KENSINGTON***


Transcribed from the S. Mary Abbots Parish Magazine (reprint) by David
Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org.  Many thanks to the Royal Borough of
Chelsea and Kensington Libraries for allowing their copy to be used for
this transcription.





                   The Endowed Charities of Kensington;


                           BY WHOM BEQUEATHED,
                                   AND
                            HOW ADMINISTERED.

                                * * * * *

                                    BY

                        EDWARD MORTON DANIEL, Esq.

                                * * * * *

                                * * * * *

          _Reprinted from the_ “S. MARY ABBOTS PARISH MAGAZINE.”

                                * * * * *

                                * * * * *

                    _Printed for Private Circulation_




The Endowed Charities of Kensington; by whom Bequeathed, and how
Administered.


                      BY EDWARD MORTON DANIEL, ESQ.

_A Paper read at a Meeting of the Kensington Ratepayers Association_,
_held at S. Mark’s Parish Rooms_, _Notting Hill_, _on Tuesday_, 21_st_
_April_, 1891.

          [Reprinted from the “S. MARY ABBOTS PARISH MAGAZINE.”]

AS everyone has need of charity, everyone exercises charity, and most of
us receive charity, the subject is of personal application and importance
to us all.  This is the case when charity is abstractly regarded; but
when we approach the consideration of the charities of our own parish,
those which we are bound to support and upon which we have individually a
claim, our subject must excite the keenest interest.  Too much cannot be
known about them in order that their benefits may be distributed amongst
the fittest subjects and most deserving persons that can be found; and in
order that those of us who are blessed with means may learn how carefully
and fruitfully any benefaction we may make in the future will be utilised
and bestowed, if placed in the hands of those administering the charities
already established in our parish.

Perhaps the point which will strike you most, when you have learned what
I have to tell you this evening of the charities of Kensington, is the
circumstance that, from small sums of money left for purposes of charity,
great and ever growing results may spring, fulfilling purposes of good
far beyond the most sanguine anticipations in which the original donors
could have ever indulged.

Old Faulkner, to whose quaint and interesting history of Kensington I
would refer all lovers of antiquity and curious anecdote, writing in
1820, says: “The amount of benefactions to this parish is highly
creditable to the humanity of the original founders, and it is a pleasing
as well as an important part of the duty of the historian to record
these; perhaps in few parishes in the kingdom have they been more
scrupulously observed, or more faithfully administered.”  Pleasing as it
was to Faulkner seventy years ago to remark upon the then condition of
the parish charities, it will be yet more gratifying to us to observe at
the present time how greatly they have developed, and how admirably they
have been fostered, improved, and administered.  Seventy years ago
Kensington was really rural, containing only three or four hamlets, or
assemblages of dwellings, a few large houses with grounds, some
celebrated nursery and market gardens, and a few distinguished
inhabitants.  This is what Tickell, the poet, says about it:—

    “Here, while the town in damp and darkness lies,
    They (at Kensington he means) breathe in sunshine and see azure
    skies.”

What Kensington is now we all know; would that its charities had grown in
proportion to its population.  Perhaps if through your kind exertions
more attention can be drawn to the subject they may enlarge, and the
history of the future charities of Kensington prove as creditable as the
past.

In the year 1807 a joint committee of the trustees of the poor, and of
the vestry, was appointed to consider and report, amongst other subjects,
upon the charities of the parish; and that committee undertook a most
careful and exhaustive inquiry into the matter, the results of which were
recorded in “The Report of the Kensington Committee of the 30th October,
1810.”  It is needless to say that this report has now become a very rare
document.  Fortunately a copy has been preserved in the archives of the
vestry, and to that copy—through the kindness of the vestry clerk,
although with all due precautions to its safe preservation—I have had
access; and thus we are enabled to make an interesting comparison between
the condition of the parish and its charities then and now.

It appears from this report (which is as able a document as I ever read)
that the parish in 1810 contained about 1,500 rateable houses, and an
estimated population of 10,000 souls.

It appears from the report to the vest