THE NEWSLETTER OF THE LOCAL HISTORY SOCIETY FOR THE LONDON BOROUGH OF BROMLEY Vol. 5 No. 4 October 1981 Price 10p Free to Members Local History Exhibition at Central Library: 23rd November - 7th December As reported in the previous news letter, the Society has interest, for this exhibition. been invited to stage a local history exhibition in the Here we have a chance which must not be missed, to exhibition area of the Central Library. ‘Members are show the people of Bromley, that the area has an extensive invited to submit original sketches to be shown at this and interesting history and that there is an active Society exhibition and a prize of a £5 book voucher will be studying that history. If you have anything you think presented for the best sketch submitted. should be included in this exhibition please let a member of Members are also invited to lend any articles, the Committee know. photographs, etc. etc., which may be of local historical □ MEETINGS AND FINANCE ANNUAL PUBLICATION There is a slight reduction in the number of meetings to be The Society regretfully has insufficient money to produce a held in future. This was discussed at the Annual General publication this year. As members will have noticed there Meeting and the Committee have given the matter most has been a number of local history books, magazines, etc., careful consideration in the light of the Society’s financial appear during the past year or so, and this has had some position. It has always been the aim to keep subscriptions effect on the sales of this Society’s annual booklet. It was as low as possible, but the cost of hiring rooms for reported at the June Committee meeting, that money had meetings is increasing. When meetings were held at been received at that time for the sale of only 600 of the Stockwell College, the Society did not pay anything at all 1980 publication. The Society relies upon the sales for the for the use of rooms for meetings; the cost of hiring the finance to produce the next issue. The cost of producing small hall at the Central Library is at present, £14.50 for the annual publication is about £2,000 and the Committee each meeting. This is a considerable drain on the Society’s had to face the fact that the money required would not be finances. available. There is a steady sale of the booklet but it has Gordon Wright produces the quarterly newsletter at a not been the flood of sales which followed the issue of the very low cost.. Not only is it of a very high standard but it is earlier publications. The steady sale of the five booklets so very cheap to the Society. A great debt of gratitude is owed far produced by the Society, continues and is encouraging. to Gordon Wright. There is no doubt that further issues will appear. It may be Like all Societies, the expenses of providing a service to that the Society will have to produce two issues over a its members, are increasing rapidly. A Society such as ours period of three years. This is something the Committee will must move forward; it cannot stand still — our have to consider. The articles are there; the money is not. membership is about 200 — we have interesting friendly A difficulty is to get the booklets out to the booksellers meetings, which are reasonably well attended — and we and stationers. Members of the Committee do their best, produce a quarterly newsletter of a high standard. We have but they cannot cover the whole borough and more help in reason to be proud of our achievements. Our members this direction would be appreciated. There is no difficulty know that the history of the area of the London Borough in getting the shopkeepers to take the booklet because the of Bromley is very interesting and the aim must be to get profit margin to them is very good. □ more people interested in that history. The programme of talks etc., has not yet been settled but members may like to know that the dates and venues of meetings will be as follows, please enter these in your diary Courses. 10thOctober — Joint meeting with other local history The following to be held by the Orpington Adult Centre, societies at SIRA. may be of interest:— 30th October — Central Library, Bromley. 13 th November Central Library, Bromley. Heraldry & Genealogy — an elementary five week course 27th November Central Library, Bromley. — starting 29th April, 1982 — Newstead Wood School — 11th December Central Library, Bromley. Tutor, J. Bedells. 29th January — Central Library, Bromley. 12th February — Central Library, Bromley. History is Now — with the theme that history is an on­ 26th February — Farnborough lOsa*** going thing — a six week course — at Newstead Wood 12th March — Central Library, Bromley. School — Tutor K. Wilson. — starting 11th January, 20th March — Public meeting at Orpington. 1982. 30th April — Main Hall, Old Church Schools, Hayes 28th May — Visit or Walk to be arranged. London through the Ages — a 12 week course starting 14th 25th June — Visit or Walk to be arranged. January — at Newstead Wood School — Tutor Mrs. S. 30th July — Visit or Walk to be arranged. Mathews. □ Harry Relph — Little Tick The Cages o fBromley and Beckenham. “ I know I earn more than the Prime Minister but after all I In December, 1865, the Bromley Record reported that it do so much less harm, don’t I” . was proposed to remove “this respected relic of former Harry Relph was born at Cudham in 1867, being the times” , to make a better entrance from Widmore into the sixteenth child of his father, who was 77 years old when town of Bromley. It was a dumpy square building, erected Harry was born. It is known that in 1869 Little Tich’s early in the 19th century and stood in Widmore Road, near father kept the Blacksmith’s Arms, so it is possible that he the Market Square. It was a small prison, with one door was born there. The child was different from others from and two cells. There was an iron grating high up in the wall birth. He had six fingers on each hand and his fully grown of each cell, so that a step of some kind was required to height was only 4 V i feet. These oddities caused him enable a person outside to see and talk to anyone inside. It immense personal embarrasment, even though he used is believed to have been mostly used for people who were them to advantage in his professional life. drunk and it must have been a very unpleasant place to be in. There were no facilities, no means of warmth and the cells were open to all weather conditions. In 1820 or 1821, £20 was spent on repairing, strengthening and cleaning the Cage, which the Bromley Record later referred to as “ a dirty old shed surrounded by muck heaps” . It was reported that in 1824 a prisoner escaped by burrowing underneath the building. There does not seem to be any record of the time prisoners were kept in this dreadful place, but it was probably only for very short periods, e.g. over a week-end, until they could be brought before the magistrates. By 1892, when the Bromley Record refers to the Cage again, it had been gone many years, but had le,^ its name behind, because the field then bounded by East" Street, West Street and North Street was known as Cage The Blacksmiths Arms, Cudham, c.1905 Field. That too has now gone. The Beckenham Cage was at the foot of Church Hill, He attended Jail Lane school but said he was largely self opposite the Greyhound. It is first mentioned in the Vestry educated. His first professional stage appearance was at minutes of 1799,soit was built about the same time as the - the age of 12, when he had a blackened face and sang nine Bromley one. Inscribed on it was the rebuke “Live and songs a night. He took his name from the Tichborne Case, Repent” , with the date 1787. Probably it was very similar a sensational trial in 1871, when a claimant said he was the to the Bromley Cage. It was demolished in 1856. missing son of Richard Tichborne and demanded his inheritance. For a time Harry Relph adopted the professional name of Little Tichborne. Later he became Little Tich and gave up the blackened face and the boots which were over two feet long. He became an international star and was one of the founders of the Variety Artistes’ Federation. In 1903 there was a musical hall strike when twenty-five music halls in London were closed down and Little Tich was a picket during this strike. He was “ on the boards” for nearly 50 years and was the highest paid performer in the country. He died in 1928 at his home in Hendon. Darwin’s Coffin. In vol. 2. of The Kentish Notebook, by G. E. Howell, written in 1894, he records that “ We got an introduction to Widmore Lane, Cage Fire Engine Houses, c.1905 Lewis the Carpenter, who conducted us to a workshop at the rear of his house and there stood a handsome polished Officers, Publications Secretary and Auditors. coffin on trestles. It was ornamented with heavy brass handles and other fittings, and whilst we were examining it In the previous issue of Bromleage, an appeal was made Mr. Lewis fetched from his house the plate intended for for volunteers to take over the duties of Publications the coffin lid but which was kept wrapped up to prevent it Secretary and fot two Auditors.