Place Name
The colourful GP Edward William Flemyng Stiven was a Scot who grew up in India. He came to Harrow via South Shields to set up his practice in 1881. The son of a doctor himself Edward had bought Manor House and carried out extensive renovations to use it as a family home and for his general practice. He engaged architect Edward Prior to carry out the work, using only the best materials, the result was a highly individualistic style which was “a reflection of [his] gregarious, adventuresome personality”. In June 1892, the Architectural Association visited Harrow to see Prior’s work; and at Manor Lodge, they found the materials particularly notable: “The terra cotta dressings are sprinkled all over with the date 1884 and the initial S (for Stiveni), and the bricks are from an old house which formerly stood on the ground.” Before arriving down south he had served heroically in the Russo-Turkish war, on one occasion, making a seven-day forced march through snow and Russian-infested mountains to reach a typhus-stricken town, which was cut off and without medical care. At the same time, he sent home stirring accounts of the conflict to the Scotsman. Edward nickmaned Ned was a man who ‘loved to lead’; and with: ‘His energy, his might, his good humour, his absolute honesty, truthfulness and singleness of purpose’, he became Harrow’s most trusted public servant, serving as chairman of the Local Board of Health and its successor, the Urban District Council. His popularity with the townspeople was such that upon his death the Harrow Gazette which published a two-and-a-half page obituary, had to print three editions before the demand was filled. There was tragedy also for the family, during the First World War when Captain Ronald Walter Sutherland Stiven, 27, was killed in September 15, 1915.
