Coordinates: 51°24′03″N 0°09′06″W / 51.4009°N 0.1517°W / 51.4009; -0.1517

Mitcham
Eagle House, London Road, Mitcham, built in 1705
Mitcham  Mitcham shown within Greater London
OS grid reference	TQ285685
London borough	Merton
Ceremonial county	Greater London
Region	London
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	MITCHAM
Postcode district	CR4
Dialling code	020
Police	Metropolitan
Fire	London
Ambulance	London
EU Parliament	London
UK Parliament	Mitcham and Morden
London Assembly	Merton and Wandsworth
List of places: UK • England • London

Mitcham is a district in the south west area of London, in the London Borough of Merton. A suburban area, Mitcham is located on the border of Inner London and Outer London. It is both residentially and financially developed, well served by Transport for London, and home to Mitcham Town Centre, Mitcham Common, Mitcham Library, and Mitcham Cricket Green. Nearby districts include Wimbledon, Streatham, Tooting, Morden and Sutton.

Location[link]

Mitcham is on the east side of the London Borough of Merton and is bounded by the London Borough of Wandsworth, the London Borough of Croydon, the London Borough of Lambeth and the London Borough of Sutton. Mitcham is close to Wimbledon, Croydon, Streatham and Tooting. The River Wandle bounds the town to the southwest. The original village lies in the west, although expansion has pushed the eastern boundary the furthest. Mitcham Common takes up the greater part of the boundary and area to the south.

Mitcham had until recently never been well served by railway, due to its being equidistant between the historic lines of Waterloo to Southampton and London Bridge to Brighton. However, a recent addition of Mitcham Eastfields railway station in June 2008, nearer to the centre of the town than Mitcham Junction, on the same line, has improved transport links. It is the first suburban station to be built in 50 years in the area. The station serves routes to London Victoria, Blackfriars and London Bridge, and by changing at Streatham 5 minutes away, makes St Albans and Bedford and Luton airport within reach by direct trains. An 18th century milestone on Figges Marsh indicates Mitcham to be 8.5 miles from Whitehall.

Neighbouring areas

	Colliers Wood	Tooting	Streatham
	Morden & Rosehill		Beddington
		Mitcham    East
	Sutton	Hackbridge	Croydon & Pollards Hill

History[link]

The toponym "Mitcham" is Old English in origin and believed^{[by whom?]} to mean big settlement. Before the Romans and Saxons were present, there was a Celtic settlement in the area, with evidence of a hill fort in the Pollards Hill area. The discovery of Roman-era graves and a well on the site of the Mitcham gas works evince Roman settlement. The Saxon graveyard, located on the North bank of the Wandle is the largest discovered to date, and many of the finds therein are on display in the British Museum. The area is a possible location for the Battle of Merton, 871, in which King Ethelred of Wessex was either mortally wounded or killed outright. The Church of England parish church of St Peter and St Paul dates from the Saxon era. Although it was mostly rebuilt in 1819–21, the current building retains the original Saxon tower. The Domesday Book of 1086 lists Mitcham as a small farming community, with 250 people living in two hamlets; Mitcham, an area known today as Upper Mitcham; and Whitford, today known as the Lower Green area.

The area lay within the Anglo-Saxon administrative division of Wallington hundred.

The Domesday Book records Mitcham as Michelham. It was held partly by the Canons of Bayeux; partly by William, son of Ansculf and partly by Osbert. Its domesday assets were: 8 hides and 1 virgate. It had ½ mill worth £1, 3½ ploughs, 56 acres (23 ha) of meadow. It rendered £4 5s 4d.^[1]

Potter & Moore aftershave, made with Mitcham lavender

During her reign Queen Elizabeth I made at least five visits to the area. John Donne and Sir Walter Raleigh also had residences here in this era. It was at this time that Mitcham became gentrified, as due to the abundance of lavender fields Mitcham became renowned for its soothing air. The air also led people to settle in the area during times of plague.

