Sir Peter Griggs (1849 - 1920) was a self-made man, by his own account a lighterman who later became a builder and developer. He made his political career in local government and came late to Parliament, securing election for the new seat of Ilford in 1918. Less than two years later he was dead.
William Peter Griggs was born at 123 Brick Lane in Bethnal Green, London on 1 November 1849. Neither Dod nor Who's Who have this date, but research done by Tony Benton and Joan Parish, when preparing their account of Upminster as a Garden Suburb, has established not only the correct date, but also his birthplace which he had supposed to be South Hackney. He was the second of three children born to Martha Catt and her husband, John Griggs, a cheesemonger. He died from chronic hepatitis on 30 September 1857.
Left fatherless at the age of seven, Griggs had to make his own way in life. He records that he was educated privately, an entry that perhaps conceals more than it reveals. He would seem to have become apprenticed to William Gregory of Deptford in October 1869 and after five years' apprenticeship paid his dues as a member of the Company of Watermen and Lightermen from 1874 until 1884. This would seem to confirm Griggs's own recollection that "by dint of rigid economy" he managed to save enough to buy a barge, making a down payment of £100 with the remaining £400 paid off in instalments. In fact he seems soon to have added a second barge, but by 1878 he was no longer a sole owner, but a shareholder in three barges. By 1885 his career as working lighterman was behind him. He claimed to have made and lost a fortune by the time he was 30 (presumably on his reckoning 1883 or 1884) and that he had then to make a fresh start. We know nothing of how he made a recovery, beyond the statement that it took him years to do it. However, he would seem to have come to Ilford from Bexley in about 1890 and Tony Benton has noted his involvement in building works at Wanstead, Walthamstow and Leyton.[1] In his own words, he "left the water to find a path not quite so rough and on firm ground".
By the time he was elected to the Ilford District Council in 1899, he was well established as the governing director of W.P.Griggs & Co Ltd, and his firm had already made a substantial contribution to the development of Ilford. They had acquired the Cranbrook Park estate and erected substantial houses in streets with impressive names like Kensington Gardens and Mayfair Gardens. The Central Park estate followed after 1900. But his most ambitious development was still to come. In September 1906 he announced his intention of laying out some 700 acres of the Upminster Hall estate along the lines of a Garden Suburb. With support from the local council and the local press, the development was under way by November 1906 and further substantial developments took place in the years before the war.[2] In addition to his control of Messrs W.P.Griggs & Co Ltd. he was also governing director of South Essex Recorders Ltd.
Griggs entered local politics in 1899 when he was elected to Ilford District Council, becoming the chairman in 1910. In 1901 he was elected on to the Essex County Council, subsequently being elected an Alderman. He was a Justice of the Peace for Essex. He was knighted in 1916.
The High Road Congregational Church, which was served by his friend and neighbour, Charles Vine, was very active in the field of social reform. It had organised a labour exchange by 1904 and it also ran a sick benefit society, a hospital savings group, a holiday savings club and a benevolent society. Griggs was active in this work.
Griggs failed to get into Parliament when he stood for Romford in 1910 and was defeated by Sir John Bethell. When the Ilford division was carved out of Romford before the 1918 election, Griggs was selected as the Unionist candidate and duly received the "coupon". He was elected with a large majority recording 15,870 votes to Labour’s 4,621 with the Liberal candidate on 3,261.
After a long illness he died at his home in The Drive, Ilford on 11 August 1920 he died at his home in Ilford after a long illness. Although a member of the Church of England, his funeral on 21 August took place by his own wish at the High Road Congregational Church, where he had worshipped. It was a measure of the esteem in which he was held locally that the route of his funeral procession was lined by crowds standing on either side of the road for two miles. All the local societies and clubs were represented and Reverend C.H.Vine, who conducted the service, described him as "a Christian whose religion was more in conduct than in creed, a helper of the struggling poor, and the best friend Ilford ever had".