For quite some time now, I have been trying to find out the origin of the name of ‘Clapham’ that was applied to only a certain number of streets within the Kingsholm area of Gloucester. The name ( Clapham ) does not appear on any local map and it was certainly not officially recognized as a place name by the Post Office or the Council.
Nobody seems to have any definite knowledge of how this name originated. Every one accepted the name and never seemed to question it.
After hearing so many different stories and “reasons” for the name, none of which really satisfied me, I decided to take off my rose coloured glasses and try to look back at the past with as much logic and the scant knowledge that is available to me at this time.
We know that Kingsholm was and still is a very historic place. It was the home of Kings, mostly Saxon, I believe.
If you look at the 1843 survey map it is noticed that by then, the area that would eventually be called Clapham, was only three quarters built.
Sherbourne St. was only half built. Counsel and Sebert streets were not and strangely enough Swan Rd. was not built either.
The idea of building Clapham was apparently conceived by George Worrall Counsel who owned the land that Clapham was built on and who was a solicitor and historian and had two streets named after him in the area. I can find nothing else out about this man at all except that the area was built it seems, specifically to house working class workers. It would seem logical to assume that the area acquired the name of Clapham only after it was built, roughly between 1820 -1847.
We know that the name of Clapham was not an official name. It was in fact a verbal name only and remained so for over one hundred years.
We must try to determine the boundaries of the area known as Clapham. Many people seem to have slightly different ideas of the exact boundaries, so for the purposes of this theory, I will list the streets as Alvin, Sweetbriar, Sherbourne, Columbia, Union, Suffolk, Worrall, Council, Sebert, Guinea, and Swan Rd and Worcester Parade. I do not think that the exact boundaries are all that important anyway.
The point is, why should this area that had been built within the already historically well known area called Kingsholm, not assume or be called by the name of Kingsholm? The name of Clapham could only have appeared through the people themselves and the language and it seems to have arrived very quickly within a time frame of thirty years.
Much of our language has been influenced and altered by many countries. Many place names in England are derived from the Vikings and the Danes for instance. All the countries of our Empire left their mark on our language as well as continental countries. It became a mongrel language.
Clapham was conceived by George Worrall Councel who was an attorney, historian and landowner who apparently owned land in the area and had two streets named after him. Brasenose College of Oxford also owned land in the Kingsholm area.
The building of Clapham started in about 1820 with Sweetbriar St. but the work slumped somewhat until 1834 when it was started again. The 1843 survey map shows that by then Clapham was still not finished. St. Marks Church was completed in 1847. The time frame for the building of Clapham seems to have been about 30 years.
When Clapham was built, Kingsholm was officially still classed as a hamlet and I believe that the name of Clapham arrived on the scene sometime between the time that the building of Clapham was started and the time that Kingsholm ceased to be a hamlet officially. That was after St. Mark’s church was built. St. Marks Church is not on the survey map of 1843 but the site for it was already designated by then. The building of St. Marks was completed in 1847.
I am fairly certain that the name of ‘Clapham’ appeared within the time frame of the 30 years from 1820. The name started as a verbal only name and not a written name. It never became a written name and there may have been reasons or certain social pressures emanating from the middle class for this. That may well be the reason why the name ‘Clapham’ never appears in any official records or maps. The name always remained in its verbal version.
Having reached this point, I then decided to look at the overall picture.
Gloucester is the furthest inland port in England.
Gloucester docks was packed with ships from all over the world.
We were still in the industrial revolution.
Thousands of poor working class people from Gloucester and surrounding areas were moved into one area within Kingsholm.
We were building and running an Empire.
There was apparently plenty of work around.
But there were at that time, two jobs that were a bit better than most for the working class. These jobs offered free world wide travel, especially to the poor working class. These two jobs were the army and the merchant navy.
We had to run “our Empire” and at the same time we had to import a great deal of materials to fuel the ( our ) industrial revolution. It was a time when the working class were regularly travelling to many countries in the world. Like sailors it would be fair to assume that many of them “had a girl in every port”. They had it made.
