Place Name
There are three contenders for this road’s name – but they were all related. The first was the Reverend George Wakefield who was a minister at Richmond from 1767 until 1776 as well as being the vicar of Kingston. He took over from the autocratic Reverend Comer who in 1749 seized the opportunity to stop holding Vestry meetings – they were not restored until 1766 when such was the state of the town an Act of Parliament was needed to restore what passed for local government. The Act explaining it was being brought in “for the relief and employment of the poor and for repairing the highways, paving, cleansing, lighting, and watching the streets, and other places in the Town and Parish of Richmond… [which] is large and populous, and the poor belonging thereto very numerous, and maintained at a great expense; and whereas the highways within the Parish of Richmond were in bad repair, and the streets of the said town ill-packed, and not properly cleansed, lighted or watched, and are subject to many annoyances and encroachments.” Wakefield was by contrast to his predecessor well liked “described as a man of plain good sense, benevolence, and piety”. He organised the parish records ensuring that the duties that should have been carried out by local well-off families for the benefit of all, were done. On his death, he was followed in the role by his son Thomas who was minister for the next 30 years only relinquishing the role in 1806 on his death. Thomas had a younger brother, Gilbert, who had also taken Holy Orders. Janet Dunbar in a Prospect of Richmond tells the story of this “remarkable character”. “An eminent scholar, he received deacon’s orders after graduating, but within a short time found himself opposed to the Liturgy and doctrine of the Church of England. When he visited Thomas at Richmond he was on perfectly amiable terms with the brother, but argued with the minister. He did not stop at arguing. He began writing Dissenting pamphlets, and from there went on to the more dangerous ground of politics. ‘He thought fit to censure the policy of the administration in the war against France during the Revolution,’ and when the Bishop of Llandaff published a pamphlet addressed to the People of Great Britain, supporting the war, Gilbert Wakefield replied with a sharply critical pamphlet which brought down on him the wrath of the Establishment. Ruin followed. He was indicted, along with his publisher, for seditious libel, and was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment in Dorchester County Gaol. The sentence created an immense sensation, but Wakefield, ‘who would have accepted poverty with peace of mind rather than a bishopric with an uneasy conscience’, was prepared to suffer for his beliefs. He served the sentence, dying of a fever shortly afterwards. He is buried in Richmond Church, ‘a high undaunted soul’.” There was one more thing, Gilbert was also a friend of John Lewis. It was he who recorded the story of Lewis’s campaign to open up Richmond Park public. The road, part of the Red Lion Street Improvement Scheme, and which is adjacent to Lewis Road was named in 1912.
