Drivers & Norris History
In
1850 a young man by the name of Driver (his Christian name is lost
to us) was appointed ‘agricultural agent’ to the Tufnell
Estate in North London. The area of the estate is today known as Tufnell
Park, a densely built up area which also gives its name to an underground
station. But in 1850 the Tufnell Estate was a large farm and parklands,
shaped like a diamond and bounded by Holloway Road, Camden Road, and
to the west by Brecknock and Junction Roads, leading up to Archway.
Pleased
to have become an agricultural agent so young (he was appointed
when he was only 18) Driver’s real job was to sell off
parcels of land from the Tufnell Estate. By 1852, with the blessing
of the Estate, he had set up on his own as Driver & Co.
His principal client was the Estate and obviously an amicable
understanding was reached with the Tufnell family because he
used premises owned by them - the ‘Northern Estate Office,
corner of Seven Sisters’ Road, Holloway, N’. Driver
and his successors in business acted for the Tufnell Estate
as it was rapidly developed for residential and commercial use.
The
Northern Estate Office was on the corner of Seven Sisters’ Road
where it meets the Holloway Road, close by the famous Victorian pub,
the Nag’s Head, which is now known as O’Neill’s. Today
the firm ’s premises are just a stone’s throw distant in
the Holloway Road. The impending development of this part of London
may well have inspired young Driver to go it alone, for these were
exciting times, fuelled by the recent arrival of the railway
at Euston. A map of 1862 shows that large areas of the Tufnell Estate
were still farmland and although there was incipient development on
the east side of the Holloway Road, well established as the southernmost
end of the great A1 road to the North and a main highway for the coaches
coming into London, green fields were still plentiful in the area,
mostly farms but also smallholdings, growing vegetables and fruit
to supply the ever-increasing demands of the capital. Fifteen years
later a map of 1877 shows dramatic changes. The east of Holloway Road
is solidly built-up and the Tufnell Estate is a shadow of its former
glory. There are numerous housing developments, and the City Prison,
on its south perimeter. Almost the only green spaces left are confined
to two cricket grounds - ‘Page’s’ and ‘Roberson’s’.
In addition to acting for the Tufnell Estate, Driver entered business
on his own account as an auctioneer and property agent, mainly for
rented properties, and by the 70s he was a regular advertiser in the
Islington Gazette, the Clerkenwell News and even the
Daily Telegraph:
To
Tobacconists - for DISPOSAL, a genuine BUSINESS in a main road.
Handsome plateglass front. House in good repair. Same hands
eleven years. Should be seen at once. Apply Driver & Co,
Auctioneers, Northern Estate Office, corner.
Or:
RENT
£50 - THE CHEAPEST AND most convenient 12-roomed villas in the
north of London. Of attractive elevation. The rooms are large and
lofty, facing Finsbury-park and commanding splendid views for 20 miles.
Large gardens. Close to ‘bus and rail.
‘Should
be seen at once’ was one of Driver’s favourite phrases.
Others were ‘Can be safely recommended’ and ‘Chance
seldom met with.’ All we know of his early auctioneering activities
was that for a few years he was involved with the Barbican Repository
run by Herbert Rymill, who traded as J S Gower & Co. Horses were
still kings of the road and much of Rymill’s business was concerned
with the sale of horses, coaches and carts.
Thus:
To
sell by AUCTION on TUESDAY NEXT, May 11, EIGHTEEN useful, young
HARNESS HORSES, eight Hansom and Clarence cabs (nearly new)
by Matthews, spring cart, wagonnette, harness, chaff-machine,
oat crusher etc by order of Mr William Smith, Sandwich Street,
Burton Crescent, [King’s Cross] his attention being wholly
occupied by his other business.
Mr
Driver meets Mr Perfect
During
the late 19th and early 20th centuries the Perfect family were
well known in the Holloway and Islington areas of north London.
Paterfamilias
was James Robert Perfect who, in 1871 went into partnership with Driver.
He was an auctioneer, property agent and builder - and, in the 1890s,
a theatre manager. The theatre was the Parkhurst at 401 Holloway Road,
a few doors away from the firm’s premises today. The theatre
was named after Parkhurst Road, which continues as Seven Sisters’
Road across the Holloway Road. It was built on the site of what had
previously been known as the Parkhurst Grand Hall and Theatre and
before that simply as the Parkhurst Hall. Next door was the Marlborough
Theatre. Driver and Perfect senior were partners in the building of
the theatre and it was formally opened by J R Perfect Junior on 24
May 1890, offering seats to 600 people for ‘Nixie’ which
starred a West End idol of the time, Lewis Waller. After the building
Driver does not seem to have been active in the management of the
theatre, which was run by J R Perfect junior and his two brothers,
H S Perfect and A W Perfect. Between them they offered varied bills
including English opera, Shakespearian seasons, and ‘Lady Windermere’s
Fan’, with stars such as Constance Collier, Gordon Craig and
Edward Terry. But at that time there were hundreds of small theatres
and music halls in London and in an attempt to remain competitive
light musicals, farces and melodramas took over, playing to meagre
houses and relying on the annual pantomime to remain solvent. In 1898
the Perfects decided they had enough and closed with a farewell programme.
The redoubtable Victorian theatre manager, Ben Greet, took over
but even he couldn’t save it and by 1911 it was a cinema
under the control of The Biograph Theatre Limited. Despite the
current and growing popularity of the ‘flicks’ that
didn’t work either and at length, in the 1920s, the building
became the equivalent of a bingo hall. But as a contemporary
author remarked, ‘The troubles empathically did not end
there: arguments over Parkhurst Prizes led to Parkhurst Punch-ups
and it was ordered to be closed a little over 40 years after
its proud opening.’
