We can all recognise why some roads have their names: London and Station Roads and the High Street are self evident and locals can readily work out that the Portsmouth Road/A3 was the main coaching route from London to Portsmouth Harbour. But what about some of the more obscure ones?

In Lower Green, Esher, the naming of Joseph Locke Way will draw a blank for those younger residents but in his day he was either as famous a singer as Adele, Taylor Swift or Bryn Terfel or in an earlier century was a renowned Victorian engineer. The third ‘outside contender’ for the street name honour is an American jazz vibraphonist (born in 1959) but its odds on that his is too obscure a connection!

Joseph McLaughlin (1917– 1999), known professionally as Joseph/Josef Locke, was an Irish tenor born in Derry. He started singing in local churches in the Bogside at the age of seven, and as a teen added two years to his age to enlist in the Irish Guards, later serving abroad with the Palestine Police Force before returning in the late 1930s to join the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC).

Known as The Singing Bobby (an old fashioned nickname for a police officer), he became a local celebrity before starting to work on the UK variety circuit, where he also played summer seasons in English seaside resorts. He became very successful in the 1940s and 1950s and, in 1947, released “Hear My Song, Violetta” which remains forever associated with him.

Joseph Locke (1805 – 1860) was a notable English civil engineer of the nineteenth century, particularly associated with major railway projects. Locke was friends with, and ranked alongside, Robert Stephenson and Isambard  Kingdom Brunel as one of the major pioneers of railway development and was President of the Institution of Civil Engineers between December 1857 and December 1859. The original Barnes rail bridge, an icon of the annual Oxbridge Boat Race, was built in 1849 to a design by Joseph Locke and looked very similar to the original Richmond Railway Bridge which he also designed. A replacement bridge was completed in 1895 but the original Locke span still stands unused on the upstream side. He also served as Member of Parliament for Honiton in Devon from 1847 until his death in 1860.

Joseph Locke Way is adjacent to the Victorian era main London to Portsmouth railway line so which one do you think?

Simon Leifer, Chair, Esher Residents Association (ERA)