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Welcome to Southall History, a website dedicated to the appreciation, promotion and preservation of Southall’s historic past, primarily through the medium of pictorial and photographic records.

Archaeological evidence has shown Southall’s lineage to date as far back as Palaeolithic times and written archives dating from AD 830 onwards have recorded the area variously known as Sudhale, Southalle, Hesse-cum-Southall, Southolt, Soutnoor, Southwould and finally Southall, as having progressively evolved from rural fiefdom, rustic hamlet and Industrial Age town, to independent Municipal Borough and finally, to today’s Greater London suburb.

This site and the images herein, primarily concentrates on the period encompassing the late Victorian era through to the 1970’s, with the occasional inclusion of material from later times wherever these constitute the earliest available likenesses of specific Southall topography no longer extant.

In compiling the material for this Southall History website, I have found myself deeply indebted to a great many individuals and organisations; these I gladly acknowledge both within the individual pages of this site as well as within the site’s dedicated ‘Acknowledgements’ page. Also featured therein are a number of individuals and organisations whose long and dedicated years of research and published works have done so much to bring to light and preserve a record of Southall and its historical past…and to these esteemed Southall historians I unreservedly accord their rightful plaudits.

The work of Southall History is by its very nature an ongoing project, one facet of which is to act as a venue for current and former residents of the town to share old photos and memories of Southall in order to preserve them within a dedicated online local history resource. To this end, any information, images and recollections relating to Southall’s past would be most gratefully received for inclusion within the site, with all contributors receiving full accreditation for their valuable contributions.

All that remains is to thank you as a visitor to this Southall History website for your time…and to wish you an enjoyable, interesting and informative experience browsing the content presented herein.

The dual Coat of Arms of the Borough of Southall shown above is the original copyright of the Municipal Borough of Southall. Following the post 1965 dissolution of the Borough of Southall and its subsequent succession by the London Borough of Ealing, copyright is presumed to have passed to that body. The usage of Southall Borough’s Arms within this historical website is for the purposes of the illustration of an obsolete set of Arms of an obsolete Middlesex Borough and as such, their display is presumed to constitute fair usage. Full acknowledgement is due to David Hale of New South Wales, Australia for the original artwork of the full armourial representation of Southall Borough’s Coat of Arms.