Local resident and amateur historian Kieran Garvey has completed a superb report on Henry Buckler and his family which you can download here.
Henry Buckler (1797-1846) was a prominent member of the Cloudesley Estate community, who lived first on Cloudesley Terrace, now Liverpool Road, then in Thornhill Cottage which we believe is one of the houses close to the Albion pub. He was a churchwarden alongside his friend the Reverend Fell and was buried in the Holy Trinity church crypt together with his wife Mary and daughter Catherine as recorded on a handsome memorial within the church itself. Of particular interest, Henry was for 31 years the official shorthand writer to the Old Bailey criminal court where he reported on many of the most serious and scandalous crimes of the day.
Kieran's report - more like a short historical biography - is an unusually detailed and extensive account of Henry Buckler's life and times and paints a convincing picture of middle class family life in our corner of London in the first half of the 19th century. It provides fascinating insights not just into Henry's working and private life but also on the whole Late Georgian / Early Victorian landscape: politics, trade, economics, crime and punishment, transport .... Highly recommended!
Shown below is a photo of the Buckler memorial in the church and, intriguingly, what Kieran believes to be an 1843 sketch of Henry Buckler himself, at work in the Old Bailey. The report describes the detective work behind this conclusion - it certainly convinced me!
