The Link Between Oatlands and Darwin

The first incumbent of St Mary's Church, the Rev. Rolla Charles Meadows Rouse, who was appointed as "Minister of the Chapel of St Mary Oatlands" (it was originally a Chapel to the Church of St Mary, Walton upon Thames), left the village in 1867 after he had seen the building through to its consecration and transfer to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.

Rev. Rouse took up the post of Vicar of Southwold, Suffolk and stayed there until 1870 when he was appointed  as the rector of Woodbridge, also in Suffolk. During his time at Southwold he also took up the post of tutor to one Horace Darwin - the fifth son of Charles Darwin, author of "The Origin of Species" and the acknowledged "father" of evolutionist thinking.

Around April 1868, Darwin wrote to Rouse:

"My Dear Sir

Will you be so good as to inform me at what exact date, in about a fortnights time, it will suit you to receive my Son Horace. As you were so good as to say that you had heard from Dr Wrigley, I have not troubled you with his Quarterly characters, which as I have said, have all been as good as possible. As I previously mentioned, he is backward in Classics, but he tells me that he has been getting on better of late. I care about Classics only so far that he may pass his matriculation & afterwards his Little-Go.* For mathematics he has a strong taste, & I suppose is fairly well advanced for his age of 17 years, considering, however, that he formerly lost 3 years from ill-health. As at present advised, & following my sons own wish, I intend that he should try for the degree in the Sciences. I beg leave to call your attention to a singular incapacity for spelling, & should be much obliged, if you would mark in all exercises his mistakes. He is anxious to improve & is ashamed of his ignorance. But the incapacity runs to a certain extent in our blood. I think that you will find my son anxious to please you in all ways, & I do not fear that he will be idle, but rather that he may work too hard.".
* Little-go: `the popular name for the first examination for the degree of B.A., officially called “The Previous Examination” at Cambridge’ (Source: Oxford English Dictionary)

Whether Rouse and Darwin ever discussed their differences of perspective is unknown, but Rouse obviously did sterling work with Horace, as he went on to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated with the hoped for B.A. in 1874 and founded the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company in 1885. He became Mayor of Cambridge between 1896 and 1897, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1903 and was knighted in 1918.

The Three Oatlands Hospitals

The Cottage Hospital
The 1901 Census show that there was once a cottage hospital in St.Mary's Road. Harriette Blackburn is shown as 'head of the household'. She is shown as single, aged 42 and was born in London..

It was located opposite the present school in what was later renamed "Caroline Villa" - it is believed that the hospital may have occupied both halves of the property but this is currently unconfirmed.

There is no sign of the hospital in the 1911 Census so it didn't last very long in that role.

The Oatlands Park Hotel
During WWI Oatlands had a hospital again when the Oatlands Park Hotel was requisitioned in 1916 to act as a hospital for the New Zealand Expeditionary Force - primarily for "medical & tuberculosis cases and limbless men".
This, along with Mount Felix at Walton (now mostly demolished) provided care and rehabilitation for some 27,000 New Zealand servicemen. It is in honour of these men that New Zealand Avenue at Walton is named. 

Barham Lodge
Less well known is that Barham Lodge became a 35-bed hospital in September 1915 and these beds were fully occupied in October. By 1917 it had acquired a small operating theatre and was being run by the Red Cross with Mrs (later Dame) Ethel Locke-King as commandant. It continued as an active auxilliary hospital until the summer of 1919, before reverting to a private house and, later, a school for the second time in its life.

Further Reading
"Auxiliary & Military Hospitals in Weybridge and Walton during the First World War"
Walton & Weybridge Local History Society - Monograph No.58  1996

The Village Fire Station

The 1914 and 1934 Ordnance Survey maps both clearly show a Fire Station serving the village.
    

Situated in St.Mary's Road in the small building to the left of the 'archway' almost opposite the end of Beech Road, it is reasonable to conclude that the 'fire engine' was housed somewhere in the yard beyond the arch and that the building served as a 'crew room' or something similar.

So far we have been able to obtain no significant details relating to this fire station which would have been, almost certainly, a voluntary operation run under the control of Walton Fire Brigade when the Walton and Weybridge Councils were seperate entities.

All we have to go on at the moment is its inclusion on the maps and a snippet of information given to us in an 'oral history' recording with Gordon Jones who was a long-time resident and posesses a remarkable memory.

His family having lived in Oatlands for generations, he can recall stories told to him by his parents, aunts and uncles and even his grandparents.This is what Gordon told us:

"Claggy Legg(e?) used to pull the fire wagon by hand when my grandmother was a little-'un - he used to pull the fire cart by hand. He'd go running off up the road dragging this thing - like a coster's barrow it was apparently."

From that we can probably conclude that the 'fire cart' being referred to was very similar to the one pictured and, obviously, was rather limited in its fire-fighting equipment. The likelyhood is that this would have been a local 'first line' in the event of fire until the larger engine arrived with more comprehensive equipment.Gordon's grandmother, Maud Muggeridge, was born in 1903 so this would put the handcart story to pre-1920.

The Two Village Banks

In the heady days of the big mansions that overlooked the Broadwater, before the first World War changed things forever, there were two banks in the heart of the village.

These are shown simply as "Bank - unoccupied" in the 1911 census - "unoccupied" because the census recorded the persons in a property on the night of 2nd April 1911 and, of course, the banks would have been closed as the 2nd of April was a Sunday.

Kelly's Directory for 1911 shows the two banks listed as follows:

Barclay & Company Limited, bankers (sub branch) (Robt.Eustace Low, manager); Open tues. & fri. 11 to 3pm; draw on head office, 54 Lombard Street, London EC

and

London, County & Westminster Bank Ltd. (sub branch) (Charles John Garratt, manager); open tues. & fri. 11 to 3; draw on head office, 21 Lombard Street, London, EC

Both are known to have been sub-branches of the ones in Weybridge.

More information to follow...