Plaque

The plaque is on number 12 and refers to number 16, the house cut off at the left of our photo, the last house in the terrace. Dates on letters held by Nottingham suggest that Lawrence moved from number 12 to number 16 in September 1911.  He lodged here while employed as a teacher at Davidson Road School, a 20 minute walk away.  This still exists, now called the Robert Fitzroy Academy. (We thank Bob Bell for putting us right on this.)

Bob introduced us to Inside Croydon which comments on this address: "Lawrence taught at Davidson Road School from October 1908 to December 1911 and lodged with families during term time. His first hosts lived on Colworth Road, a 'still little street' ... his surroundings were working their way into his short fiction: in The Fly in the Ointment, Lawrence took the family house as a setting, with its 'hand’s-breadth of garden backed up by a railway embankment'."