THE FORDHAM FAMILY

Sydney Fordham was a butcher in Rye Lane, Peckham. He lived in Bell House with his wife and two children.

Sydney Fordham was born in Drayton Park, Islington in June 1885, the son of William Fordham, a bookbinder and Emily Izzard. His father died when he was one year old. His mother then worked as a tobacconist and newsagent to support the family but she died in 1891. Sydney began work as a Smithfield meat market clerk. In 1909 he married Ella Gertrude Parsons in Brighton. Ella was the daughter of George Parsons who kept the Black Horse Inn in Brighton and with her sister Gladys she had worked as a confectioner’s assistant before she got married. Sydney and Ella set up house together in Elmwood Road before moving to 58 Chestnut Road in Norwood, then to Bell House in 1924 with an annual rent of £225.

At Bell House they rented the Lodge to the families of two of their servants: the Wells in the top flat and the Riches in the lower flat for 15 shillings a week each, as well as letting a bungalow in the garden to the son of the gardener at Dulwich Picture Gallery. The other bungalow was still being let by Lady Lucas. There was an issue with the fence between Bell House and Trewyn (Pickwick Cottage): the open hurdle fence not being considered satisfactory for a boundary between what were by then two separate houses. The Estate agreed to erect a proper fence, 150ft long, at a cost of £40 with both houses having a liability for its upkeep.

The Fordhams had two children, Leslie Sydney Victor and Eileen Ella. Sydney had a butcher shop at 228 Rye Lane where Leslie later joined him. The Fordhams left Bell House in 1925 and moved to Beckenham where Ella died in 1945, Leslie in 1957 and Sydney in 1960. The Fordhams may have been friends with, or related to, the Tidys as Thomas Tidy was an executor to a Fordham will.