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 vestry of the Medical Officer of Health
to the parish for the year 1888, dated July, 1889, that at the middle of
1888 the inhabited houses in the parish numbered 21,566, with an
estimated population of 177,000 persons.

In 1810 the main charity of the parish was then, as now, the Campden
Bequests.  There were also the Methwold Almshouses, the Parish Free
School, and some various other bequests of comparatively small amount for
specific objects, or for the purposes of the poor of the parish
generally.

What are known as the Campden Bequests have a most interesting history,
and have grown from very small beginnings into a wealthy institution.
They are alike the most ancient and most important of the parish
charities.

In 1629, Baptist Viscount Campden, of the family which built Campden
House, which has within the last sixty years extended its name to the
hill on which its stands, bequeathed the sum of £200 to two gentlemen,
and to the churchwardens of Kensington from time to time, “in trust to be
employed for the good and benefit of the poor of the parish for ever as
the trustees should think fit to establish.”  This sum of £200, with £20
added from accumulated interest and otherwise, was in 1635 expended in
the purchase of two closes of land containing fourteen acres, called
Charecrofts, situate near Shepherd’s Bush Green, a very fortunate
investment, as we shall presently find.

Elizabeth, Viscountess Dowager Campden, the widow of the former donor, in
1644 bequeathed another sum of £200 to Sir John Thorowgood and sundry
parishioners, and to the churchwardens of Kensington, “upon trust that
they should within eighteen months purchase lands of the clear yearly
value of £10; one-half whereof should be applied from time to time for
ever for and towards the better relief of the most poor and needy people
_that be of good life and conversation_ that should be inhabiting the
said parish of Kensington; and the other half thereof should be applied
yearly for ever to put forth one poor boy or more living in said parish
to be apprenticed.  The said £5 due to the poor to be paid to them
half-yearly for ever at Lady Day and Michaelmas in the church or the
porch thereof at Kensington.”

With Lady Campden’s £200 a close called Butt’s Field was immediately
purchased, containing 5 acres 2 roods and 30 perches, and the purchase
also included 3 roods to be taken out of an adjoining field, called the
Middle Quale Field, at the south end of Butt’s Field.  This purchase, we
shall find, has proved a still more profitable investment than that of
Lord Campden’s £200.

The remaining portion of the original property, now known as the Campden
Bequests, is of a still more interesting character.  In 1651, one Thomas
Coppin, in consideration of the sum of £45, sold to the same Sir John
Thorowgood and eleven of the parishioners and their heirs, “all that land
with the appurtenances at the gravel pits in Kensington, containing two
acres, in the occupation of Richard Barton.”  No trust was declared in
this conveyance, but subsequent occurrences leave no doubt that it was
intended for purposes similar to those provided for by Lord and Lady
Campden’s wills.  And the purchase having been made so shortly after the
two others, and at a time when the great Oliver Cromwell was the ruler of
the country under the title of Protector, and when he held property in
the parish, added to the circumstance that the gift was always
traditionally ascribed to him and known as Cromwell’s gift, appear to
leave no real doubt that it is to Oliver Cromwell that the parish owes
this addition to the charities.  It will be seen that this gift and
purchase has proved no less profitable to the parish than the two others.

Let us pause for a moment, and see of what the property of the Campden
Bequests then consisted.

Purchased in 1635 from Lord Campden’s gift, Charecrofts, 14       £220
acres, costing
Purchased in 1645 from Lady Campden, Butt’s Field (say), 6½        200
acres, costing
Purchased in 1651 from Cromwell, Gravel Pits, 2 acres,              45
costing
                                    Total, 22½ acres, costing     £465

Let us now endeavour to identify these properties.

I can make you understand where Charecrofts is situated by telling you
that the Shepherd’s Bush Station of the London and South Western Railway
now occupies a portion of the site.

Butt’s Field comprises the frontage to the Kensington Road extending from
Gloucester Road on the west, eastward about 140 feet to Palace Gate, and
from the Kensington Road southwards to and including the whole of the
premises known as Kensington Gate.

The Gravel Pits are now occupied by Clanricarde Gardens, and the six
shops known as Nos. 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12, High Street, Notting Hill.

It would take too long to describe the various uses to which these sites
have been put, and all the applications of the income derived from them.
Suffice it to say, that the whole was always conscientiously applied to
the purposes intended by their donors, except, that under an Act of
Parliament passed in 1777 the original parish workhouse was built upon
that part of Butt’s Field where Kensington Gate now stands, and the Act
provided that the then existing rents of the three estates, amounting to
£54,