Introduction – Defining Moments for Tooting Market: When you visit Tooting Market be sure to look up at the blue plaques above the High Street and Totterdown entrances. Unveiled at a memorable ceremony on Sunday 2nd October 2022 thanks to the efforts of Geoff Simmons, organiser of the Summerstown182 history project, these two community funded plaques recognise the contribution of people from all over the world who have come to Tooting and made it such a vibrant community. Featuring the words of Edward Mears, winner of a local schools’ competition, the inscription perfectly captures this melting pot of cultures:
“Incredible. Invincible. A community of all, for all. We are Tooting.”
In addition Wandsworth will now be the London Borough of Culture in 2025, so a fitting moment then to share the long, and at times surprising, history of this iconic market where so many migrants have traded over the years and where some well-known names began their fledgling businesses.
The Greatest Shopping Centre in South London
The inscription carved into the red and white entrance fronting the High Street proudly announces that Tooting Market was founded in 1930 and the British Newspaper Archive (BNA) has detailed reports of the grand opening in October of that year.
Advertised as the ‘Greatest Shopping Centre in South London,’ a half page spread announces the NEW TOOTING MARKET with ‘Bargains for All’, praising its location with ‘trams and buses passing the door’ and Tooting Broadway Underground close by.
However, the Mayor’s words at the opening ceremony grab our attention, making us question the full implication of this NEW Tooting Market.
‘The last time I was in a place called Tooting Market it was a shambles of smoking embers with ramshackle ruins… It was an evil day alike for the stall holders and the people of Tooting who were accustomed to obtaining their requirements in the market. Sir Alfred (Butt) was most prompt in rendering financial assistance to the more distressed of the stallholders and out of evil good has come.”
Out of evil good has come…
So what calamity had befallen ‘a place called Tooting Market’ with references to smoke, ruins, distress? To learn how ‘good did come out of evil’ we must go back at least 100 years to the early part of the 20th Century when we find records for the original Tooting Market in Mitcham Road.
Was this the forerunner of the current market as we know it? If so, what are the ‘whys and wherefores’ of the change of site from Mitcham Road to the High Street? Who and what were the forces behind the creation of a brand new market? Who became the owner and who was responsible for its design and construction?
THE UNTOLD STORY OF TOOTING MARKET reveals its defining moments and pivotal players, and along the way we meet some of the notable traders.
PART ONE 1916-1930
Tooting – Market – Places
To set the scene we need to take a look back at Tooting itself in the early 20th century. It expanded at an extraordinary rate due to the construction of the Totterdown Fields Estate with over 1,200 homes built between 1901 and 1911, and the arrival of a tramline from Central London, completed in 1903.
In 1896 its population was just over 7,000 but had increased hugely to 36,000 by 1911. Many families had moved out of the East End of London when slum clearance began and sought a better way of life in the suburbs. The daily needs of the inhabitants were met by a rapidly developing shopping district with markets in Tooting well before 1930. Tooting Market and Blunt’s Market, both in Mitcham Road, and the parade of shops at Amen Corner known as Furzedown Market, all started trading in the early 1900s. There was also a market at Tooting Junction dating from the late 1920s.
Leisure pursuits were fulfilled by Tooting Library in Mitcham Road (1902 with an upper floor added in 1908), the Lido at Tooting Bec (1906), and the creation of numerous picture houses from as early as 1909 culminating in the construction of the Granada Cinema in Mitcham Road in 1930, now Grade 1 listed and a Bingo Hall. The iconic Wesleyan Methodist Central Hall was built in November 1910 as a venue for concerts, talks and films and had a capacity to seat almost 2,000 people. A decade or so later the extension of the Underground to Tooting Broadway, completed in 1926, also proved a huge benefit for the area.
Tooting – good investment potential
In his book Days that are Gone published in 1947 AJ Hurley writes, “Immediately the news spread that the Tube was coming to Balham and Tooting property at once began to increase in value, and enterprising businesses quickly bought up available sites for future development. Many of the smaller shop holders sold out at a good profit and, especially in the vicinity of Tooting Broadway and Mitcham Road, the seal of prosperity was set on the trading enterprise”.
The covered Tooting Market
A letter dated 21st January 1916 to the architects’ department of the London County Council (LCC) on behalf of Mr S. Frost, presumably the owner of the site, proposes a plan to erect a building at 19 Mitcham Road which would provide a trading shelter for costermongers.
‘…the building shall be an empty shell on one floor only about 40 feet by 145 feet and with such means of escape from fire as you may approve. The costermongers whose tenancies will be more or less of a temporary nature will provide their own stalls and barrows in the same way as they are now doing in the open air on the same site forming a kind of retail market. The building will be closed at night and there is open land at the rear where the refuse can be dealt with.’