In
the 1870s, when Driver and Perfect came together the partnership
was mainly concerned with estate agency work (primarily lettings)
but as time went by conducted a variety of auctions. They acquired
new premises at 2 Seven Sisters’ Road and later, as the
business developed, at number 8, both near the junction of Seven
Sisters’ Road and Holloway Road and only a minute or two
from the firm’s present premises. At this period they also
had stables at Alexandra Park, Muswell Hill, where they conducted
equestrian auctions:
MESSRS
DRIVER and PERFECT are favoured with instructions to SELL by
AUCTION, at Alexandra Park on Thursday July 29 at two for three
o’clock, THIRTY wellbred DANISH HORSES and COBS, suitable
for Carriage, Omnibus and Tram. Also a very handsome COB GELDING
will be included in this sale. These horses are of excellent
description and warranted quiet in harness. On view at the Company’s
Stables, near Racecourse. Catalogues at the Stables and of the
Auctioneers, 2 Seven Sisters’ Road, Holloway, N.
By
1875 they could claim to have sold ‘more than 500 horses’
- Danish, Russian, Hungarian - but their everyday auctions were
houses or household effects:
MESSRS
DRIVER & PERFECT will SELL by AUCTION on Monday February
5th 1877; on the premises at 3 Eastwood-terrace, Hornsey-road,
opposite Grove-road at 12 for 1 o’clock the FURNITURE and
effects, comprising iron and other bedsteads, feather beds,
bolsters and pillows, sheets, blankets, wool mattresses, mahogany
and other chests of drawers, mahogany dressing table, mahogany
secretaire book case, marble-top washstands, toilet glasses,
tapestry and other carpets, oilcloth, rep and other curtains,
nearly new drawing room suite in green rep, plate-glass chiffonnier,
cottage piano-forte, walnut oval table, handsome pier glasses,
oelographs, cut lustres, vases, time-piece, hat and umbrella
stand, easy and other chairs in haircloth, mahogany dining table,
large linen press, kitchen tables and the usual effects. The
convenient house to let. On view Saturday before sale and morning
of sale. Catalogues of the Auctioneers, 2 Seven Sisters’
Road, Holloway.
Mr
Driver meets
Mr Norris
So the
years rolled by. By all accounts Driver and Perfect were hard workers
with an eye for detail and high standards of service - essential qualities
the present partners have inherited. To get her they built a prosperous
business which is now 150 years old. But by the dawn of the 20th century
they were both in their 70s and Perfect was looking to retire, which
he did before the first world war, although a photograph taken in
1911 shows that members of the Perfect family were still active in
the neighbourhood By then Driver, a man of remarkable energy and will
power, was 80 but still came to the office every day. During the years
of the first world war he was the sole partner, as he had been when
he started up on his own over 60 years before.
In the
last quarter of the 19th century one Harold Mosley Norris, a landlord’s
agent, was in business in the Camden Road, trading as Norris &
Matthews. Driver got to know him and after the war, when Matthews
retired, the two firms merged to form the present business - Drivers
& Norris. In 1920 Driver at last retired. He was 88 and had served
the firm he founded for 68 years. During his lifetime the world had
changed beyond belief. When he started in business in 1852 Holloway
was a rural suburb of London, the coaches and horse buses rumbling
down dusty lanes. The car, the aeroplane, the telephone, electricity,
were commonplace by the time of his retirement but were beyond imagination
when he started business in 1852. Mr Driver did not die until the
late 1920s when he was well into his 90s.
Norris
carried forward the already solidly established business of auctioneers,
estate agents, surveyors and valuers and was responsible, with other
local business men, for extensive development in the area. This was
the time when many private houses in the Holloway Road, Seven Sisters’
Road and the adjoining areas were redeveloped as blocks of flats or
converted into shops and businesses.
In
1931 the firm converted 407 Holloway Road, formerly a private
house (with front garden) into the commercial premises which
the firm still occupies today. In 1988 the adjoining property
(409) became available and was leased to extend the existing
premises. At the rear is a garage known as Myrtle Cottage Garage.
But Mr Driver would have known it as the blacksmith ’s
forge where, long before the trams and then the buses thundered
down the Holloway Road, the local horses were shod.
In
1943 the present senior partner, Ron Creed, joined the firm
as an employee. He was engaged by Mr Norris and remembers the
growth in the house sales market which came about after the
introduction of further Rent Acts and controls following the
end of the war. He remembers, too, the boom in post-war building,
war damage repairs and new developments. The post war Rent Acts
materially changed the bias of the firm from the management
of properties to include home sales.
In 1961 Mr Creed was offered and accepted a position to open
a firm of estate agents in Finsbury Park. In 1979 several Drivers
& Norris partners reached retirement age and the sole remaining
partner, Mr Malcolm Harmer, invited Mr Creed to rejoin Drivers
& Norris as a partner.
Over
the years others have joined the firm, including Mr R J Goodman
in 1974, becoming a partner in 1981; Mr D J Nicholls in 1969,
becoming a partner in 1981; and Mr M B Smith in 1986, becoming
a full partner in 1991. Mr I J Gault joined the firm in 1985,
becoming an associate partner in 1991. These partners lead a
thoroughly trained professional staff to provide a high degree
of service as auctioneers, estate agents, surveyors and valuers.
A
fully comprehensive property service is provided to private,
commercial and industrial clients.
Now
150 years old, Drivers & Norris are one of the largest and oldest
firms of their kind in north London with most aspects of the business
accredited to Quality Standard ISO 9002.