Early Years

William Henry Punchard was born in Harberton in South Devon on 15 February 1835 to John and Elizabeth Punchard who were farmers. In 1851 the family was living in Totnes, south Devon and William Henry Punchard is described as ‘a tailor’s apprentice’.

He married Mary King at Camberwell in 1857 by which time his occupation is given as ‘H M Customs’. The 1861 Census records him living in Mile End, London, employed as ‘clerk H M Customs’.

Comes to Twickenham

Colne Lodge in 1786

By 1871 William Henry Punchard was living at Colne Lodge in Hanworth (now Staines) Road, Twickenham (right) with his wife and 3 children. His occupation is recorded as ‘engineer and contractor’. He was waiting to move into Poulett Lodge in Cross Deep, Twickenham (left) which he had bought in 1870 and was having totally reconstructed, reputedly at a cost of £70,000.

In the 1870s Punchard was involved in a number of major rail and tramway projects in the UK and around the world including: the Buenos Aires National Tramway, Lisbon Steam Tramway, Tasmanian Main Line Railway, North Western Railway of Montevideo, the Bedford and Northampton Railway and the West Lancashire Railway.

Bankruptcy

Poulett Lodge in 1923

His rise to wealth and business prominence was interrupted in 1879 when his company, Edwin Clark, Punchard and Co., presented a petition for bankruptcy. Punchard’s liabilities were £900,000 and Clark’s were £760,000.

In 1880 Punchard sold Poulett Lodge for £13,000, a fraction of the amount he had spent on its redevelopment, and by 1881 he had left Twickenham and was living in Buccleuch House, Portsmouth Road, Surbiton. However he was no longer with his wife but with his mistress Emma and a 1-year old daughter. His wife, Mary, and their children had moved to a large house at Totnes in Devon.

Later Life

Despite the bankruptcy, Punchard continued in the railway contracting business, trading as Punchard, McTaggart, Lowther and Co. At the time of his death on 25 December 1891 at Norbiton, Surrey, his company was about to complete a contract with the government of Siam for exploring and surveying a proposed railway from Bangkok to the border with China – a distance of 800 miles. He was buried on 31 December 1891 at Totnes, near to his birthplace in Harberton.

Poulett Lodge was demolished in the early 1930s and the site is now occupied by the Thames Eyot flats but the riverside balustrade, boathouse, entrance pillars and modified stable block remain from Punchard’s development.

There is a further family connection to Twickenham: William Henry Punchard’s son, William C Punchard, came to live at a house called Pope’s Garden in Cross Deep in 1900 and he lived there until 1940 when the house was damaged by bombing.

Further Reading
‘Thames Eyot – The Site of Poulett Lodge’ published by The Twickenham Museum.