When industrialisation occurred, Mitcham quickly grew to become a town and most of the farms were swallowed up in the expansion. Remnants of this farming history today include: Mitcham Common itself; Arthur's Pond, sited on the corner of Watney's Road and Commonside East, and named for a local farmer; Alfred Mizen School (Now named Garden Primary), named after a local nursery man who was very charitable towards the burgeoning town; and the road New Barnes Avenue, which was named after the farm that stood on that site.

There were many lavender fields in Mitcham, and peppermint and lavender oils were also distilled there. In 1749 two local physic gardeners, John Potter and William Moore, founded a company to make and market toiletries made from locally-grown herbs and flowers.^[2] Lavender features on Merton Council's coat of arms and the badge of the local football team, Tooting & Mitcham United F.C., as well as in the name of a local council ward, Lavender Field.

Mitcham was industrialised first along the banks of the Wandle, where snuff, copper, flour, iron and dye were all worked. Mitcham, along with nearby Merton Abbey, became the calico cloth printing centres of England by 1750. Asprey, suppliers of luxury goods made from various materials, was founded in Mitcham as a silk-printing business in 1781. William Morris opened a factory on the River Wandle at Merton Abbey. Merton Abbey Mills were the Liberty silk-printing works. It is now a craft village and its waterwheel has been preserved.

The activity along the Wandle led to the building of the Surrey Iron Railway, the World's first public railway, in 1803. The decline and failure of the railway in the 1840s also heralded a change in industry, as horticulture gradually gave way to manufacturing, with paint, varnish, linoleum and firework manufacturers moving into the area. The work provided and migratory patterns eventually resulted in a doubling of the population between the years 1900 and 1910.

Mitcham became a borough on 19 September 1934 with the charter of incorporation being presented to the 84-year old mayor, Mr. R.M. Chart, by the Lord Lieutenant of Surrey, Lord Ashcombe.^[3]

Social housing schemes in the 1930s included New Close, aimed at housing people made homeless by a factory explosion in 1933 and Sunshine Way, for housing the poor from inner London. This industry made Mitcham a target for German bombing during World War II. During this time Mitcham also returned to its agricultural roots, with Mitcham Common being farmed to help with the war effort.

From 1929 the electronics company Mullard had a factory on New Road.

Post war, the areas of Eastfields, Phipps Bridge and Pollards Hill were rebuilt to provide cheaper more affordable housing. The largest council housing project in Mitcham is Phipps Bridge Estate. Further expansion of the housing estates in Eastfields, Phipps Bridge and Pollards Hill occurred after 1965. In Mitcham Cricket Green, the area lays reasonable, although not definitive, claim to having the world's oldest cricket ground in continual use, and the world's oldest club in Mitcham Cricket Club. The ground is also notable for having a road separate the pavilion from the pitch. Local folklore also claims Mitcham has the oldest fair in England, believing it to have been granted a charter by Queen Elizabeth I, although this claim has not been proven.

Demographics[link]

Population - 47,500

Ethnicities

White - 47.5% British - 35%, Irish - 2.8%, Other White - 9.7%

Mixed - 3.9% White and Black Caribbean - 1.5%, White and Black African - 0.7%, White and Asian - 0.9%, Other Mixed - 0.8%

Asian - 19.5% Indian - 5.3%, Pakistani - 4.6%, Bangladeshi - 3.4%, Other Asian - 6.2%

Black - 23.5% Caribbean - 10.4%, African - 10.8%, Other Black - 2.3%

Chinese or other ethnic group - 5.6% Chinese - 2.5%, Other ethnic group - 3.1%

Religion: Christian: 57.9%, Hindu: 5.9%, Muslim: 11.5% Other: 24.7%

Gender: Male: 48.6%, Female: 51.4%

Open Space[link]

Pond on Mitcham Common.