However there was one thing that they did not have. That was the availability of condoms etc. as we have today.
I have been unable to find any medical records of this time, i.e. 1800 - 1850 for the area of Kingsholm in order to establish if there were any fluctuation in the cases of venereal diseases and to compare them to various other areas in the city.
One thing is certain and that was that an area within the hamlet of Kingsholm had been created that housed the “poor working class people”, from various parts of Gloucester and from other areas.
Was there a concentration of venereal disease cases emanating from the newly created area within Kingsholm wherein there were people who had previously been spread out over the whole of Gloucester and/or even a larger area?
If there was any truth in this, then doctors and others would begin to associate the area within Kingsholm as the area that seemed to produce more cases of different kinds of venereal diseases than other areas in the city. Would that have been simply because there were then more working class type of people concentrated in that area?
Would doctors etc. start to refer to the area as ‘the place where one was more likely to have various types of venereal diseases’.
Working class men would not have bothered with all of the many medical names for VD, but would simply have referred to or thought of the whole of the subject of venereal diseases as the ‘clap’. As Kingsholm was still a Hamlet then the working man would likely to have referred to the working class area as ‘the hamlet of clap’. This would have been very quickly abbreviated to Clap Ham.
This however would not have suited the rest of historic Kingsholm, many of whom were middle or upper middle class people and who would not have had the same proliferation of venereal disease in their midst. One then arrives at a time when the Hamlet of Kingsholm had two distinct names. An area within an area, a name within a name.
Kingsholm encompassed the larger land mass whereas Clapham’s name must have been derived through the language itself. Neither place name could override the other. They existed therefore side by side. The authorities, the Council and the Post Office never officially acknowledged even the word ‘Clapham’ or the actual place as a separate entity.
The people of Clapham on the other hand, always seemed to acknowledge the fact that if you were writing home to Clapham then you would address the letter as ‘Kingsholm’ and not ‘Clapham’. I think that this is why the two names existed together. It would seem that the people knew that if you wrote the name of ‘Clapham’ on a letter that it would not be officially recognized.
Therefore I think that the Clapham name originated through the combination of abbreviation ( HAM let ) and the slang word ( CLAP ) and that the origin of the name has always been staring us in the face ever since its inception. I also believe that the name originated some time between 1820 and 1847. Before 1820 the area that became Clapham did not physically exist and after 1847 the area of Kingsholm became a parish because St. Marks catered and served the Parish of Kingsholm.
It would seem oddly coincidental that at roughly the same time that the building of Clapham started, a French word entered the English slang dictionary for the first time. The word is still shown in the English slang dictionary. The word was and still is, Clap.
It would seem logical that the name, ‘Clapham’ could have only arrived through our language and also through continuous use of the name by a group of people for some time.
I do not believe that the name would have survived so long, had it been based on a single event.
The name still exists today, well over one hundred and fifty years after the building of Clapham.
Many big events occurred within that time frame.
1. The Industrial Revolution.
2. The building of our Empire. For which our Merchant Seamen played a large part.
3. Our armed forces were engaged in conflicts around the world.
4. We were also engaged in two world wars
5. Our forces were stationed in several countries for many years afterwards.
These events all had two things in common. They provided work and free travel around the world for the working class.
There was a lack of knowledge of contraception etc.
So it would be fair to assume that the men brought venereal disease back home with them.
I would welcome any thoughts on this theory for or against. Dates and any kind of research conclusions would also be most welcomed.
I would like to point out that even though I have tried to be as accurate as possible and also tried to be reasonable in my assumptions, the above is only a theory. I do believe however that this is how Clapham got its name and until proved otherwise then I will continue to accept the above theory.
I would be grateful if anyone who has any knowledge of any medical records for the Kingsholm, Gloucester area between 1800 – 1850, if they could let me know the whereabouts of such.
Bernard “Dinky” Polson. 16/5/2005.
