Place Name
Industrial heritage. The name recalls the Wandsworth Flock Company, described in a Post Office directory of 1870 as “horse, doe, hair, wool, and flock manufacturers” which used the power of the fast-flowing River Wandle to shred cloth. The Duntstill Flock Mill produced flock, which was used for a variety of purposes, including stuffing mattresses and flock paper. It was owned by an inventor, James Thorne Parker Roe de Morley, whose attempts to lay claim to the lineage of a medieval barony – which he had largely proved after years of meticulous research – made him a rather celebrated figure of his time. His stunts to publicise his claim – which were repeatedly rejected by the authorities – included attempting to gatecrash the Coronation of Edward VII and even getting into the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament in full regalia as the self-styled Lord de Morley. Of this later stunt he got a full page in the The Penny Illustrated Paper to explain why he had a right to sit in the Lords. He died in 1919.
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