Plaque: W. F. R. Stanley - blue plaque
Erection date: 1993
W. F. R. Stanley, 1829 - 1909, inventor, manufacturer and philanthropist founded and designed these halls and technical school.
English Heritage
Site: Stanley Halls (5 memorials)
SE25, South Norwood Hill, 12
The portrait medallions are on the right hand flank wall, on Cumberlow Avenue. Reading left to right: W. F. R. Stanley; Mrs W. F. Stanley; the date, 1909, on an be-foliaged shield; Frank Jeffery; Frank Theobalds. That 1909 date is a little misleading. The Listing entry gives: "Technical trade school and public halls and art gallery. Main hall and gallery, 1901-03, second hall 1904, trade school 1907, secretary's house, 1909." We have not yet identified the sculptor of the medallions.
Over the years the building has lost various features, including busts of Darwin, Dickens, Faraday, Tennyson, Disraeli and Gladstone from the front façade of the main hall. The empty niches, some with plinths, remain. The Norwood Society explains: "... the frontage, diminished during the War and by the disappearance overnight in March 1966 of the bronze heads of seven eminent Victorians stolen by thieves for their metal content."
The Stanley Trade School is in a related but plainer style, to the left, north, of the Halls.
