Collection AR37 - Samuel Waghorn Daybook

There were two Samuel Waghorn(e)s, perhaps father and son. The two sections of this book (written in different hands) appear to represent the work of the two individuals. Samuel Waghorn I seems to have been based in the Limpsfield or Titsey area of Surrey. His regular customers included the Biscoe family (of Hookwood, Limpsfield) and Sir John Gresham (of Titsey). His business was firmly rooted in the rural community, largely comprising work on agricultural equipment (wagons, ploughs, harrows, wheelbarrows, etc). He also received an income from the rent on two houses, one at Farley Common. Samuel Waghome II (c1789-1858) may have moved to Croydon in about 1819, when he first appears in rate books, occupying a cottage in a yard off the High Street (near Mint Walk). He stayed there until 1822, and then moved to a cottage in Old Town (Duppas Lane), where he remained until 1828. From 1826, however, Samuel also appears as the joint occupier with Richard Jones (an established coachbuilder) of what had been Jones house and shop on the west side of the High Street. After 1834, Waghorn was the sole occupier, and he subsequently expanded into the adjoining property as well. These premises (numbered 83 High Street by 1851, renumbered 146 High Street in 1886, and renumbered 252 High Street in 0 931) were to remain the firms headquarters for some eighty years.

Samuel IIs regular customers in the 1820s, as recorded in this book, included well-known Croydon names such as Robert Corney (his neighbour), John Dingwall, John Battersbee, etc; as well as customers further afield in Battersea, Vauxhall, Sussex, etc. He did occasional jobs for the Brighton Coach. Samuel IIs business had become slightly more urban and perhaps higher class than Samuel Is: there are more references to work for tradesmen and on drays etc, and also on chaises and carriages. To judge from his writing and accounting methods, Samuel II was also probably better educated than Samuel I.

Samuel II died in October 1858, aged 69, but the business continued to be known as Samuel Waghorne, presumably run by his widow, Harriet (c1789-1867), and their son, Thomas (c1822-1868). In Warrens Directory for 1865-6, the firm is named Waghorne and Son.

After the deaths in close succession of Harriet and Thomas, the business was taken over in 1868 by James T Miles, and renamed Waghorne and Miles. The firm prospered in the latter part of the nineteenth century as a builder of superior carriages of various types, and, from about 1902, of motor car bodies. In about 1906 it was bought up by Marchant and Sons, a firm of coachbuilders established at 34 Tamworth Road in about 1873. Marchant and Sons took over the High Street premises, and continued to operate from that address until the 1950s.