London genealogy links

Genealogical and historical information and links for anyone researching their ancestors in England and the British Isles

Home ==> County Links ==> London ==> Southwark

<== Richmond-upon-Thames

Sutton ==>

London

Southwark

Themes	Explorers and Adventurers	Nobel Prize Winners
Actors and Directors	Famous People	Places of Interest
Anglo-Saxons and Danes	Historic Events	Prime Ministers
AONB (National Landscapes)	Inventors and Scientists	Royal Consorts and Heirs
Artists and Architects	Monarchs	World Heritage Sites
Composers and Musicians	National Parks	Writers and Poets

Nature

London
Wildlife Trust

Books
	Douglas Dougal is the outsider who arrives in the borough and wreaks havoc on the lives of the unsuspecting local community he comes into contact with.	THE BALLAD OF PECKHAM RYE by Muriel Spark (1960)

London | Southwark

The County of London was formed in 1889 from parts of the ancient counties of Middlesex, Kent and Surrey, with the City of London remaining an independent body.

In 1965 Greater London was formed, taking in the rest of Middlesex (which no longer existed as a county) together with parts of Essex and Hertfordshire and further areas of Kent and Surrey.

Greater London is made up of 13 Inner and 19 Outer London boroughs together with the City of London.

Southwark once lay in Surrey and (a small part in) Kent and is today one of the 13 boroughs making up Inner London. Its northern border lies on the River Thames, on the opposite bank to the City of London.

London Boroughs

Actors and Directors

The actor Boris Karloff was born as William Henry Pratt at 36 Forest Hill Road in East Dulwich in 1887. In 1909 he immigrated to Canada before moving to Hollywood where he starred in many classic horror films such as Frankenstein in 1931 and The Mummy in 1932 securing a reputation as Hollywood's biggest star in the genre. He returned to live in England in the 1950s.

Boris Karloff

The film comedian and director Charlie Chaplin was born as Charles Spencer Chaplin in Kennington in 1889. He emigrated to the United States in 1910 on the same ship as Stan Laurel who had acted as his understudy.

In 1914 Chaplin arrived in Hollywood and over the next decades became one of the major stars of the silent movie age, providing him with the money and power to be a co-founder of United Artists. In 1928 The Circus won him an Academy Award. In the 1950s Chaplin returned to Europe disillusioned with America's preoccupation with anti-Communism and made his home in Vevey in Switzerland. He died there in 1977.

Charles Chaplin loff

The actor Michael Caine was born as Maurice Joseph Micklewhite in Rotherhithe in 1933. His eight decade film career began in the 1950s, took off in the 1960s with some of the decade's most iconic British films (The Ipcress File, Alfie, Gambit, The Italian Job), included two Academy Awards for Hannah and Her Sisters (1987) and The Cider House Rules (1999) and continued successfully until 2023 when he announced his retirement.

Michael Caine

Famous People

John Harvard was born in Southwark in 1607 and christened at what is now Southwark Cathedral the same year.

His father, a butcher, died in a plague outbreak and his mother remarried. In 1627 he was sent to study at Emmanuel College at Cambridge University. Completing his studies in 1635, he married in 1636 and in 1637 set sail for Massachusetts where he died the following year.

Due to an inheritance of property in England he was a wealthy man and in his will he left half of his money and his library to a local school that had been founded in 1636 and was struggling financially. That school would become Harvard University.

Places of Interest

Cathedrals and Abbeys

Southwark Cathedral has had cathedral status since 1905 due to London's rapidly increasing population in the 19th century. Parts of the building date back into the 13th century and the site is the location of earlier churches from the first millennium. Also known as the Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie (Overie = "over the river") it stands on the opposite bank of the Thames to the City of London at the location of London's oldest river crossing.

Cathedrals of England and Wales

Historic Buildings

The Globe Theatre is a reconstruction of the theatre in which Shakespeare had shares, acted and had many of his plays performed. The original theatre burnt down during a performance of Henry VIII in 1613.

William Shakespeare

Shakespeare -The Early Years

Shakespeare - The Later Years

British Library - The Plays

Historic Locations

Nunhead Cemetery was opened in 1840 the fourth of what became known as the "Magnificent Seven", seven new London cemeteries needed due to the booming population of London. All were built within a decade: the first in 1832, Kensal Green Cemetery, and the last Tower Hamlets Cemetery in 1841.

Prime Ministers

Prime Ministers

21st Century

Keir Starmer was elected Prime Minister in 2024 after 14 years of Conservative rule. He was born in Southwark in 1962.

Keir Starmer

Royal Consorts and Heirs

Bermondsey Abbey

Catherine of Valois died in childbirth in 1437 at Bermondsey Abbey. Born in Paris in 1401 she had married Henry V at Troyes in 1420 and in 1421 given birth to the future Henry VI. When her husband died in 1422 she secretly married Owen Tudor and their grandson was the future Henry VII, the first Tudor King of England. She is buried at Westminster Abbey.

Catherine of Valois

Royal consorts buried at Westminster Abbey

Elizabeth Woodville, Queen to Edward IV, died in 1492 at Bermondsey Abbey. She is buried in St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. She was Queen until her husband's death in 1483 and was the mother to Edward V.

Elizabeth Woodville

Royal consorts buried at Windsor

Writers and Poets

The poet Robert Browning was born in Camberwell in 1812.

Robert Browning

Never the time and the place
And the loved one all together!
Never the Time and the Place (1842)

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for?
Andrea del Sarto (1855)

The novelist Anita Brookner was born in 1928 in Herne Hill, possibly at 55 Half Moon Lane. She began writing in her fifties and in 1981 published her first novel A Start in Life. Until 2003 she wrote a book a year including in 1984 Hotel Du Lac for which she won the Booker Prize.

Anita Brookner