A BNA item for July 1916 tells us that ‘the newly constructed Tooting Market is now completed. This is a much needed improvement and people who patronise the class of trader will find greater convenience than hitherto’.
A good market place
During a court case in 1929 a magistrate enquired why East End street traders came to Tooting to ply their wares, in this case silk stockings. A police constable explained the appeal of the district: Tooting was thickly populated and a good marketplace.
By the end of that same year the stallholders of Tooting Market in Mitcham Road, were most likely benefiting from this thriving marketplace. Then out of the blue their livelihoods were dealt a devastating blow…
The dreaded DEVELOPERS!
On Christmas Eve 1929 they were served with notice to quit, operative on 19th January 1930. The lives of the fifty stallholders in the market were about to change irreparably just a few weeks into the new decade.….But why was Tooting Market to close down after 14 years of trading?
Developers! The site had been bought by Messrs Woolworth’s Ltd who intended to build a mammoth store at Tooting.
The date for closing the market had been fixed for just after the festive season so that stallholders could benefit from the Christmas and New Year trade but the knowledge of closure in a just a few weeks’ time would most certainly have been in the forefront of their minds…..hardly a Merry Christmas.
Reports stress the importance of the market to both stallholders and customers: ‘Tooting Market was opened in 1916. It is one of the busiest trading centres in the district. The premises are roofed in and house a miscellaneous collection of stalls, many of which have a very considerable average weekly turnover.’
Although a devastating blow for stallholders and customers alike the sale of the market was seen in some quarters as a benefit to the area. A BNA article on the 10th January 1930 mentions the sale of Tooting Market and the ambitious scheme of development on the site, suggesting it would increase the importance of Tooting Broadway as the business and social centre of Tooting. There had apparently been good demand for houses for owner occupation during 1929 and also keen demand for main road sites for business purposes. Older properties were being demolished to make way for modern garages and the erection of manufacturing or other business premises.
A great calamity.. a bombshell
But this was no consolation for the current stallholders. A reporter who visited the market after the news of the imminent closure found them dismayed at the prospect of having to leave, but hopeful of being able to avert what would be for some of them a great calamity. Were the market to close, about 200 people would be deprived of their means of livelihood.
One of the stallholders said the notice ‘had come as a bombshell. It was a nice Christmas box! I don’t know where to go if the market is abolished. We are taking legal advice and are thinking about claiming compensation. The least we expect is an extension of the notice’.
On 7th January 1930, the M.P. Sir Alfred Butt stepped in and attempted to settle the dispute between the stallholders and the owner of the site Messrs Woolworth’s Ltd . Efforts were apparently being made to find a new market and it looked as though the stallholders might be granted an extension of 10 weeks beyond 19th January.
On 10th January it was reported that the stallholders’ notice had indeed been extended and that they were well satisfied with the arrangements made. One commented ‘that they had been handsomely met and we’re well satisfied with the result. As a businessman I recognise that the owners of the site have the right to put it to the use they think best. My regret is that the tenants were not given the first opportunity of purchasing the freehold’. One might wonder why not.
Letters of thanks were to be sent by the committee to Sir Alfred Butt and Alderman Hurley for the interest they had taken in the case. Things were looking more positive but then disaster struck!
Weeping stallholders watch wares burn
Such were the headlines when newspapers reported on the news of the devastating fire which had engulfed Tooting Market on 30th January 1930. Amazingly there were no fatalities.
‘Twelve fire engines were called to the scene of a major fire at Tooting Market. Inside were three hundred people comprising stallholders and shoppers, who tried to save as many of the goods as possible, but they had to leave when the roof was in danger of falling in.’
‘Soon after the last person got out of the building into Tooting Broadway the roof of the market fell in, and a shower of sparks shot up into the air.’
‘Fifty-two shops were gutted with only eight out of eighty shops being saved from the flames.’
‘The fire spread quickly through the market and at one time threatened to reach the Wesleyan Central Hall, the Woolworth’s Emporium and other shops.’
‘Firemen poured tons of water into the market and at last extinguished the blaze.’
Where there’s smoke there’s fire….
The stallholders suffered heavy losses in the fire which meant the demolition of their little livelihood, some having failed to renew their insurance policies due to the imminent closure of the market .
The fire was thought to have originated in a shirt stall within the market, but nothing seems to have been proved to this effect. Questions must surely have been raised about the actual cause coming as it did when the market was due to be demolished.
But all was not lost… a phoenix would rise from the ashes of the old Tooting Market… a new market was already in the planning. Read Part 2 to learn more…
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