Kew, London

Kew () is a district in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Its population at the 2011 census was 11,436. Kew is the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens ("Kew Gardens"), now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace. Kew is also the home of important historical documents such as Domesday Book, which is held at The National Archives.

Julius Caesar may have forded the Thames at Kew in 54 BC during the Gallic Wars. Successive Tudor, Stuart and Georgian monarchs maintained links with Kew. During the French Revolution, many refugees established themselves there and it was the home of several artists in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Since 1965 Kew has incorporated the former area of North SheenBlomfield 1994, p.131 which includes St Philip and All Saints, the first barn church consecrated in England. Blomfield, David. ''The Story of Kew'', second edition, p.36, Leyborne Publications, 1996, It is now in a combined Church of England parish with St Luke's Church, Kew.

Today, Kew is an expensive residential area because of its prosperous suburban attributes. Among these are sports-and-leisure open spaces, schools, transport links, architecture, restaurants, no high-rise buildings, modest road sizes, trees and gardens. Most of Kew developed in the late 19th century, following the arrival of the District line of the London Underground. Further development took place in the 1920s and 1930s when new houses were built on the market gardens of North Sheen and in the first decade of the 21st century when considerably more river-fronting flats and houses were constructed by the Thames on land formerly owned by Thames Water.

Etymology

The name Kew, recorded in 1327 as ''Cayho'', is a combination of two words: the Old French ''hoh'' (spur of land). The land spur is formed by the bend in the Thames.

Governance

Kew is one of 18 wards in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. It forms part of the Richmond Park (UK Parliament constituency)">Richmond Park constituency in the UK Parliament; the Member of Parliament is Sarah Olney of the Liberal Democrats. For elections to the London Assembly it is part of the South West London Assembly constituency, which is represented by Gareth Roberts of the Liberal Democrats.

Kew was added in 1892 to the Municipal Borough of Richmond which had been formed two years earlier and was in the county of Surrey. In 1965, under the London Government Act 1963, the Municipal Borough of Richmond was abolished. Kew, along with Richmond, was transferred from Surrey to the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, one of 32 boroughs in the newly created Greater London.

Economy

The fashion clothing retailer Jigsaw's headquarters, now at Water Lane, Richmond, were previously in Mortlake Road, Kew.

A former industry in Kew was that of nameplate manufacturing, by the Caxton Name Plate Manufacturing Company, based on Kew Green. The company was founded in 1964 and folded in 1997.

It was in Kew that viscose was first developed into rayon, in a laboratory near Kew Gardens station run by Cowey Engineering. Rayon was produced in a factory on South Avenue, off Sandycombe Road, before Courtaulds acquired the patents for rayon in 1904.

Also on a site near Kew Gardens station, the engineering company F C Blake, now commemorated in the Kew street name Blake Mews, produced petrol-powered traction engines in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Chrysler and Dodge

Kew Retail Park stands on the site of a former aircraft factory established in 1918 by Harry Whitworth, who owned Glendower Aircraft Ltd. The factory built Airco DH.4s and Sopwith Salamanders for the British government in the First World War.

In 1923, the now-redundant aircraft factory was sold and it became a factory for road vehicles. From the 1920s until 1967, Dodge made lorries at this factory, with the model name Kew. Cars were also manufactured there. Dodge Brothers became a Chrysler subsidiary in 1928 and lorry production moved to Chrysler's car plant at Kew. In 1933 it began to manufacture a British chassis, at its works in Kew, using American engines and gearboxes. After Chrysler bought the Maxwell Motor Company and their Kew works, the cars of the lighter Chrysler range – Chryslers, De Sotos and Plymouths – were assembled at this Kew site until the Second World War. The various models of De Sotos were named ''Richmond, Mortlake'' and ''Croydon''; Plymouths were ''Kew Six'' and ''Wimbledon''.

During the Second World War this Chrysler factory was part of the London Aircraft Production Group and built Handley Page Halifax aircraft assemblies. When wartime aircraft production ceased, the plant did not resume assembly of North American cars.

People

Royal associations with Kew

The Tudors and Stuarts

Charles Somerset, 1st Earl of Worcester ( 1460–1526) was granted lands at Kew in 1517. When he died in 1526 he left his Kew estates to his third wife, Eleanor, with the remainder to his son George. In 1538, Sir George Somerset sold the house for £200 to Thomas Cromwell ( 1485–1540), who resold it for the same amount to Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk ( 1484–1545). Brandon had probably already inhabited Kew during the life of his wife Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VII and widow of the French king Louis XII. According to John Leland's ''Cygnea Cantio'' ("Swan Song"), she stayed in Kew (which he refers to as "Cheva") for a time after her return to England.

