Collection AR162 - Manuscript Notes on the History of Croydon by Baldwin Latham

Compiled by Baldwin Latham (1836-1917), a Croydon resident who was surveyor to Croydon Board of Health from 1863 to 1870. He left this post to start his own private practice as an engineer.Throughout this time he continued to live in Croydon. Extracts from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography read; Latham, Baldwin a civil engineer and meteorologist, was born on 6 December 1836 in Nantwich, Cheshire, the son of George Latham, architect and surveyor. After attending Nantwich grammer school he entered his fathers office in 1851, and served the usual three-year pupillage as a civil engineer. He then moved to Sandiway, Cheshire, to work for three years with the contractors Douglas and Beckett before joining Joseph Glyn, a civil engineer and fellow of the Royal Society, in the Fens at Ely. In 1860 Latham went into business on his own account in Ely, and on 24 November 1863 he married Ann Elizabeth, daughter of William Neal, draper, of Ely, with whom he moved to Croydon and raised a large family....By 1868 Latham had designed the sewerage, irrigation, and water works for fifteen English towns. He had also begun a series of nearly forty papers reporting on these and related matter....Latham is best remembered for his contributions to public water supply, particularly in the Croydon area. His book, Sanitary Engineering, a Guide to the Construction of Sewerage and House Drainage (1873, and 2nd edn, 1878) was regarded as a classic in its day. In the latter part of his life, he analysed the parish records of Croydon from their commencement in 1538 to identify deaths caused by water-borne diseases. He constructed from his summary of the state of the Croydons water year by year to 1900. His interest in the characteristics of the districts hydrology continued undiminished, and they formed the subject of the last paper he gave, to the Croydon Natural History and Philosophical Society. It was in press when Latham died, on 13 March 1917, at his home, Park Hill House, Stanhope Road, Croydon, aged eighty-one: he suffered from phlebitis and a pulmonary embolism. He was buried at Croydon cemetery on 19 March. He was survived by his wife.