I know that Frederick Paulin and his large family lived in Peckham, Camberwell, in 1874-5.  I can pinpoint the addresses of his home and his business from several sources.  For his home, we know he lived at 13 Camden-Grove, Camberwell because his daughter Sarah (aka Sadie/Sally) who was born there, his mother-in-law, Louisa Cutler, died there in April 1874.  For his brewery, the Anchor, we know he owned it thanks to a great history of the Oxfordshire brewery industry by Mike Brown [Oxon Brews: The Story of Commercial Brewing in Oxfordshire, Mike Brown, Brewery History Society, 2004], who identified Frederick as owner of the brewery in his work.  Also because Frederick went bankrupt, we know he owned the brewery, and have its address.

The London Gazette, 4 Sep 1874 p 4304

In the London Bankruptcy Court.

In the matter of proceedings for liquidation by arrangement or composition with creditors, instituted by Frederick Paulin of the Anchor Brewery, Saint George’s Road, Peckham, and of no 13 Camden-Grove, Camberwell in the County of Surrey, Brewer.

So the question arises where are these places?  My great wish in looking these places up was of course to see if the buildings in question were still standing, and if so, what they could say about how the family lived when they were resident in Peckham.

My first search was for the house on Camden-Grove.  I went first to Google Maps and tried to find Camden Grove, and that was a bust, the street name no longer exists.  So then I went and googled the name Camden Grove and Peckham/Camberwell to see if there were other ways to find the street.  I stumbled upon this great website which lists the changes to street names in the London area [www.maps.thehunthouse.com/streets/old_to_new_abolished_London_street_names.htm ] and found that the street had changed its name to Cronin Road in 1912.  And phew, there you go.

I went onto Google street view and found Cronin Road, and was greatly disappointed to see some rather ordinary 1970-80s style low-rise apartments populating the street.  The area has clearly changed a great deal for when the Paulins lived there in the 1870s.

And now for the Brewery.  I first looked up St George’s Road, Peckham on google maps to see if there was any indication that the brewery was still there.  There were some older buildings on the road, but nothing clear, and to be honest the road is not small enough to say for sure, so I googled the brewery online, thinking, hoping that the place had kept its name.  Nothing in the present, but I did find a website that talked about pubs in London, and there it stated that the Anchor Brewery and Tap, 165 St George’s Way was open 1878-1919, but was closed and demolished.  [www.pubology.co.uk/pubs/12087.html] Now here of course, the dates don’t quite match, but it is likely not a coincidence that the Anchor Brewery and Tap on St George’s Way, Peckham was named  that way, and was connected in some way the Anchor Brewery that Frederick owned, on St George’s Road.  When Frederick bought it it had that name, so I would imagine they are one in the same, with just a few years gap in ownership and running.  Counting Frederick’s financial downturn, the Anchor had been the subject of two bankruptcies in less than three years, so it was not a great investment.

Knowing it was demolished was a bit sad, but I checked out the neighbourhood to see if there were any indications of what it was like in the 1870s when the Paulins owned the brewery, but sadly, it too, like the neighbourhood they lived in, was much changed.

I did note that the St George’s Way is straddled by a very large park called Burgess Park.  I decided to google it, to see if it was there when the brewery was, and it was not.  In fact, the park was “carved out of a highly built up area of the city.  Virtually all of the land now occupied by the park was previously housing, industry and transport infrastructure.” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burgess_Park  ]  The park included a ginger beer factory and the Grand Surrey Canal.  According to Wikipedia, the area suffered heavily from bombing in the Second World War, and a lot of buildings were demolished to make way for the park. Work for the park began in about 1943, and it has grown since then. [http://www.gardenvisit.com/landscape_architecture/london_landscape_architecture/visitors_guide/burgess_park_landscape ]

Finding that the neighbourhoods I was looking into are no longer extant is a big disappointment, but there is still a lot that can be learned from trying to map the history of the Paulins in Peckham.  And that is from finding out how close they lived to their business.  And they did not live that far away.  I looked at the map of the area carefully and plotted the approximate locations of the brewery and the home, and really, he could have walked to work.

Not much found, but interesting nonetheless.