My Grandfather, Laurence Helier Pulsford, was a generous man. He was a spendthrift in the cause of others, and loved to give presents and to donate money to good causes. My Grandmother, Laurence’s second wife, Ellen, despaired at times of having to try to run the household on the remainder of Grandpa’s income. He ran a successful commercial art business for some 35 years, yet left little money after his death, apologising in his will for not providing better for his beloved wife.
Few believed Ellen, however, when she would say with indignation that Laurence once gave away a house. Laurence never mentioned this supposed act, and no documentary evidence was passed down to their children. Surely even this most generous of men would baulk at giving away the family property. But it turns out that he did, when in 1922 he donated ‘Haylands’, the house in Kingsbury, North West London that he had intended to move into with Ellen on their marriage, to his sister and brother-in law, Jennie and Ernest Trobridge. Ernest, an original and locally celebrated architect, had designed and built Haylands as part of a progressive housing estate for servicemen returning from the Great War, but the project ran into financial difficulties, and he had to be rescued by Laurence and others. In this article I will explore Ellen’s claim, and will show that, yes, Grandpa did indeed give away a house.
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| 'Haylands' Kingsbury, the house that Grandpa gave away. Link to photo |
Laurence and the Family Pulsford
Laurence was born in St Helier, Jersey in 1880, the third of five children. His father, Rev Edward Miall Pulsford was a minister of the Swedenborgian New Jerusalem Church (New Church) and his mother Ruth (nee Presland) came from a prominent New Church family. When Laurence was just a few months old, the family moved to Alloa, Scotland, where his father became minister to the local New Church society. On leaving school, Laurence moved to Edinburgh to take up an apprenticeship as a lithographic writer in one of the city’s map making firms.
Rev Edward Miall Pulsford died in 1899, when Laurence was 19, and Ruth returned to London, where she (and her husband) had been born. She took a four-floor, six-bedroom terraced house in Crayford Road, Holloway, which for many years was ‘Pulsford Central’, being home at various times to a large and changing cast of family members. In 1901, four of her five children were living there: Emily (25), a millinery stock keeper; Edward (23), an architectural draughtsman, but soon to become a New Church minister like his father; Elsie (17) who had learning difficulties and was cared for by her mother, and Jennie (14). Laurence remained in Edinburgh, lodging with an aunt and cousins, while completing his apprenticeship.
By 1906, Laurence had married Margaret Jenkins, and they had moved to Crayford Road. Laurence had established his small commercial art business, with a Samuel Garner, producing advertisements for magazines and hand-crafting certificates for trade guilds, among other work (in the 1920s the newly-founded Radio Times was a customer). In 1908, Margaret and he had a son, Edward Lincoln, who died soon after birth. In 1910, their second son, Laurence Garth was born.
In 1911, ‘Pulsford Central’ was occupied by Ruth, now aged 65; Emily and her husband Arthur Hardy, assistant manager of a laundry; Laurence, Margaret and young Garth; Elsie and Jennie, now 24 and a school teacher, and, for good measure, Ruth’s nephew Alfred, who was working as a commercial artist with his cousin Laurence (Edward was now married and a New Church minister in Whitefield, Manchester). In 1912, Jennie moved out when she married the architect Ernest Trobridge, of whom more later.
In 1913, tragedy struck when Laurence’s wife Margaret died
at the age of 33, giving birth to their third child, who also died. In 1916,
Laurence was conscripted into the army at the age of 36, joining the Royal
Engineers in France in his former profession of map maker. After the war, he
returned to London and resumed his commercial art business, and in the
early 1920s he got engaged again to Ellen Hill, fourteen years his junior and
daughter of a sheet-metal worker in the motor trade and a New Churchman (her
younger brother George would become another New Church minister). But where would Laurence, Ellen and Garth live?
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| An edited Pulsford family tree |
Ernest Trobridge, the Fern Dene Estate and Haylands
Ernest Trobridge was born in Belfast in 1884. His father, George Trobridge, was a prominent artist and a New Churchman. Ernest trained as an architect in Belfast, then moved to North London, setting up in private practice and pursuing his interests in Swedenborgianism and vegetarianism. In 1912 he married Jennie Pulsford, Laurence’s younger sister, and they quickly acquired a young family. In 1915, with demand for his architectural skills limited by the Great War, Ernest moved his family to Haydon House, a farmhouse and smallholding in the then sleepy village of Kingsbury, between Edgware and Harrow, where they grew fruit and vegetables for sale (Ernest successfully applied for exemption from conscription, on the grounds that his work was of national importance).
By 1921, 'Pulsford Central' had moved to Haydon
House, with Laurence and Garth, Ruth and Elsie and Emily and Arthur
Hardy all living there with Ernest and Jennie Trobridge and their four
children - and a servant and gardener for good measure! Arthur emigrated
to the United States in 1922, and his wife Emily joined him six months
later.
