renowned artists there. Eaton's distinctive features – strong elegant jawline, pronounced high cheekbones and almond- shaped eyes – were clearly mesmerising to the artist. The earliest known studies done of her are pencil sketches in 1859 & 1860 by Simeon Solomon, (pictured here), who was affiliated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. She sat for other artists who were Solomon's friends, including William Blake Richmond and Albert Joseph Moore. In 1865, she was used by Dante Gabriel Rossetti for the figure of one of the bridesmaids in his painting The Beloved. After 1867, Fanny seems to have virtually disappeared in Pre-Raphaelite paintings. Although her modelling career for the Pre-Raphaelites seems to have been short, her impact was undeniably intense. This is evident from the large body of work in which she features. In a letter to Ford Madox Brown, Rossetti praises Mrs. Eaton for her incomparable beauty and "very fine head", a not insignificant feat considering that the era is infamous for its rigid beauty standards and intense racial prejudices. Born in the British colonies and daughter of a former slave, Fanny Eaton's visual presence in artwork represented a social group outside the traditional Victorian parameters. Her appearance in paintings and Pre-Raphaelite art focused attention onto the "Other" in Victorian society, challenging societal expectations of black women. Victorian art typically portrayed people of colour as decorative figures and they were rarely seen as models of idealized beauty. In October 2019 to January 2020, she was one of 12 women included in the Pre-Raphaelite Sisters exhibition at London's National Portrait Gallery. By 1881 Eaton had been widowed and was working as a seamstress. In the final years of her life, Eaton worked as a domestic cook on the Isle of Wight for a Hammersmith-based wine merchant and his wife, John and Fanny Hall. By 1911, now in her 70s, she was back in Hammersmith and residing with Julia, one of her daughters. She died in Acton on 4 March 1924 at the age of 89 and is buried in an unmarked grave in Margravine Cemetery in Fulham.