Mitcham is home to a vast area (460 acres) of South London's open green space in the form of Mitcham Common. There are several ponds and a few buildings on the Common. The buildings comprising the Windmill Trading Estate have existed in one form or another since 1782, when the estate was established as workhouses for the poor. Companies to have utilised the buildings include Hooper's Telegraph Works. Recently the Estate has been replaced by a mixed-tenure of housing apartments. The Mill House Ecology Centre and the Mill House Pub are located near the site of an old windmill, the remnants of which still exist. Also see separate article on Mitcham Common.

Notable buildings[link]

Old Mitcham Station

Mitcham Public Library,London Road, built in 1933

• The Canons, built in 1680.
• Eagle House, built in 1705.(See photograph in "Infobox" above.) Eagle House is a Queen Anne house built in the Dutch style. It is on London Road, Mitcham, the grounds forming a triangle bounded by London Road, Bond Road and Western Road. The building was commissioned by the marrano doctor Fernando Mendes (1647–1724), former physician to King Charles II.
• Mitcham Common Windmill, a post mill dating from 1806.
• Old Mitcham Station, on the Surrey Iron Railway route. Now called Station Court, the building was a former merchant's home and is possibly the oldest station in the world.(see photograph, right.)
• The Tate Almshouses, built in 1829 to provide for the poor by Mary Tate.
• The Watermead Fishing Cottages.
• Vestry Hall, the annex of which now houses the Wandle Industrial Museum.
• Mitcham Public Library, built in 1933.(See photograph, below right.)
• Elm Lodge, 1808. This listed Regency house was occupied by Dr. Parrott, a village doctor, in the early 19th century, and for a short time by the artist, Sir William Nicholson. The curved canopy over the entrance door is a typical feature of this period.
• Mitcham Court. The centre portion, first known as Elm Court, was built in 1840, the wings later. Caesar Czarnikow, a sugar merchant, lived here circa 1865-86 and presented the village with a new horse-drawn fire engine. Sir Harry Mallaby-Deeley, M.P., conveyed the house to the borough in the mid-1930s. The Ionic columned porch and the ironwork on the ground floor windows are notable features.
• Renshaw's factory, a marzipan factory, founded in 1898 in the City and thus one of the earliest in the country, which came to Mitcham in 1924. It was on Locks Lane until 1991, when the company moved its operations to Liverpool. The factory was featured in three 1950s British Pathe News shorts. The building has lent its name to the area where it stood, Renshaw Corner.
• Poulters Park, Home to Mitcham Rugby Union Football Club
• Imperial Fields, Tooting & Mitcham United F.C.'s home ground.

Notable residents[link]

• Jo Brand – comedienne: lived in Mitcham
• Steve Brookstein – winner of the first series of TV talent show The X Factor.
• Roy Budd – jazz musician
• Ambrose Crowley – ironmaster
• John Donne – Jacobean poet.
• M.I.A. – singer, songwriter and rapper.
• Master Shortie – MC
• Michael Fielding – The Mighty Boosh comedian – Noel's younger brother
• Noel Fielding – The Mighty Boosh comedian
• Mike Fillery – footballer
• David Gibson – cricketer
• Neil Howlett – opera singer, born in Mitcham
• Maxwell Knight – spymaster
• Chris Powell – manager of League One football club Charlton Athletic and former footballer, grew up in Mitcham.
• Annie Ross – jazz singer
• Slick Rick – rapper: born in Mitcham but moved to the Bronx, New York aged 10.
• Shane Smeltz – New Zealand footballer: lived in Mitcham when he played for AFC Wimbledon
• Alex Stepney – former Manchester United footballer and 1968 European Cup winner
• Herbert Strudwick – cricket wicket-keeper
• John Mosely Turner – supercentenarian
• William Allison White – recipient of the Victoria Cross
• Faryadi Sarwar Zardad – Afghan warlord. Later tried for war crimes, convicted and imprisoned.
• Mud^{[citation needed]} – glam rock group
• The Field Mice - pop group

Transport and locale[link]

Nearest places[link]

• Pollards Hill
• Beddington
• Sutton
• Carshalton
• Morden
• Norbury
• Streatham
• Thornton Heath
• Tooting
• Croydon
• Colliers Wood

