A HISTORY OF SURREY 



The Mayford Industrial School, for destitute boys 

 not convicted of crime, was established at Wandsworth 

 in 1867, removed to Byfleet in 1871, and to its 

 present site near the line to Guildford south of Wo- 

 king Town in 1 886. It accommodates over one 

 hundred boys, and has a farm and workshops. A 

 cottage hospital was opened in 1893 in the Bath 

 Road, and was transferred to quarters in the Chobham 

 Road in 1897 as the Victoria Cottage Hospital, in 

 commemoration of the Diamond Jubilee. St. Peter's 

 Memorial Home, for sick poor, in connexion with the 

 Kilburn Sisterhood, was opened in 1885 and enlarged 

 in 1894, with additional rooms for ladies in bad 

 health and narrow circumstances. At Brookwood is 

 the Surrey County Asylum for Pauper Lunatics, 

 opened in 1867 and much enlarged in 1903. It 

 has a water tower 90 ft. high, which forms a con- 

 spicuous landmark. The convict prisons, male and 

 female, at Knapp Hill, first opened in 1859, are now 

 transformed into barracks. An Orphanage for the 

 children of servants of the London and South- Western 

 Railway was opened close to Woking Junction in 1 909. 



Woking Waterworks Company was established in 

 1882. It draws its chief supply from the chalk near 

 Clandon. 



Brookwood Necropolis adjoins the Brookwood 

 Station. In 1854 a company purchased 2,000 acres 

 in Woking and Pirbright, of which 400 acres have 

 been laid out as a cemetery, and well planted with 

 rhododendrons and conifers. In 1889 the Woking 

 Crematorium was built. A public recreation ground 

 was laid out in 1906-7 between Woking Town and 

 Old Woking Village. 



The oldest provided school in the village of Woking 

 was opened in 1848 as a Church school. It was 

 enlarged in 1901. St. John's was built as a Church 

 school in 1870 and enlarged in 1876. Maybury 

 was built in 1874, by the first elected School Board, 

 and enlarged in 1881, 1886, and 1893. Knapp Hill 

 was built in 1877, enlarged in 1884. Westfield was 

 built in 1884, and enlarged in 1891 and 1895; 

 the infants' school was built in 1896. Goldsworth 

 Road was built in 1898. 



The manor of WOKING seems to 

 MANORS have been Crown property from very 

 early times. When the Domesday Survey 

 was taken Woking was in the king's hands, and the 

 Confessor was also reported to have held it.* It 

 remained in the hands of the Crown for several 

 centuries. King John shortly after his accession made 

 a grant of the manor of Woking to Alan Basset, 4 who 

 held it for half a knight's fee. His eldest son Gilbert 

 was holding it in 1236-7.' He died in 1242. It 

 was held by his brother Fulk,' who was Bishop of 



London and died in 1259. His younger brother 

 Philip succeeded.' On the death of Philip, who 

 left no heirs male, the manor descended to Aliva 

 his daughter, who was married twice. Her first 

 husband was Hugh le Despenser the Justiciar, killed 

 at Evesham, 8 to whom she bore the son who was 

 afterwards popularly known as the elder Despen- 

 ser. 9 She married, secondly, Roger Bigod, Earl of 

 Norfolk, 10 against whom Elaine, wife of Philip Basset, 

 brought a suit for the dower which she ought to have 

 enjoyed in Woking Manor." Aliva's death, which 

 occurred in 1281, was the signal for a dispute over 

 her estates." The earl brought a suit against Hugh le 

 Despenser, Aliva's son and heir, on the grounds that 

 he himself had had issue by his wife, but withdrew 

 his claim.' 3 



Hugh le Despenser was executed in 1 3 26 in the 

 troubled time when Edward II was deposed, and 

 Woking reverted to the Crown. Edward III in the 

 first year of his reign granted the manor of Woking, 

 then said to have been forfeited by Hugh le Despenser, 

 to his uncle, Edmund of Woodstock, Earl of Kent. 14 

 Under Mortimer's regime, however, Edmund was 

 soon afterwards attainted and executed. 15 His son 

 Edmund was restored in 1330, but died in 1333" 

 while yet a minor, and was succeeded by his brother 

 John. After John's death without issue in 1352" 

 the manor became the right of his sister Joan, 18 then 

 married to Sir Thomas Holand, who was summoned to 

 Parliament as Earl of Kent in her right." But his 

 widow Elizabeth kept part of it as dower till her death 

 in 1410-11. The son of Joan and Thomas was 

 Thomas, second Earl of Kent in the Holand line." 



Joan died in 1 386, and although the king is named 

 as her heir in the inquisition taken after her death," 

 many of her lands apparently passed to her other son ; 

 Thomas de Holand was certainly holding Woking at 

 the time of his death some ten years later." In the 

 next year the Despensers released to Thomas his son 

 and heir all rights which they possessed in Woking 

 Manor." 



After the accession of Henry IV Thomas, whom 

 Richard had created Duke of Surrey and whom 

 Henry had deprived of the dignity, joined in the 

 conspiracy of 1400 against the king and was beheaded 

 as a traitor, and Woking was forfeited among his other 

 lands. 14 Henry IV, however, restored it to Alice 

 widow of Earl Thomas," and she continued to hold 

 until her death in 1416." She left her husband's 

 four sisters as co-heirs, and it seems as though 

 some deed of partition must have been made, since 

 Woking Manor remained intact in the possession of 

 the Beaufort Dukes of Somerset,' 8 who descended 

 from Margaret, one of the co-heirs aforesaid." 



. Surr. i, 296,7. 



4 Rot. Chart. (Rec. Com.), 37 ; Testa de 

 Nevill (Rec. Com.}, 225. 



5 Pipe R. zi Hen. III. 



6 Testa de Nevill (Rec. Com.), ii, 55. 



" Chan. Inq. p.m. 9 Edw. I, no. 9 ; 

 Plac. de Quo Warr. (Rec. Com.), 740. 

 8 Abbrev. Plac. (Rec. Com.), 200. 

 Ibid. "Ibid. 



11 Feet of F. Div. Co.c,6 Hen. Ill, no. 69. 



12 Abbrev. Plac. (Rec. Com.), 200. 

 Ibid. 



14 Chart. R. I Edw. Ill, m. 43, no. 82. 

 u D:ct. Nat. Biog. xvi, 413. 

 "Close, 6 Edw. Ill, m. 31. 

 ] 7Chan. Inq. p.m. 26 Edw. Ill (lit 

 nos.), no. 54. 

 18 Ibid. 



"Diet. Nat. Siog. xxvii, 156. 

 '"Inq. p.m. 12 Hen. IV, no. 35. 



1 1bid. 



m Chan. Inq. p.m. 9 Ric. II, no. 54. 

 88 Ibid. 20 Ric. II, no. 30. 

 84 Close, 21 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. i8d. 

 *> Exch. Inq. file 160, no. 16. 

 * Cal. Pat. 1399-1401, p. 392. 

 " Chan. Inq. p.m. 4 Hen. V, 51. 

 *> Vide infra. 



M G.E.C. Complete Peerage. See pedi- 

 gree below. 



Margaret Holand 



= John (ist Earl of Somerset) 



ob. 1471 



