Thomas Pooley (c. 1788 – 1846 or later) was a Cornishman who moved to London to seek his fortune. Having amassed sufficient wealth, he settled in Kingston-upon-Thames, where he operated several malthouses.
After the arrival of the London and Southampton Railway, soon renamed London and South Western Railway, a little way to the south of Kingston, he conceived the idea of building a new town adjacent to the railway. He built houses for relatively wealthy people who worked in London, but wished to live in the more salubrious air of the countryside. Pooley was thus one of the early developers of the concept of commuting.
His project established the nucleus of what became the modern town of Surbiton, but opposition from competing interests forced him into bankruptcy and he disappeared from history in his late 50s.
Before Kingston
It is clear from surviving records that Thomas Pooley and his wife Jane came originally from Cornwall. However, Thomas was not sure when he was born, stating in 1844 that he was "54, 56 or 58, I cannot say which".
Some time in the early 19th century the Pooleys moved to London. They settled in Old Street in Finsbury and Thomas earned sufficient to allow him to amass considerable wealth.
Life in Kingston
By 1838 the Pooleys were living in the more pleasant surroundings of Kingston-upon-Thames, also known at that time as Kingston-on-Thames. Thomas ran three malthouses and his son Alexander ran another. In addition to his malting operations, Thomas owned three cargo vessels, the Agnes, the Elizabeth and the Mahon Castle.
Despite his success in business, Pooley was seen by the business community of Kingston as being of the lower orders and not quite respectable. However, Alexander married into a local family. His wife Jane was the daughter of William Wadbrook, also a successful maltster, who came from a line of Kingston watermen.
The coming of the railway
The builders of the London and Southampton Railway had hoped to take the line north of Surbiton Hill and put a station somewhere to the south of Kingston. However, the men who ran Kingston saw the railway as a threat to the town's coaching and inn-keeping trades and refused to allow the line to pass through their territory. It therefore proved necessary for a cutting to be dug through Surbiton Hill. A station was built in the cutting, close to the Ewell road. In theory, this station served Kingston, but it was a long way from the town.
Christopher Terry was a gentleman farmer noted for being a good employer. He owned Maple Farm, just south of the hamlet of Surbiton, and he died there at the age of 93 in 1838, just as the railway was being built nearby. In his will he directed that his estate be sold and the proceeds divided between the beneficiaries.
When the land was auctioned, there was little interest. However, Thomas Pooley realized the potential of this land and bought a large part of it for the modest sum of £10,500. He planned to build a new town, which would be called New Kingston or Kingston-(up)on-Railway, and hoped to attract people who wanted rapid access to London.
Within weeks, a London consortium offered Pooley £120,000 for the land, but he refused the quick profit, because he was keen to see his project through.
The new town
The scheme moved ahead rapidly, because Pooley took personal control of it and he threw himself into it with enthusiasm. He drew up plans and engaged an architect, engineers, builders and labourers. He supervised the project closely, moving about the area to ensure that all was progressing well.
By the 1841 census Thomas and Jane were living in a new house in Claremont Crescent, now The Crescent, and Alexander, who appears to have given up other employment to assist his father, had moved into a house in Victoria Terrace, now a row of shops in Victoria Road close to the station.
The original station, approached by way of a steep descent into the cutting, soon proved to be wholly inadequate. So in 1839 Pooley gave land for a new station to be built on the present site, which is adjacent to an important road junction.
In August 1840, and again in October, The Times praised Pooley's enterprise in creating this remarkable development. Wide streets and a crescent were lined with handsome houses.