Kew

Kew Retail Park stands on the site of a former factory where, from the 1920s until 1967, Dodge made lorries with the model name Kew. Cars were also manufactured there.[10] Dodge Brothers became a Chrysler subsidiary in 1928 and truck production moved to Chrysler's car plant at Kew. In 1933 it began to manufacture a British chassis, at its works in Kew, using American engines and gearboxes.[11] After Chrysler bought the Maxwell Motor Company and their Kew works, the cars of the lighter Chrysler range – Chrysler Airflows, De Sotos and Plymouths — were assembled at this Kew site until the Second World War. The various models of De Sotos were named Richmond, Mortlake and Croydon; Plymouths were Kew Six and Wimbledon.

During the Second World War this Chrysler factory was part of London Aircraft Production Group and built Handley Page Halifax aircraft assemblies. When wartime aircraft production ceased, the plant did not resume assembly of North American cars.

Charles Somerset, 1st Earl of Worcester, was granted lands at Kew in 1517. When he died in 1526 he left his Kew estates to his third wife, Eleanor, with the remainder to his son George. In 1538 Sir George Somerset sold the house for £200 to Thomas Cromwell, who resold it for the same amount to Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. Brandon had probably already inhabited Kew during the life of his wife Mary Tudor, the daughter of Henry VII and widow of the French king Louis XII. According to John Leland's Cygnea Cantio ("Swan Song"), she stayed in Kew (which he refers to as "Cheva")[12] for a time after her return to England.[13]

One of Henry VIII's closest friends, Henry Norris, lived at Kew Farm,[14] which was later owned by Elizabeth I's favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.[15] This large palatial house on the Thames riverbank predated the royal palaces of Kew Palace and the White House. Excavations at Kew Gardens in 2009 revealed a wall that may have belonged to the property.[16]

In Elizabeth's reign, and under the Stuarts, houses were developed along Kew Green.[17] West Hall, which survives in West Hall Road, dates from at least the 14th century and the present house was built at the end of the 17th century.[18]

Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James I, was given a household at Kew in 1608.[13]

Queen Anne subscribed to the building of the parish church on Kew Green, which was dedicated to St Anne in 1714, three months before the Queen's death.[19]

The Hanoverians maintained the strongest links with Kew, in particular Princess Augusta who founded the botanic gardens[20] and her husband Frederick, Prince of Wales who lived at the White House in Kew. Augusta, as Dowager Princess of Wales, continued to live there until her death in 1721.[21] Frederick commissioned the building of the first substantial greenhouse at Kew Gardens.[22]

In 1761 the future George III and Queen Charlotte moved into the White House at Kew.[21] They established their main summer court at Kew from the 1760s and 1770s. Queen Charlotte died at the Dutch House in Kew in 1818.[21]

William IV spent most of his early life at Richmond and at Kew Palace, where he was educated by private tutors.[23]

During the French Revolution, many refugees established themselves in Kew, having built many of the houses of this period. In the 1760s and 1770s the royal presence attracted artists such as Thomas Gainsborough and Johann Zoffany.[13][24]