Mitcham is on the Croydon Tramlink providing easy access to Wimbledon as well as Croydon

Nearest stations[link]

• Mitcham Eastfields station
• Mitcham Junction station
• Mitcham tram station
• Tooting railway station
• Tooting Broadway tube station
• Colliers Wood tube station
• Norbury railway station
• Streatham Common railway station

Recent developments[link]

A new railway station, Mitcham Eastfields railway station in the area of Eastfields, opened on Monday 2 June 2008. This is located at Eastfields Road level crossing, about a mile to the north of Mitcham Junction. The station has filled in a gap in the rail system and serves the centre of Mitcham more directly.

References[link]

This article's citation style may be unclear. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation, footnoting, or external linking. (September 2009)

• "The Town Of Mitcham". The Wandle Valley Railway - Reflections. http://www3.sympatico.ca/lsw.lbsc/MITCHAM.HTM. Retrieved 2005-05-16. 
• "Merry Making at Mitcham". University of Sheffield National Fairground Archive. Archived from the original on 2004-12-21. http://web.archive.org/web/20041221055635/http://www.shef.ac.uk/nfa/history/worlds_fair/articles/mitcham.php. Retrieved 2005-05-16. 
• "Making Merton". London Borough of Merton - Making Merton. http://www.merton.gov.uk/history/makingmerton.htm. Retrieved 2005-05-16. 
• "A Brief History of Merton by John Precedo: Part 1 - Romans to the Norman Conquest". Tooting Website - History. http://pages.britishlibrary.net/rhavy/heugont.html. Retrieved 2005-05-16. 
• "Mitcham". The Surrey Choicenet Website. http://web.ukonline.co.uk/honor.m/towns/mitcham/mitcham.html. Retrieved 2005-05-16. 
• "The 'Canons' Mitcham". by E.N. Montague. http://shrinkster.com/am9. Retrieved 2006-01-07. 
• "North Mitcham". by E.N. Montague. http://shrinkster.com/ama. Retrieved 2006-01-07. 
• "Historic River Wandle: Phipps Bridge to Morden Hall". by E.N. Montague. http://shrinkster.com/amb. Retrieved 2006-01-07. 

External links[link]

• Mitcham Art - Artists Studios Open to the Puplic
• Gospel Hall Mitcham Junction
• Mitcham Korfball Club
• Mitcham - 1911 Encyclopædia article
• Merton Borough Council
• Mitcham Rugby Union Football Club
• Tooting & Mitcham United Football Club
• A Mitcham Walk
• GENUKI: UK & Ireland Genealogy : Mitcham

v t e London Borough of Merton Districts Colliers Wood Lower Morden Merton Park Mitcham Morden Morden Park Motspur Park Raynes Park St Helier South Wimbledon West Barnes Wimbledon Wimbledon Park Attractions New Wimbledon Theatre Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Wimbledon Stadium Wimbledon Windmill Constituencies Mitcham and Morden Wimbledon Other topics People Public art Schools Parks and open spaces in Merton

Matthew Mitcham

Matthew Mitcham Olympian
Personal information
Full name	Matthew Mitcham
Nickname(s)	Matt
Born	(1988-03-02) 2 March 1988 (age 24) Brisbane
Residence	Sydney
Height	1.74 metres (5 ft 9 in)
Sport
Country	Australia
Event(s)	1 m, 3 m, 5 m, 7 m, 10 m
Club	Abbotsleigh Diving Club NSW, Perfect 10 diving
Former partner(s)	Scott Robertson (3 m)
Medal record Olympic Games Competitor for  Australia Gold 2008 Beijing 10 m Platform World Championships Bronze 2009 Rome 1 m Springboard Commonwealth Games Silver 2010 Delhi 1 m Springboard Silver 2010 Delhi Synchronized 3 m Springboard Silver 2010 Delhi 10 m Platform Silver 2010 Delhi Synchronized 10 m Platform