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| Ernest Trobridge, 1884-1942. Link to photo |
Kingsbury was within the network of expanding suburban towns that would become known as ‘Metroland’, and the end of the war spurred its development. Ernest was keen to seize the opportunity to play his part in the government’s ‘Homes fit for Heroes’ initiative to expand and improve the nation’s housing stock. He was influenced both by the legacy of William Morris and the ‘Arts and Crafts’ movement, and by his Christian Socialist principles. He devised a novel method of wooden house construction, the ‘Compressed GreenWood Construction Method’, in which timber-framed houses were built of newly-felled and cut elm wood, which shrank as it dried, forming a strong, watertight and fireproof – and cheap - building. The houses had thatched roofs, as thatch was light, cheap, aesthetically pleasing and (in Ernest’s view) healthy. Ernest successfully exhibited a prototype of his ideas at the 1920 Ideal Homes exhibition, and in the same year embarked on building an estate of 32 houses, to be known as the Fern Dene estate, on a field he purchased off Kingsbury’s main street. The houses would potentially attract government subsidies, which would make them still cheaper to purchase, and they were aimed at ex-servicemen and their families – Ernest employed disabled former servicemen among his workforce, paying them Union rates. The project was financed on a co-partnership basis; an early form of crowdfunding in which investors, including the purchasers of the houses, put money upfront to fund the building works, deriving a profit (or a house) when the project was completed. Ernest claimed that all 32 houses were taken up before construction began, and one potential purchaser was his brother-in-law Laurence Pulsford, newly engaged to Ellen Hill. Laurence took an option on a house, to be named ‘Haylands’, at the top of the estate, at the junction of Kingsbury Road and Slough Lane (by the way, the local history sources that I have used in compiling this piece consistently refer to Laurence as Ernest’s father-in-law and state that he was a builder, though as we have seen, neither is correct).
Ernest set up a large saw-mill on his site and work began. However, the project quickly ran into difficulties. There was ‘Nimbyism’, in the form of objections by local landowners to the introduction into the neighbourhood of working-class ‘affordable housing’. The local council required extensive modifications to the plans, on fire and safety grounds, and Ernest had to reduce the number of proposed houses from 32 to 24. Then in 1921, the government took away the promised subsidies, effectively doubling the price of each house from £300 to £600. Many potential purchasers withdrew, and in early 1922 Ernest was declared bankrupt.
Some investors kept faith in the scheme, however and 10 houses were completed, including Haylands. Laurence and Ellen married in August 1922, and Haylands is their address on their wedding certificate. But by the end of 1922, Ernest and his family were living in Haylands, while Laurence and Ellen (and Laurence’s son Garth; his mother Ruth and disabled sister Elsie) were living south of the river in Norbury. Laurence had given away Haylands to Ernest Trobridge.
With the protagonists long gone, and no surviving documentation, it is hard to reconstruct what actually happened. It is not clear whether Laurence and Ellen actually moved into Haylands, or why Ernest and his family moved from Haydon House. Also, we don’t know what the actual financial arrangements of the transfer were – all we have is Ellen’s later exasperated complaint that her husband had given away a house when he could ill afford to do so. My best guess is this: in summer 1922, Ernest and Jennie Trobridge, faced with a growing family and financial problems, had to leave Haydon House. Laurence and Ellen moved into Haylands on their marriage in August, along with Garth, Ruth and Elsie, and Ernest and his family moved in with them (Emily and Arthur had by then moved away, prior to emigrating). Then, in his most quixotic act of generosity, Laurence gave up his claim on Haylands, allowing Ernest and his family to stay there, while he (Laurence) found a new home for his family. Laurence probably did not pay for Haylands, but it is likely that the house that he and Ellen moved to in Norbury was more expensive than Haylands would have been, hence Ellen’s complaint.
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| Ernest and Jennie Trobridge and family at Haylands. Link to photo |
Aftermath
Ernest Trobridge was not defeated by the Fern Dene estate debacle. He continued to work on the Elmwood estate, another estate of green-wood houses in Kingsbury, having been bailed out financially by David Wynter, a wealthy commercial laundry owner and New Churchman. He and Jennie continued to live in Haylands until Ernest’s death in 1942 from complications of diabetes (Ernest, a committed vegetarian, refused to take insulin as it was derived from cattle). In the twenty years between the move to Haylands and his death he designed and built several hundred distinctive houses in the Kingsbury area and elsewhere. Many, including Haylands, are still standing and some are Listed Buildings. His green-wood construction idea did not catch on – other developers were presumably put off by the difficulties he had experienced in obtaining planning approval – but Ernest continued to make wooden houses throughout the 1920s, until brick became cheaper than wood and he abandoned the medium. Later designs included blocks of flats with frontages that looked like castles, and in 1938, with war looming, he put forward a design for houses with air-raid shelters in their basements, though these were not built. His youngest son, Brian, became yet another New Church minister, and apparently one of his grandchildren lives in Haylands today.
Laurence and Ellen had two children in Norbury, Beryl in 1923 and Raymond (my father) in 1927. After Ruth died in 1929, aged 84, Elsie went to be cared for by another family and Laurence, Ellen and the children moved to Croydon Road, Penge. Laurence’s commercial art business folded during World War Two, and he took a job helping to resettle families made homeless by bombing, a role for which his generous and empathic nature made him eminently suitable. Following retirement, Ellen and he moved to Brightlingsea in Essex, to a large house next to the local New Church, where Laurence tended the garden and (rather incongruously) taught elocution to student New Church ministers. Laurence died in 1974, aged 94 and Ellen died in 1979, aged 85. As we noted at the beginning of this piece, Laurence left little money in his will – a legacy in part of the day that he gave away a house.
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| Laurence and Ellen Pulsford with their children, Beryl (standing) and Raymond - photo taken in 1927 |
Sources Used
Genealogical information avalable at The Genealogist.co.uk and Scotland's People.gov.uk
1921 census available at Findmypast
Newspaper articles available at britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/Grant P (2012) Ernest Trobridge, Kingsbury’s ExtraordinaryArchitect. Brent Archives.
Grant P (2012) From Cottages to Castles. A walk aroundTrobridge’s Kingsbury. Brent Archives.
Grant P (2020) Take a Trobridge Walk in Kingsbury. Wembley Matters, 14th March 2020.
Hewlett G (2013) Kingsbury Through Time. Ambersley Books.
Leonard H & Birchall E (2021) Grandpa: A Biography of a New Church Minister.
Trobridge E (1920) “The Compressed Green Wood Construction”leaflet. Brent Archives.
