Herbert Raphael (1859-1924) was a practising barrister, who unsuccessfully contested the Romford constituency as a Liberal candidate in both 1892 and 1897.1  (He eventually became an M.P. in 1906, capturing the South Derbyshire seat, which he held until 1918.2)

In 1894 he was a founder member of Romford golf club.³  In 1897 he purchased the Gidea Hall estate, comprising some 480 acres, and in 1902 gave a strip on the western edge for a public park.⁴

In 1910 he joined with two other Liberal M.P.s, Charles McCurdy and (Sir) Tudor Walters, to form Gidea Park Ltd., for the purpose of building a garden suburb on the remainder of the Gidea Hall estate.³

¹ Photograph reproduced from, and text based on,  Romford, Collier Row, & Gidea Park, plate 18, by permission of the author.
² Ibid., following plate 13.
³ Based on the Victoria History of the County of Essex, volume VII, page 59, by permission of the General Editor.
⁴ Ibid., page 68.