Matthew Mitcham, (born 2 March 1988 in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia) is an Australian diver. He is the 2008 Olympic champion in the 10 m platform, having received the highest single-dive score in Olympic history. He is the first Australian male to win an Olympic gold medal in diving since Dick Eve at the 1924 Summer Olympics, and one of few openly gay athletes at the 2008 Summer Olympics.^[1]

Career[link]

Mitcham originally competed as a trampoline gymnast. He was spotted by Wang Tong Xiang, who is a coach at the Australian Institute of Sport Diving Program, while at the Chandler Aquatic Centre in Brisbane's suburbs, and Mitcham continued with both diving and trampolining for several years.

As a trampolinist, Mitcham represented Australia at the World Junior Championships in 1999 and 2001, winning the double mini-tramp event. He also competed at the Australian Youth Olympic Festival in 2003, finishing sixth.

From 2002 through 2004, Mitcham was a national junior champion in diving, winning the events in which he competed. Mitcham competed at the 2002 World Junior Diving Championships, where he placed 11th in the 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) springboard, 5th in the 3 m and 16th in the 10 m platform. In 2004, he won the silver medals in the 1 m, 3 m synchronised, and 10 m platform events at the World Junior Championships. At the 2004 Junior Nationals, he won the 1 m, 3 m, and 10 m and 3 m synchro titles. At the 2004 Olympic Trials, he placed 3rd on the 3 m and 10 m individual events, 2nd on the 3 m and 10 m synchro events, and did not qualify for the Olympic team. In 2005, Mitcham won his first senior national title. He competed at the Australian Olympic Youth Festival, where he won the silver medal in the 1 m with a score of 508.35, and won the 3 m, 10 m and 3 m synchro (with Scott Robertson) titles with scores of 565, 555.8, and 316.23 respectively. At the 2005 World Aquatics Championships in Montreal, he placed 12th on the 10 m platform with a score of 560.73.

In 2006, Mitcham competed in the German Grand Prix event, placing 16th on the 3 m and 6th on the 10 m, and at the US Grand Prix at Fort Lauderdale, placing 8th on the 3m springboard. At the Canada Cup he placed 26th on the 3 m and won the bronze medal on the 10 m platform. He represented Australia at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, where he competed in the 1 m, 3 m, and 10 m events. He placed 4th in the 3 m and the 3 m synchro with Robertson, and 5th on the 1 m and 10 m events.

Taking a break from the sport in 2006, he returned in 2007 and started to train under current coach Chava Sobrino at the New South Wales Institute of Sport. In 2008 Mitcham won the 1 m, 3 m and 10 m individual events at the Australian Nationals. Later that year he won the 2008 Diving Grand Prix event in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.^[2]

2008 Summer Olympics[link]

Mitcham at the 2009 Mardi Gras, Sydney

Mitcham represented Australia at the 2008 Summer Olympics in the 10 m platform and the 3 m springboard events. He placed 16th on the 3 m springboard and did not qualify for the final. He qualified in second position for the semi-final and final of the 10 m platform event. After experiencing mixed success in his first five dives in the final, Mitcham entered the final round of dives in second place, 34 points behind Chinese diver Zhou Lüxin.^[3] After Zhou performed his worst dive of the final and scored 74.80, Mitcham still needed to score 107.30, a very high score on the platform, to win the gold.^[3] However, his near-perfect final dive drew four perfect 10 scores from judges and achieved a score of 112.10, the highest single-dive score in Olympic history.^[4] He finished with an overall score of 537.95 to defeat Zhou, who finished with an overall score of 533.15, to win Australia's second diving medal of the Games. His win prevented China from claiming a clean-sweep of all diving gold medals at the Olympic Games.^[5] He is the first Australian male to win an Olympic gold medal in diving since Dick Eve in 1924.^[6]

Mitcham's medal was followed by the Australia Post issuing a 50 cent stamp of him. His stamp was issued on 26 September 2008, one day after his victory.

