West Square - History

History

The Temple West family originally owned the land here, hence the name. In 1791, the area was leased for house building. By 1799, the garden in the centre of the square was finished.

In 1812, a tower was built by the Admiralty at 36 West Square for a telegraph using shutters. During the Napoleonic Wars, this transmitted messages between Whitehall and the Royal Navy in Kent. In the 1800s, the square was used to house some staff at the Bethlem Royal Hospital (now the Imperial War Museum).

J. A. R. Newlands (1837–1898), the Victorian chemist who discovered the Periodic Law for the chemical elements, was born and raised in a house at the south-west corner of the square. A blue plaque, installed by the Royal Society of Chemistry, commemorates Newlands on the front of the house.

In 1884–5, the Charlotte Sharman School was built on the north-west side, named after its founder the Christian philanthropist. It is still located there.

As a young child, Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) lived at 39 West Square for a short period. He later recalled:

West Square! At the back of the Bedlam Lunatic Asylum. This is as far back as I can remember as a child. It was there, somewhere around the age of three, we lived in a large house.

At the end of the 19th century, the garden in the square was threatened with building development, but there was a campaign to keep it. In 1909, the freehold was bought for £3,500 by the London County Council and the Metropolitan Borough of Southwark. They enlarged and restored the garden, which was then opened for public use in 1910. The square was scheduled to protect it under the 1931 London Squares Preservation Act. However, after the Second World War, it was proposed that the buildings should be demolished and the area added to Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park. This was blocked by the Civic Amenities Act and instead the square became a conservation area. Following the War, the north-west corner of the square was demolished and prefab houses were built. However, the square still remains largely intact and of historic interest.