George Meehan House
George Meehan House is a municipal building in High Road, Wood Green, London. It is a locally listed building.History
The building, which was designed in the Italianate style, was built as a private residence known as Earlham Grove House and was completed in 1865. The philanthropist Catherine Smithies, who founded the Band of Mercy animal welfare group which later merged with the RSPCA, lived in the house in the mid 19th-century. Her son, Thomas Bywater Smithies, who was the publisher of The British Workman, also lived in the house at that time.
The house was acquired by the local board of health for use as a public library in 1893 and it then became the offices of Wood Green Urban District Council in 1913. It went on to become the headquarters of the Municipal Borough of Wood Green when the area secured municipal borough status in 1933. The house remained the local town hall until the council moved to Wood Green Civic Centre in March 1958. It subsequently remained in use as the local registry office under the name Woodside House, before being refurbished and renamed George Meehan House, in memory of a former councillor, in 2018.