2009 and beyond[link]

Following his victory at the 2008 Summer Olympics, Mitcham placed fourth in his next major contest on the 10 metre platform, the 2009 World Aquatics Championships in Rome. He was beaten narrowly by Zhou Lüxin, the Chinese diver he'd beaten in the Olympics final, while British youngster Tom Daley took home the championship.

At the 2010 Commonwealth Games, Mitcham won four silver medals, partnering fellow Australian diver Ethan Warren to come runner-up in the synchronized events in both the 3 and 10 metre. In the 1 metre springboard final he lost to Canadian Alexandre Despatie. In his specialist event, the 10 metre platform, he again lost to Tom Daley.

In December 2011, Mitcham returned from an abdominals injury to win the Australian 10-meter platform with 480.05 points putting his Olympic dreams back on track. Not only did Mitcham achieve this accolade, he was also named Male Diver of the Year 2012

Personal life[link]

Mitcham leading the 2009 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras

Mitcham was born in Brisbane but lives and trains in Sydney. He publicly came out as gay in 2008 to the Sydney Morning Herald when they were profiling Olympic hopefuls.^[8] During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he was also featured on the cover of the international gay publication The Advocate^[9] in August 2008 and March 2009, as well as the cover of Australian gay publication DNA. Mitcham's boyfriend, Lachlan Fletcher, attended the 2008 Summer Olympic Games as a spectator. His trip was sponsored by a grant from Johnson & Johnson's Athlete Family Support Program.^[8]

Mitcham gained media coverage in Australia as reporters thought he was the first Australian to compete at the Olympic Games as an openly gay man at the time of his competition. However, Mathew Helm, the Australian diver who won the silver medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics in the men's 10m platform, had publicly announced he was gay before the Olympics began.^[10][11] Other notable gay Australian Olympians include Ji Wallace, who competed at the 2000 Summer Olympics and won a silver medal in the inaugural trampoline event; however, he came out after the Games.^[12]

Prior to his 10m platform win, Mitcham was reported to be one of only eleven openly gay athletes competing in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, out of 11,028 athletes from 204 countries.^[13][14][15]

Mitcham has said when asked to comment on his coming out: "I don’t see sexuality as influencing my beliefs or opinions or perceptions of anybody, whether they’re gay, straight, bi, trans, experimental, I don’t care. I see it as a very uninfluential factor in people." Mitcham has said that after the Beijing Olympics, he received many letters from gay teenagers, "and that was really nice, really humbling".^[16]

In 2009 and 2010, Mitcham was selected by readers of samesame.com.au as one of the 25 most influential gay Australians.^[17]

Sponsorship[link]

Despite his diving achievements, Mitcham struggled to attract corporate sponsorship. In the The Advocate, an editor said, "What's a guy to do when he's got the gold, the fame, the man - but no big-time endorsements?"^{[Full citation needed]} In 2009, Mitcham secured financial support from the Australian telecommunications provider Telstra.^[18]

In March 2010, Matthew Mitcham was announced as the new face of Funky Trunks. He will appear on advertising campaigns across Australia, Europe and the United States as the brand rapidly expands into international markets.^[19][20][21] He is also a spokesman and "swimwear ambassador" for the brand.^[22]

Other appearances[link]

• In 2009, Matthew Mitcham was the Chief of Parade of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras^[23] after being declared the 2008 Australian Sports Performer of the Year.
• In February and March 2010, Mitcham appeared in the second season of Rexona Greatest Athlete Australia reality television series in which 8 of Australia's most popular sports athletes compete in 8 episodes in various challenges to win the "best athlete" award.
• He also announced taking part in the Cologne 2010 Gay Games in Germany. He was seen promoting the Games.^[24] The Gay Games VIII will be held in August 2010. The event will feature 35 sports, as well as community and cultural events.
• He also competed in an episode of 'Talkin' 'bout your generation', representing Gen Y with comedian Josh Thomas.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Matthew Mitcham

• Official site
• Australian Olympic Team profile
• 2008 Olympics profile