What has the Tudor Barn got to do with a Charles Herbert Grinling?
It is one of those stories which is just at its beginning and I guess will run for some time.
I first came across Mr Grinling after a conversation with the Director of the Tudor Barn who wondered “if anyone has any knowledge of CH Grinling?
In the Greenwich Heritage museum there is a long case clock presented to Mr Grinling for services towards the preservation of Well Hall Tudor Barn.
It used to be in the Barn, presumably taken away when it ceased to be an art gallery upstairs.”
Now I have to confess I knew nothing of Mr Grinling but there were some tantalizing references to him including one from a short history of the Woolwich Labour Party which referred to his “religious work” in Woolwich in the 1890s.
All of which fits because he is listed as a "Clerk in Holy Orders" in 1891 census and a "clergyman" a decade later.
He also wrote Fifty Year of Pioneer work in Woolwich, a pamphlet published by the Royal Arsenal Co-op in January 1922.
On the 1911 census while resident at Rectory Place he described himself as an “Educational and Social Worker,” and amongst the others in the house was his wife’s sister who also described herself as a “social worker.”
All of which suggests we are dealing with a progressive clergyman who did missionary work in the Woolwich are.
He also jointly edited A survey and record of Woolwich and West Kent : containing descriptions and records, brought up-to-date, of geology, botany, zoology, archaeology and published THE HISTORY OF THE GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY in 1903.
And finally his gravestone records that he was made “A FREEMAN OF THE METROPOLITAN BOROUGH OF WOOLWICH” all of which I think promises more to come.
And in the way of these things there will be someone out there who knows a lot more about Mr Grinling.
Well I hope so.
Picture; the Tudor Barn, courtesy of Chrissie Rose, 2013 & Woolwich circa 1900, Woolwich courtesy of Kristina Bedford from, Woolwich Through Time, Kristina Bedford,
Woolwich Through Time, Kristina Bedford, 2014, Amberley Publishing,
Hi, I stumbled across this article by chance. Charles Herbert Grinling was a member of the Fabian Society. He came to London to work at Toynbee Hall after graduating from Oxford in 1884. He was a clergyman, as you have noticed, but apparently he became increasingly agnostic as time went on. By the 1890s he had moved to Woolwich, having learned of the appalling social conditions south of the river and because of the increasing unemployment from the Arsenal, Dockyard and other industrial factories in the area. He established a number of early social work organisations, and when Woolwich became a Metropolitan borough, he was elected one of the first Councillors. He was very close to some prominent early labour Party politicians, including Will Crooks and Harry Snell. He was also a friend of progressives like Henry Salt (Fabian, Socialist and one of the founding members of both the RSPB and League Against Cruel Sports) and Edward Carpenter (philosopher, writer and one of the first Gay Rights campaigners). Grinling was one of the prime movers in the public acquisition of the Woodlands on Shooters Hill, lobbying both the LCC to buy it - and personally lobbying several south London boroughs to contribute towards the cost. As a result, the LCC purchased the Castle Wood estate in 1922, and then went on to acquire the rest of the woodland.
ReplyDeleteHe was not, however, the author of the book on the history of the Great Northern Railway. Confusingly, that was written by another Charles Herbert Grinling who died in 1906.