[1] The Artizans Labourers and General Dwellings Company (Limited). Capital £1,000,000 in 100,000 shares of £10 each (paid up capital, £583,000). Chief Office: 34, Great George Street, Westminster, S.W. Office hours:—10 till 5 Saturdays 10 till 1. Estate Offices 221 Eversleigh Road, Shaftesbury Park, S.W. 35, A Street, Queen's Park. W.
Directors.—The Hon. Evelyn Ashley, M.P., Chairman, H. R. Droop, Esq., R. E. Farrant, Esq., John Kempster, Esq., Rev. H. V. Le Bas, F. D. Mocatta, Esq., Samuel Morley, Esq. M.P., Ernest Noel, Esq. M.P., John Peace, Esq., W. H. Stone, Esq. Bankers.—The London and Westminster Bank, Lothbury, E.C. Solicitors.—Messrs. Ashurst, Morris, Crisp and Co., 6, Old Jewry, E.C., Manager J. V. Sigvald Muller, Esq. Secretary.—Samuel E. Platt.
The Company was established for the erection of improved dwellings near to the great centres of industry to carry out the objects of the Company in London, large estates have been secured near Clapham Junction and the Harrow Road, that near Clapham Junction called Shaftesbury Park.
[2] The present weekly rental, which includes rates and taxes, except in the case of the first-class Houses is as follows:—An ordinary fourth class House 7/6 third class 8/6 second class 10/- first class 10/- and 11/-. The shops, lower houses, those with larger gardens than ordinary, and some other exceptional houses are subject to special arrangements both as to Rental and purchase.
[3] The scheme thus proposed has been abandoned. The temporary Hall has been taken down and seven houses with shops erected on the site, also a Temperance Hall. The Shaftesbury Club and Institute, Eversleigh House, Lavender Hill, was opened on Saturday, Feb. 2nd, 1878, at 3 o'clock p.m. Previously a movement had been in progress to establish a Club and Institute for the benefit of those large classes of working men who live upon the Shaftesbury Park Estate, and in the crowded neighbourhoods in the immediate vicinity. Nothing of the kind was in existence, and, as a consequence, there was no efficient corrective to the growing evils of intemperance and wasted time among these classes of the people. The movement met with a great and increasing support from the working men themselves, and the Provisional Committee appointed has been busily engaged in the work of organising the Club. The objects of the Club and Institute are thus stated in the Draft Rules:—
"To afford to its members the means of social intercourse, mutual helpfulness, mental and moral improvement, industrial welfare, and rational recreation. The Club shall not identify itself with any political, social, or theological party. As funds permit, there shall be provided:—Library and Reading Rooms, supplied with Books, Periodicals, and Newspapers; Educational Classes; Conversation, Refreshment, and Smoking Rooms, in which various games may be played; Billiard and Bagatelle Rooms; Popular Lectures and Entertainments; Rooms for the Meetings of Benefit and Friendly Societies." Subscription 1s. a month 2s. 6d. a quarter, 10s. a year. Arthur George Thorne, Hon. Secretary. Mr. W. Swindlehurst was the Secretary to the Estate Company. The purchase of the Freehold Land (it is said) cost the Estate Company £28,000. Recently the house rents on the Estate have been raised.
The entrance to Shaftesbury Hall is in Ashbury Road.
[4] The following Newspapers, which are published weekly, contain (Battersea) Local Intelligence and District Board News. "The South London Press," 2d. "Battersea and Wandsworth District Times," 1d. "Mid-Surrey Gazette," 1d. "The Clapham Observer," 1d. "The South Western Star," 1d.
No Beer-shop, Inn or Tavern is erected on the Estate but it must not be inferred from this, that all the inhabitants are Total Abstainers. However the ostensible and important objects of the Estate Company are to help the Working Classes to become owners of the House they occupy; to raise their position in the social scale; and to spread a moral influence over their class, tending to foster habits of Industry, Sobriety and Frugality. Obedience to moral and physical laws, the right and proper use of material appliances for sanitary purposes, have a tendency to prolong human life and to make life more enjoyable, and the Supreme Governor of the Universe hath so ordained that it should be so. According to the metropolitan average, the deaths should have been 194, but they only numbered 100. In 1877 the births on the Shaftesbury Park Estate were 284. Connected with the Estate is a Volunteer Rifle Corps known as the "26th Surrey." Mr. Samuel E. Platt, Secretary to the Estate Company; Mr. J. V. Muller, Manager. Office, 221, Eversleigh Road. The Missionary who visits in this district is Mr. Vost, who holds meetings in the Temperance Hall, Elsley Road.
Eastward of the Shaftesbury Park Estate is situated Beaufoy's Chemical Works. Entrance, Lavender Hill. Mr. Matthew Cannon, Manager.