E15 Clapton Park, Stratford, West Ham
The Burfords and Stratfordby A Botterill & F Duxbury |
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Based on research by the authors: On the 8th March 1883, Ephraim Burford died at his home at no.5 Crownfield Place, Stratford, a few days short of his 74th birthday. He was the last in a line of three generations of that name to be involved in the calico-printing and dyeing industry in east London. Much of the land and property which made up Burford’s Printing and Dye Works had already been sold in 1865 and 1866 with the remainder auctioned off in 1880. Part of this area is still remembered today as Burford Road, where until relatively recently stood The Burford Arms public house. |
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Research has suggested that the first calico printer set up business in West Ham in the 1670s and during the 18th century the area between Stratford and the Abbey Mill formed the main ‘calico grounds’ with the waters of the Channelsea river instrumental in the dyeing processes. By the end of the 18th century nearly 300 were employed in this way with numbers rising into the early part of the 19th century. However by 1832, only one firm of calico printers appears to have still be in operation, that of David & Ephraim Burford. Clayton’s Survey of West Ham of 1821 shows just how much land was owned there by the Burford family at that time. |
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The land on which Burford’s calico printing works stood had been bought in the mid-17th century by John Phillips, a citizen and cook, from John Curtis, a mariner of Bristol and brother of William Curtis, late of Mile End. John Phillips subsequently bequeathed it to the Governors of Christ’s Hospital who leased it until it was acquired sometime during the mid-18th century by Stephen Williams, a glover, linen-draper and Freeman of the City of London living in the Poultry, on the corner of the Walbrook, in a house renovated in the 1750s by the celebrated artist and architect George Dance . Stephen Williams was an active member of the Strict Baptist Chapel in Little Prescott Street, Goodman’s Fields, for over 40 years and the chapel minutes show him to have been by far the most generous contributor to the chapel with an annual donation of 10 guineas. Several members of the Stratford-based Burford family were also members of this chapel, and ongoing research has shown that connections between the Burford and Williams families existed over a century before in Wapping, Limehouse and Stepney. |
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Stephen Williams died in 1797 leaving a considerable fortune of around £30,000 along with leases in the City of London, as well as numerous freeholds in Stratford. His own children having pre-deceased him, he left his calico-printing business to two of his Williams nephews and to David and Ephraim Burford (father of Ephraim above and son of another Ephraim who was involved in the business during Stephen Williams’ lifetime), both of them sons of his late sister Hannah. |
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Another member of this branch of the Burford family, Edward, had left Stratford in the 1780s and along with five other Baptists from Little Prescott Street, went north, where they not only introduced the calico-printing process but also set up a Baptist church in Walton-in-the-Dale. |
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Until the later part of the 19th century, the Burfords would have held a prominent position in Stratford society, with rate books and poll records, insurance records and censuses showing the family owning considerable property in the Stratford area, employing many men in the calico works, and keeping a number of servants. They form one strand of the much wider Burford family who lived in London during the 17th-19th centuries and whose members included ships' captains and seafarers, suppliers of cloth to the East India Company, distillers, renowned artists (in painting, engraving and in pewter), Ministers, both of the Church of England and Non-Conformist, as well as several generations of Masters of Chigwell School. |
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