• Franz (later Francis) Bauer (1758–1840) was an Austrian microscopist and botanical artist who became the first botanical illustrator at Kew Gardens. By 1790 he had settled at Kew, where as well as making detailed paintings and drawings of flower dissections, often at microscopic level, he tutored Queen Charlotte, her daughter Princess Elizabeth and William Hooker in the art of illustration, and often entertained friends and botanists at his home. He is buried at St Anne's,[25] next to Thomas Gainsborough.
• The American-born English artist Walter Deverell (1827–1854), who was associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, lived at 352 Kew Road, then called Heathfield House. He had a studio at the end of the garden where there are now garages. In this setting he painted "The Pet".[26]
• George Engleheart (1750–1829), who was born in Kew,[27] was one of the greatest English painters of portrait miniatures.
• Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) visited Kew many times, staying with his friend Joshua Kirby and, after Kirby's death, in a house probably rented by his daughter close to St Anne's Church, where he is buried.[24]
• Arthur Hughes (1832–1915), Pre-Raphaelite painter, lived and died at Eastside House, 22 Kew Green, Kew.[28] The site is marked by a blue plaque.[29]
• Joshua Kirby (1716–1774) was a landscape painter, engraver, and writer, whose main artistic focus was "linear perspective", based on the ideas of English mathematician Brook Taylor.[30] He was the son of topographer John Kirby, and the father of the writer Sarah Trimmer and the entomologist William Kirby.[31] In 1760 he moved to Kew, where he taught linear perspective to George III.[32] He was a Fellow of the Royal Society.
• Sir Peter Lely (1618–1680), portrait painter, had a house on the north side of Kew Green.[33] On almost exactly the same site, Jeremiah Meyer (1735–1789), miniaturist to Queen Charlotte and George III, built a house a century later. Meyer is buried at St Anne's.[24]
• Charles Mozley (1914–1991), artist and art teacher, lived and died at 358 Kew Road, Kew.[34][35]
• Victorian artist Marianne North (1830–1890) did not live in Kew, but she left to Kew Gardens her collection of botanic art, painted on her extensive overseas travels, and funded a gallery – the Marianne North Gallery – to house them.[36]
• French Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) stayed in 1892 at 10 Kew Green, on the corner of Gloucester Road, which is marked by a blue plaque.[37] During his stay he painted Kew Gardens – Path to the Great Glasshouse (1892), Kew Greens (1892) and Church at Kew (1892). His third son, Félix Pissarro (1874–1897), painter, etcher and caricaturist, died in a sanatorium at 262 Kew Road in 1897.[38]
• The painter Johann Zoffany (1725–1810), who lived at Strand-on-the-Green, is buried at St Anne's.[39]

Cottages on Kew Green

Playwright Harold Pinter lived in Kew.

• William Aiton (1731–1793), botanist, was appointed director in 1759 of the newly established botanical garden at Kew, where he remained until his death. He effected many improvements at the gardens, and in 1789 he published Hortus Kewensis, a catalogue of the plants cultivated there.[nb 1] When he died, he was succeeded as director at Kew Gardens by his son William Townsend Aiton (1766–1849), who was also botanist, and was born in Kew.[40] William Townsend Aiton was one of the founders of the Royal Horticultural Society.[40] He retired in 1841 but remained living at Kew, although passing much of his time with his brother at Kensington where he died in 1849.[40] Both father and son lived at Descanso House on Kew Green and are buried in St Anne's churchyard[40] where the substantial family tomb is a prominent feature. Inside the church there is also a memorial to them.[41]
• David Blomfield (1934–2016), leader of the Liberal Party group on Richmond upon Thames Council, writer, book editor and local historian, lived in Kew.[42]
• Richard Cook (1957–2007), British jazz writer, magazine editor and former record company executive, was born in Kew.[43]
• Stephen Duck (c.1705–1756), poet, lived in Kew.[33]
• Prince Friso of the Netherlands (1968–2013), brother of King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, lived in Kew.[44]
• Liberal Party leader Jo Grimond (1913–1993) lived on Kew Green.[4][45]
• Sir William Hooker (1785–1865) and his son Sir Joseph Hooker (1817–1911), botanists and directors of Kew Gardens, lived at 49 Kew Green, Kew. The site is marked by a blue plaque.[46][47]
• Alfred Luff (1846–1933), English cricketer, was born in Kew.[48]
• Phil Lynott (1949–1986), Irish rock guitarist, songwriter, vocalist and leader of Thin Lizzy, lived in Kew.[49]
• Andrew Millar (1705–1768), Scottish bookseller, owned a country home on Kew Green.[50]
• Samuel Molyneux (1689–1728), Member of Parliament, and an amateur astronomer, who was married to Lady Elizabeth Diana Capel, the eldest daughter of the Earl of Essex, inherited Kew House on the death of Lady Capel of Tewkesbury.[51] Molyneux set up an observatory at the house and collaborated there with James Bradley in innovative designs for reflecting telescopes.[51] Kew House which later, as the White House, became the home of Prince Frederick and Princess Augusta, was pulled down in 1802 when George II's short-lived gothic "castellated palace" was built.[52]
• Desmond Morton (1891–1971), soldier, intelligence officer and personal assistant to Winston Churchill, 1940–45, lived at 22 Kew Green 1952–71.[53]
• Conrad Noel (1869–1942), Church of England priest and prominent British Christian socialist, was born in Royal Cottage, Kew Green.[54]
• Harold Pinter (1930–2008), playwright, dramatist, actor and director, lived at Fairmead Court, Taylor Avenue, Kew.[55]
• Sir Hugh Portman, 4th Baronet (died 1632), MP for Taunton, lived in a house opposite Kew Palace.[33]
• Sir John Puckering (1544–1596), lawyer, politician, Speaker of the English House of Commons, and Lord Keeper from 1592 until his death, lived in Kew.[33]
• Anthony Saxton (1934–2015), advertising executive and headhunter, lived at 3 Mortlake Road in Kew, and was a churchwarden of St Anne's Church, Kew.[56]
• John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute (1713–1792), botanist and honorary director of Kew Gardens, 1754–1772, adviser to Princess Augusta and tutor to George III and, later, Prime Minister of Great Britain (1762–63), lived at King's Cottage, 33 Kew Green.[57]
• Patrick Troughton (1921–1987), actor, most famous for playing the Second Doctor in the TV series Doctor Who, lived in Kew.[58]
• George Vassila (1857–1915), English cricketer, was born in Kew.[59]

