Category Archives: Upminster People & Events
Picturing the Branfill Family – Revisited
Three years ago, in my article “Picturing the Branfill Family” I wrote about an old photo album containing photos, taken in the 1920s or 1930s or earlier, of various portraits of Branfill family members, including several which hung in Upminster … Continue reading
Upminster in Living Memory Revisited
It’s been over twenty years since the publication in 2000 of Upminster in Living Memory – a collection of eight memoirs of folk born between 1905 and 1933 who grew up or lived in Upminster when it was still very … Continue reading
Picturing the Branfill family
The Branfill family of Upminster Hall were prominent landowners in Upminster for over two hundred years from 1685 but we have had no images to show us what they looked like. Upminster’s historian Thomas Lewis Wilson recorded a long list … Continue reading
The Branfills at Upminster Hall
The aftermath of the recent Black Lives Matters protests has thrown a spotlight on historic figures who had links with the slave trade. Upminster has not escaped this scrutiny which has brought to light unpleasant local connections with the Branfills … Continue reading
Edna Clarke Hall (1879-1979): Artist of Upminster Common
A renowned artist, once described as the “most imaginative artist that we have”, lived quietly near Upminster Common for over 75 years, unknown to most of the people of Upminster. The talents of Edna Clarke Hall – Lady Clarke Hall … Continue reading
Tales from the grave: the Rowe family of Upminster
I never planned to write this article! I fully intended to keep my promise to publish the history of the north side of St Mary’s Lane. But in local history research the path is rarely straight and narrow – it can … Continue reading
Upminster’s Victorian Scandal: Rev P M Holden’s life and times
On this day, 19th January, in 1873, now 143 years ago, the congregation assembled as usual to worship at Upminster’s St Laurence Church and to hear the sermon of their Rector, the Reverend Philip Melancthon Holden, whose “fire & brimstone” orations were … Continue reading
A village at war: Upminster 1914-18
When the newly completed St Laurence church hall had opened on 17 April 1914, “the result of a year’s labour”, few would have guessed that within four months it would be pressed into emergency service as a hospital as part … Continue reading
Upminster’s Remarkable Historian: T L Wilson (1833-1919)
How strange it seems today that a village carpenter, who died in relative poverty, devoted much of his life to documenting Upminster’s history through his books and scrapbook collections of local archives. That carpenter and local historian was Thomas Lewis … Continue reading
Old Upminster 