PETER GALE ends his series on famous Wimbledon residents with a look at war hero Sir Hugh Dowding, who led the RAF during their clash with Hitler’s Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain.

Sir Hugh (Lord) Dowding was the head of the Royal Air Force’s Fighter Command during the time of the Battle of Britain (1940).

Nicknamed "Stuffy" by his fellow officers, he was played by Laurence Olivier in the film adaptation of the great battle.

He had introduced modern fighting aircraft into the RAF in the 1930s, notably the Supermarine Spitfire and the Hawker Hurricane, and through his skillful management of resources and a supremely brave fighting force, Britain pulled off a victory against all the odds.

Ironically, Dowding was due to retire as Air Chief Marshal a year before the battle, but was permitted to carry on.

However, he was removed from his post shortly afterwards, and with a degree of bitterness later claimed that he was unfairly treated by the RAF.

He retired from the force in 1942 and lived at St Mary's Road in Wimbledon throughout the 1940s (the original house has since been demolished).

He began to write, and one of his books, Twelve Legions of Angels, had to be suppressed by the Government because they considered it contained information that could have been useful to Germany.

Apart from his military service, he was an ardent anti-vivisectionist, and in 1973 the Lord Dowding Fund for Humane Research was founded in his memory.

Dowding was honoured with a peerage in 1943 and a statue of him stands in The Strand in London.

It strikingly reads on the inscription "to him, the people of Britain and of the Free World owe largely the way of life and the liberties they enjoy today".

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