One of Henry VIII's closest friends, Henry Norris ( 1482–1536), lived at Kew Farm, which was later owned by Elizabeth I's favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (1532–1588). This large palatial house on the Thames riverbank predated the royal palaces of Kew Palace and the White House. Excavations at Kew Gardens in 2009 revealed a wall that may have belonged to the property.

In Elizabeth's reign, and under the Stuarts, houses were developed along Kew Green. West Hall, which survives in West Hall Road, dates from at least the 14th century and the present house was built at the end of the 17th century.

Elizabeth Stuart (1596–1662), daughter of James I, later known as the "Winter Queen", was given a household at Kew in 1608.

Queen Anne subscribed to the building of the parish church on Kew Green, which was dedicated to St Anne in 1714, three months before the queen's death.

The Hanoverians

The Hanoverians maintained the strongest links with Kew, in particular Princess Augusta who founded the botanic gardens and her husband Frederick, Prince of Wales (1707–1751) who lived at the White House in Kew. Augusta, as Dowager Princess of Wales, continued to live there until her death in 1772. Frederick commissioned the building of the first substantial greenhouse at Kew Gardens.

In 1772 King George III and Queen Charlotte moved into the White House at Kew. Charlotte died at the Dutch House (now Kew Palace) in 1818.

King William IV spent most of his early life at Richmond and at Kew Palace, where he was educated by private tutors.

Georgian expansion

During the French Revolution, many refugees established themselves in Kew, having built many of the houses of this period. In the 1760s and 1770s the presence of royalty attracted artists such as Thomas Gainsborough and Johann Zoffany.Blomfield 1994, pp.43–45

Artists associated with Kew

* Diana Armfield (born 1920) lives in Kew. She is known for landscapes, and has also painted portraits, literary subjects and still lifes. She has a particular interest in flower paintings, and is considered to owe much to the tradition of Walter Sickert.
* Margaret Backhouse (1818–1896) was a successful British portrait and genre painter during the 19th century who lived at Lichfield Villas.
* Franz (later Francis) Bauer (1758–1840) was an Austrian microscopist and botanical artist who became the first botanical illustrator at Kew Gardens. By 1790 he had settled at Kew, where as well as making detailed paintings and drawings of flower dissections, often at microscopic level, he tutored Queen Charlotte, her daughter Princess Elizabeth and William Hooker in the art of illustration, and often entertained friends and botanists at his home. He is buried at St Anne's, next to Thomas Gainsborough.
* The American-born English artist Walter Deverell (1827–1854), who was associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, lived at 352 Kew Road, then called Heathfield House. He had a studio at the end of the garden where there are now garages. In this setting he painted ''A Pet'' (185


* Bernard Dunstan (1920–2017) lived in Kew. He was an artist, teacher and author, best known for his studies of figures in interiors and landscapes. At the time of his death, he was the longest serving Royal Academician.
*George Engleheart (1750–1829), one of the greatest English painters of portrait miniatures, was born in Kew.
* Walter Hood Fitch (1817–1892), botanical illustrator, lived on Kew Green.
*Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788), who is considered one of the most important British artists of the second half of the 18th century, visited Kew many times, staying with his friend Joshua Kirby and, after Kirby's death, in a house probably rented by his daughter close to St Anne's Church, where he is buried.
* Arthur Hughes (1832–1915), Pre-Raphaelite painter, lived and died at Eastside House, 22 Kew Green. The site is marked by a blue plaque.
*Tom Keating (1917–1984), artist, art restorer and art forger, lived in Kew from 1961 to 1967. He was best known for his highly-publicised crusade against the art world, his trial for art fraud at the Old Bailey, and his critically acclaimed Channel 4 television series ''Tom Keating On Painters.''
*Joshua Kirby (1716–1774) was a landscape painter, engraver, and writer, whose main artistic focus was "linear perspective", based on the ideas of English mathematician Brook Taylor. He was the son of topographer John Kirby, and the father of the writer Sarah Trimmer and the entomologist William Kirby. In 1760 he moved to Kew, where he taught linear perspective to George III.John Joshua Kirby
in the RKD (Netherlands Institute for Art History). Retrieved 24 December 2018. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society.
*Sir Peter Lely (1618–1680), portrait painter, had a house on the north side of Kew Green. On almost exactly the same site, Jeremiah Meyer (1735–1789), miniaturist to Queen Charlotte and George III, built a house a century later. Meyer is buried at St Anne's.
*Charles Mozley (1914–1991), artist and art teacher, lived and died at 358 Kew Road, Kew.
*Victorian artist Marianne North (1830–1890) did not live in Kew, but she left to Kew Gardens her collection of botanic art, painted on her extensive overseas travels, and funded a gallery – the Marianne North Gallery – to house them.
* French Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) stayed in 1892 at 10 Kew Green, on the corner of Gloucester Road, now marked by a blue plaque. During his stay he painted ''Kew Gardens – Path to the Great Glasshouse'' (189

