Ironically, it was Thornton Heath's own "suburb" that put paid to any delusions of grandeur. The settlement at Norbury had been growing steadily since the 1880s. In 1904, a new newspaper, the Norbury News and Thornton Heath Chronicle proudly proclaimed: ""Norbury has passed Rubicon of newspaper ruraldom."" It then demanded that the THRPA become the Thornton Heath and Norbury Ratepayers Association. Next it proposed that the council petition Parliament to split the existing West Ward, with the resulting new sector to be christened "Norbury Ward" to officially recognise the area. Sure enough, in 1905, prompted by the growing electorate of the Thornton Heath district, the old West Ward was divided. A new "North Ward" was formed which took in Thornton Heath to the west of the railway line but included all of Norbury, In 1909, St Paul's parish lost a section of its population count to the new church of St Stephen on the Norbury border. Thornton Heath was shrinking. Norbury had broken away and formed its own suburb. Looking back at the history one can see that the district had come full circle: Bensham begat Norbury; Norbury begat Thornton Heath; Thornton Heath begat Norbury.