Group    From 1860 

Battersea Dogs & Cats Home

Categories: Animals

Founded by Mary Tealby in 1860 as the Temporary Home for Lost and Starving Dogs.

She established a place where people could send lost dogs from the streets and where their owners could retrieve them. It included space for exercising the dogs but was very much a temporary place of refuge, not a permanent home nor a hospital.

The precise location of the home varies slightly depending on source. All suggestions are in the area immediately south of Tealby's home in Victoria Road, now Chillingworth Road. Refer to this 1896 map, the nearest in date that we have found.

The plaque specifies that the home was just north of Sheringham Road, which at the time was Westbourne Road East. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography gives St James Road as the address. This is now MacKenzie Road. 

Describing the 1860s development of this area British History On-line says that the dogs home was established in Hollingsworth Road, "... in stables behind nos. 15 and 16 ...". The 1896 map shows a Hollingsworth Street joining what are now MacKenzie and Sheringham, and running just to the west of the building with the plaque. This is the most detailed location that we have come across and we find it the most convincing.

British History Online continues: "After her death in 1865 the home was carried on by a committee which included her brother the Revd. Edward Bates. Although ridiculed by press and public, the home received benefactions and by 1869 was admitting an average of 850 dogs a month, with c. 200 kept there at any one time. Complaints about the noise in a residential area prompted a move in 1871 to more suitable premises, where the enterprise became the Battersea Dogs' Home."

In 1871 the home moved to its current site on Battersea Park Road.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Battersea Dogs & Cats Home

Commemorated ati

Mary Tealby

Mary Tealby, 1801-1865, founded the Home for Lost & Starving Dogs (now Ba...

Read More

Other Subjects

National Anti-Vivisection Society

National Anti-Vivisection Society

The world’s first body to challenge the use of animals in research, founded by Frances Power Cobbe, in Victoria Street SW1 as the Victoria Street Society. 1898 the group split over whether it shoul...

Group, Animals

1 memorial
Gavin Maxwell

Gavin Maxwell

Author and Naturalist. Born at House of Elrig, Mochrum, Wigtownshire. During World War II he served as an instructor with the Special Operations Executive. In 1956 he toured the reed marshes of Sou...

Person, Animals, Literature, Iraq, Scotland

1 memorial
Virginia McKenna

Virginia McKenna

Actor and wild-life campaigner.  Born Marylebone.  Briefly married to actor Denholm Elliott, then to actor Bill Travers 1957 until his death in 1994.  Played Violette Szabo, in the 1958 film 'Carve...

Person, Cinema, Animals, Theatre

1 memorial
Hyde Park Barracks / Knightsbridge Barracks

Hyde Park Barracks / Knightsbridge Barracks

This site was first developed in 1795 for use by the Horse Guards. The barracks were designed by architect James Johnson and buildings were added up to 1803. (British History Online – 1st Barracks ...

Group, Armed Forces, Animals

2 memorials
South East Working Donkey Group

South East Working Donkey Group

Part of the Donkey Sanctuary, we think.

Group, Animals

1 memorial