Editing Clapham Common (section)

== History ==
[[File:View on Clapham Common by Turner.jpg|thumb|left|View on Clapham Common by [[J. M. W. Turner]] (1800–1805)]]

Originally common land for the parishes of Battersea and Clapham, [[William Hewer]] was among the early Londoners to build adjacent to it. [[Samuel Pepys]], the diarist, died at Hewer's house in 1703. The land had been used for [[cricket]] in 1700<ref>Waghorn HT (1906) ''The Dawn of Cricket'', p.4. Electric Press.</ref> and was drained in the 1760s,<ref name=drain /> and from the 1790s onwards fine houses were built around the common as fashionable dwellings for wealthy business people in what was then a village detached from metropolitan London. Some later residents were members of the [[Clapham Sect]] of evangelical reformers and [[Abolitionism in the United Kingdom|slavery abolitionists]], including [[William Wilberforce]], [[John Shore, 1st Baron Teignmouth|Lord Teignmouth]] and [[Henry Thornton (abolitionist)|Henry Thornton]].<ref>Gathro, John [http://www.cslewisinstitute.org/webfm_send/471 "William Wilberforce and His Circle of Friends"], ''CS Lewis Institute''. Retrieved 31 August 2016</ref>

In the early 1770s, during his stay in London representing America in affairs of the state, [[Benjamin Franklin]] had written a paper explaining how he used the ponds for science experiments, and in developing a "magic" trick. While traveling on a ship, Franklin had observed that the wake of a ship was diminished when the cooks scuttled their greasy water. He studied the effects at Clapham Common on a large pond there. "I fetched out a cruet of oil and dropt a little of it on the water ... though not more than a teaspoon full, produced an instant calm over a space of several yards square." He later used the trick to "calm the waters" by carrying "a little oil in the hollow joint of my cane."<ref>W. Gratzer, ''Eurekas and Euphorias'', pp. 80, 81</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Mertens |first1=Joost |title=Oil on troubled waters: Benjamin Franklin and the honor of Dutch Seamen |url=https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.2180175 |journal=Physics Today |pages=36–41 |language=en |doi=10.1063/1.2180175 |date=12 January 2007|volume=59 |url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Franklin's teaspoon of oil |url=https://edu.rsc.org/download?ac=11854 |publisher=The Royal Society of Chemistry}}</ref>

[[J. M. W. Turner]] painted "View on Clapham Common" between 1800 and 1805, showing that even though the common had been drained, it still remained "quite a wild place".<ref name=drain>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MynSOYoMVzkC&pg=PA121|title=Common Land in English Painting, 1700–1850|page=121|author=Ian Waites|publisher=Boydell Press|date= 2012|isbn=9781843837619}}</ref>

The common was converted to parkland under the terms of the [[Metropolitan Commons Act  1878|Metropolitan Commons Act]] in 1878.<ref>[https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1878/71/pdfs/ukpga_18780071_en.pdf Metropolitan Commons Act 1878]</ref> As London expanded in the 19th century, Clapham was absorbed into the capital, with most of the remaining palatial or agricultural estates replaced with terraced housing by the early 1900s.<ref>{{cite web |last=Green |first=Michael |title=From Farmyard to Factory Floor: a brief history of the QAS site at Clapham Common |url=https://claphamsociety.com/articles/farmfactory-qas-claphamcommon/ |website=The Clapham Society |date=1 December 2009}}</ref>

In 1911, Scottish evangelist and teacher [[Oswald Chambers]] founded and was principal of the Bible Training College in Clapham Common, an "embarrassingly elegant" property situated at 45 North Side that had been purchased by the Pentecostal League of Prayer.<ref>McCasland, David (1993). Oswald Chambers: Abandoned To God : the life story of the author of My Utmost for His Highest. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Discovery House Publishers. {{ISBN|1-57293-050-0}}</ref>

During [[World War II]], a heavy [[Anti-aircraft warfare|anti-aircraft artillery]] site had been set up on the common. Storage bunkers were built on the Battersea Rise side; two mounds remain.<ref>{{cite web |title=Clapham Common: World War II |url=https://boroughphotos.org/lambeth/clapham-common-clapham-world-war-ii/ |website=Borough Photos |publisher=Lambeth Landmark |language=en |date=31 January 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=On the battlefields of Clapham |url=https://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/6446222.on-the-battlefields-of-clapham/ |work=News Shopper |date=2 November 2000 |language=en}}</ref>