''Kew Greens'' (189

and ''Church at Kew'' (189

His third son, Félix Pissarro (1874–1897), painter, etcher and caricaturist, died in a sanatorium at 262 Kew Road in 1897.
* Charles Shannon (1863–1937), artist best known for his portraits, died in Kew at 21 Kew Gardens Road.
*Matilda Smith (1854–1926), the first official botanical artist of the Royal Botanic Gardens, lived at Gloucester Road, Kew.
*The painter Johan Zoffany (1725–1810), who lived at Strand-on-the-Green, is buried in St Anne's churchyard.

Botanists who have lived in Kew

Unsurprisingly, many botanists have lived in Kew, near the botanic gardens:

*William Aiton (1731–1793), botanist, was appointed director in 1759 of the newly established botanical garden at Kew, where he remained until his death. He effected many improvements at the gardens, and in 1789 he published ''Hortus Kewensis'', a catalogue of the plants cultivated there. When he died, he was succeeded as director at Kew Gardens by his son William Townsend Aiton (1766–1849), who was also a botanist, and was born in Kew. William Townsend Aiton was one of the founders of the Royal Horticultural Society. He retired in 1841 but remained living at Kew, although passing much of his time with his brother at Kensington where he died in 1849. Both father and son lived at Descanso House on Kew Green and are buried in St Anne's churchyard where the substantial family tomb is a prominent feature. Inside the church there is also a memorial to them.
* John Patrick Micklethwait Brenan (1917–1985), director of the botanic gardens, lived in Kew and died there on 26 September 1985. He is buried at St. Anne's.
* Sir William Hooker (1785–1865) and his son Sir Joseph Hooker (1817–1911), botanists and directors of Kew Gardens, lived at 49 Kew Green, Kew. The site is marked by a blue plaque.
* John Hutchinson (1884–1972), botanist, lived on Kew Green, near Kew Gardens' Herbarium, during the Second World War.
* Daniel Oliver (1830–1916), Professor of Botany at University College London 1861–88 and Keeper of Kew Gardens' Herbarium 1864–90, lived on Kew Green.
* Henry Nicholas Ridley (1855–1956), botanist, geologist and naturalist, died at his home in Kew.
* John Smith (1798–1888), botanist, the first curator at Kew Gardens, lived on Kew Green. He died at Park House, Kew Road, and is buried in St Anne's churchyard.
* William T Stearn (1911–2001), botanist, who was president of the Linnean Society, lived in Kew.
*John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute (1713–1792), botanist and honorary director of Kew Gardens 1754–72, adviser to Princess Augusta and tutor to George III and, later, Prime Minister of Great Britain 1762–63, lived at King's Cottage, 33 Kew Green.