TV presenter and former international gymnast Gabby Logan lives in Kew.

• Geoffrey Archer, fiction writer and former Defence Correspondent of ITN, lives in Kew.[60]
• Mick Avory, musician and former drummer with The Kinks, lives in Kew.[61]
• Nick Baird, group corporate affairs director of energy firm, Centrica, lives in Kew.
• Ray Brooks, actor, lives in Kew.[62]
• Justin Lee Collins, comedian and television presenter, lives in Kew.[63]
• Sir David Durie, former Governor of Gibraltar, lives in Kew.[64]
• Simon Fowler, social historian and author, lives in Kew.[65]
• Sir Donald Insall, architect, conservationist and author, lives in Kew.[66]
• Milton Jones, comedian, was brought up in Kew.[67]
• Gabby Logan, TV presenter, and her husband Kenny Logan, rugby player, live in Kew.[68]
• Serge Lourie, former Leader of Richmond upon Thames Council, and councillor for Kew for 28 years, lives in Kew.[69]
• Paul Ormerod, economist, lives in Kew.[70]
• Helen Sharman, the first British woman in space, lives in Kew[71]
• Jenny Tonge, Baroness Tonge, former MP, lives in Kew.[72]
• Sue Vertue, television producer, and her husband Steven Moffat, television writer and producer, live in Kew.[73][74]

The 2011 census showed that 66.2% of the population were White British. Other White was the second largest category at 16%, with 8.1% being Asian.[76]

• Darell Primary and Nursery School is on Darell Road and Niton Road. It opened in 1906, as the Darell Road Schools, at the southern end of what had been the Leyborne-Popham estate.[100] Darell School was Richmond Borough Council's first primary school and was built in the "Queen Anne" style, in brick with white stone facings. Although it has been extended several times, it is now the only Richmond primary school still in its historic original pre-1914 building.[101]
• Kew Riverside Primary School, on Courtlands Avenue, opened in 2003.[102]
• The Queen's Church of England Primary School is in Cumberland Road, where it moved in 1969.[103] In her will of 1719, Dorothy, Lady Capel of Kew House left to four trustees Perry Court Farm in Kent, which she had inherited from her father. One twelfth of the rent from the farm was to be given to St Anne's Church to establish a school in Kew.[104] In 1810, a "Free School" was opened in the church for 50 children, financed by subscribers who gave one guinea a year, in addition to a contribution by King George III. In 1824 the school moved to a site near the pond on Kew Green. The foundation stone was laid on 12 August, the birthday of King George IV, who gave £300 on condition that it be called "The King's Free School". Queen Victoria gave permission for it to be called "The Queen's School" and decreed that its title should change with that of the monarch.[103]

• Broomfield House School, on Broomfield Road, was founded in 1876.[105]
• Kew College, a co-educational school for 3- to 11-year-olds, was founded in 1927 by Mrs Ellen Upton in rooms over a shop in Kew. Mrs Upton's young daughter was one of the first pupils. The school later moved to Cumberland Road. In 1953, Mrs Upton retired and sold the school to Mrs Hamilton-Spry who, in 1985, handed over the buildings to a charitable trust to ensure the school's long term continuity.
• Kew Green Preparatory School, at Layton House, Ferry Lane, near Kew Green, opened in 2004.
• Unicorn School, established in 1970, is a co-educational, parent-owned school on Kew Road, opposite Kew Gardens.