Place Name
Named for the nearby Mount Clare, a Grade I listed house, designed by architect Sir Robert Taylor, and built in 1772 for politician “Honest” George Clive (cousin of Clive of India, for whom he did a great deal of business). “Honest” Clive lavished a fortune on the house and grounds having the gardens landscaped by Lancelot “Capability” Brown. Clive, who died on March 23, 1779, explained in his will that he was leaving the house to his wife “for her pleasure and the health of my children” this he added were “the motives for laying out so much money”. Subsequent residents have included: Sir John Dick, British Consul at Leghorn, who enlarged the property with a portico and other enrichments and who died at the house (1780 – December 2, 1804); the chemist Charles Hatchett FRS, who discovered the element niobium (1807 – 1819); Humphrey St John-Mildmay, Member of Parliament for Southampton (1830 – 1832); Admiral of the Fleet Sir Charles Ogle, 2nd Baronet (1840 – 1846); Hugh Colin Smith, Governor of the Bank of England (1874 – 1908). Smith’s stockbroker descendants lived in the house until 1945. The house was requisitioned by Wandsworth Borough Council in 1945. In 1963 it became a hall of residence for Garnett College, the UK’s only dedicated lecturer-training college. Garnett College became part of Woolwich Polytechnic, then Thames Polytechnic, then the University of Greenwich. Today, Mount Clare is owned by the Southlands Methodist Trust and used as a hall of residence for the University of Roehampton.