Other notable inhabitants

Historical figures

*Francis Claude Blake (1867–1954), engineer, lived at 13 Kew Gardens Road.
*David Blomfield (1934–2016), leader of the Liberal Party group on Richmond upon Thames Council, writer, book editor and local historian, lived in Kew. He is buried in Richmond Cemetery.
*Ferruccio Bonavia (1877–1950), violinist, composer and music critic, lived at 352 Kew Road, Kew from 1914 until 1919.
*Tony Bradshaw (1926–2008), evolutionary ecologist, was born in Kew
*Sir Arthur Herbert Church (1834–1915), chemist, who was an expert on pottery, stones and the chemistry of paintings, lived and died at Shelsley, a detached house at 21 Ennerdale Road, Kew which has since been demolished; the site is now occupied by Voltaire, a Modernist block of flats designed by Vivien Pilley (A V Pilichowski).
* Richard Cook (1957–2007), jazz writer, magazine editor and former record company executive, was born in Kew.
* Stephen Duck ( 1705–1756), poet, lived in Kew.
* Prince Friso of Orange-Nassau (1968–2013), brother of King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, lived in Kew with his wife Princess Mabel of Orange-Nassau (born 1968).
* Liberal Party leader Jo Grimond (1913–1993) lived on Kew Green.
* Susanne Groom (1945–2023), historian, author and curator at Historic Royal Palaces, lived in Kew.
* John Haverfield Sr (1694–1784), surveyor, gardener and landscape architect, lived on Kew Green where he had a house built , which was known as Haverfield House.
* John Huntley (1921–2003), film historian, educator and archivist, was born in Kew.
* Elinor May Jenkins (1893–1920), war poet, and her brother Arthur Lewis Jenkins (1892–1917), soldier, pilot and war poet, who are buried next to each other in Richmond Cemetery, lived at the family home at Sussex House, 220 Kew Road. The house has been demolished and its name has been given to a block of flats that has been built on the site.
* Serge Lourie (1946–2024), former Leader of Richmond upon Thames Council, and councillor for Kew for 28 years, lived in Kew.
* Alfred Luff (1846–1933), cricketer, who made three first-class appearances for Surrey in 1867, was born in Kew.
* Phil Lynott (1949–1986), Irish rock guitarist, songwriter, vocalist and leader of Thin Lizzy, lived in Kew.
* Andrew Millar (1705–1768), Scottish bookseller and publisher, owned a country home on Kew Green and died there in 1768.
* Samuel Molyneux (1689–1728), Member of Parliament and an amateur astronomer, who was married to Lady Elizabeth Diana Capel, the eldest daughter of Algernon Capell, 2nd Earl of Essex, inherited Kew House on the death of Lady Capel of Tewkesbury. Molyneux set up an observatory at the house and collaborated there with James Bradley in innovative designs for reflecting telescopes. Kew House which later, as the White House, became the home of Prince Frederick and Princess Augusta, was pulled down in 1802 when George II's short-lived gothic "castellated palace" was built.
* Desmond Morton (1891–1971), soldier, intelligence officer and personal assistant to Winston Churchill 1940–45, lived at 22 Kew Green 1952–71.
* Conrad Noel (1869–1942), Church of England priest and prominent Christian socialist, was born in Royal Cottage, Kew Green.
*Harold Pinter (1930–2008), playwright, dramatist, actor, director and Nobel Prize laureate, lived from 1960 to 1963 at Fairmead Court, Taylor Avenue, Kew where he wrote his 1961 play'' The Collection''.
* George Pither (1899–1966), professional footballer, was born in Kew.
* Sir Hugh Portman, 4th Baronet (died 1632), MP for Taunton, lived in a house opposite Kew Palace.
* Admiral Sir Henry Prescott (1783– 1874), Royal Navy officer who served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and was later (1834–1841) the Governor of the Newfoundland Colony, was born in Kew.
*Sir John Puckering (1544–1596), lawyer, politician, Speaker of the English House of Commons, and Lord Keeper from 1592 until his death, lived in Kew.
* Anthony Saxton (1934–2015), advertising executive and headhunter, lived at 3 Mortlake Road in Kew, and was a churchwarden of St Anne's Church, Kew.
* Harry Scandrett (1892–1977), flying ace credited with seven aerial victories during the First World War, was born in Kew.
*Clementina Jacobina Sobieski Schnell (1760–1842), lived for 53 years at the Little Red House on Kew Green. She was related to Flora MacDonald. Her husband, Francis Schnell, was tutor to Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. She died in 1842 when her headdress caught fire.
* Sarah Trimmer (née Kirby; 1741–1810), writer and critic of 18th-century British children's literature, lived in Kew before her marriage.
* Patrick Troughton (1921–1987), actor, most famous for playing the Second Doctor in the TV series ''Doctor Who'', lived in Kew.
* Robert Tunstall (c 1759–1833) from Brentford, who built the second stone Kew Bridge, died at a house on Kew Green.
* George Vassila (1857–1915), cricketer, was born in Kew.
* Andrew Watson (1856–1921), the world's first black person to play association football at international level, retired to London in around 1910 and died of pneumonia at 88 Forest Road, Kew in 1921. He is buried in Richmond Cemetery.

Living people

* Geoffrey Archer, fiction writer and former Defence Correspondent of ITN, lives on Kew Green.
*Mick Avory, musician and former drummer with The Kinks, lives in Kew.
* Nick Baird, group corporate affairs director of energy firm Centrica, lives in Kew.
* Marie-Elsa Bragg, writer, Anglican priest and therapist, lived in Kew as a young child.
* Melvyn Bragg, Baron Bragg, broadcaster and author, lived in Kew when he was married to his first wife, Marie-Elisabeth Roche.
* Ray Brooks, television and film actor, lives in Kew.
*Aggrey Burke (born 1943), psychiatrist and academic, born in Jamaica, who spent the majority of his medical career at St George's Hospital in London, specialising in transcultural psychiatry and writing literature on changing attitudes towards black people and mental health. In 1959, while still a teenager, he moved to Britain with his parents. The family settled in Kew, where Burke was schooled and was the only black child in his class.
* Justin Lee Collins

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