PART II.THE PARISH AND THE PEOPLE.

DEFINITION—SITUATION—BOUNDARIES AND EXTENT—GENERAL AND MEDICAL TOPOGRAPHY—ETYMOLOGY OF NAMES—ORIGIN.

Blackstonedefines a parish to be “that circuit of ground which is committed to the charge of one parson, or vicar, or other minister having cure of souls therein.”  In ordinary language a parish is “that place, or district, which manages its local affairs, and maintains its own poor.”

Newcourt says, “This parish of Paddington (which is a very small one) is within the liberties of Finsbury and Wenlakesbarn, and lies about three or four miles north-westward from London.”

Lysons tells us, that “The Village of Paddington is situated in the hundred of Ossulston, scarcely a mile north of Tyburn turnpike, upon the Harrow-road.”

All the other descriptions of the situation of the “pretty little rural village of Paddington,” which I have seen, resemble these given by Newcourt and Lysons; but these are now so inapplicable to its present state, that it would be useless to quote from other authorities.

The hundred of Ossulston originally comprised, as I have already observed, nearly, if not quite, half the county of Middlesex; but after a time “the liberties of Westminster,” and “the liberties of London,” were taken out of this hundred: that is to say, these places became of so much importance as to claim and obtain separate jurisdictions.  The hundred of Ossulston was then reduced to a small portion of the county north and east of London, while by far the greater part of the old hundred, still waste and wood, was included under a separate jurisdiction, called in the old maps “Fynnesberryand Wen Lax Barne.”  Another re-arrangement however has taken place; the ancient liberties of Finsbury and Wenlakesbarn are now included in the hundred of Ossulston; the hundred itself is separated into four divisions, and Paddington is included, with certain other districts, in “the Holbourn division” of this re-arranged hundred.

It has been shown, too, in the previous part of this Work, that the district, first known by the name of Paddington, was, very probably, confined within the comparatively small space bounded by the two Roman roads and the bourn; and that, antecedently to the establishment of this separate district, it formed a portion of the Tybourn manor.  It is also very probable that Paddington was included in the Parish of Tybourn, before the monks of Westminster established their claim to it, and annexed it to St. Margaret’s.  At a later period, when Paddington became a separate parish, the whole of that district which is now known as Westbourn; the manor of Notting Barns; and all that Chelsea now claims north of the Great Western Road; as well as the manor of Paddington, and a considerable portion of that which now belongs to Marylebone, were included in it.

The post-office authorities, even to this day, include a considerable portion of Marylebone in their map of Paddington; and if we take the “Via Originaria” of the Romans, “The Watling Street” of former days, to have been the eastern boundary of this parish at all periods, still even that would give to Paddington a long strip of the south-west corner of the present parish of Marylebone; for I think those who will examine this subject, will come to the conclusion, that the old Roman road was that road which is seen in Rocque’s maps, continuing in a straight line from Tybourn-lane along the high ground to the top of Maida-hill.

In “Baker’s Chronicle of the Kings of England,” p. 313, we find a record of many works of public utility, performed, in the reign of Edward the sixth, by the Rowland Hill of that day.  And in the third year of that king’s reign, when Sir Rowland was Lord Mayor of London, we find it chronicled “that he likewise made the highway to Kilburne near to London;” previously to which time, I presume, the old military way was the only road in use.

In Rocque’s maps we see three roads branching off in a northerly direction from the Tybourn-road (now Oxford-street); one, opposite North Audley-street, another, opposite Tybourn-lane (now Park-lane), and the third, the present Edgeware-road.I believe it was the road nearest the city which was made by Sir Rowland Hill; the central one, as above indicated, being the ancient Roman road; and the present road being the most modern; but both “Watling-street” and “Watery-lane” are now obliterated from the map; and the land occupied by these roads, with the triangular or gore-shaped piece which lay to the west, between the ancient road and the present Edgeware-road, now forms a portion of the adjoining parish.

It was on this piece of land, the highest point of ground on this part of the Tybourn-road, that the gallows was erected when it was removed from “The Elmes.”

Whether the Great Western-road took a more southerly course previously to “the Hyde Farm” having been converted into Hyde, or “High,” Park, by Henry the eighth, I do not know; but from the facts already advanced, it appears certain that this triangular-shaped parish was at one time a much larger triangle than it now is; the base of which, in all probability, extended from Shepherd’s Rush to Kilbourn Bridge.

At the present time the eastern boundary of Paddington parish is formed by the Edgeware-road from where Tybourn-gate stood in 1829,[103a]to where Kilbourn-gate now stands; the southern boundary being marked out by the Uxbridge-road from its junction with the Edgeware-road to the head of the Serpentine, with the exception of that piece of Tybourn-field which was sold for a burying-ground to St. George’s, and which now, with St. George’s-terrace, forms a portion of that parish.  Paddington claims a considerable strip of Kensington-gardens, and is bounded west and north-west by an imaginary and irregular line, known only to the authorities and a few parish boys, which runs over and through houses, greenhouses, &c., from the centre of the road opposite Palace-gardens, to Kilbourn-gate.  Or, to use the official words of the district surveyor, “Paddington is bounded on the north by the parish of Willesden; on the south by the parish of St. Margaret, Westminster, and St. George, Hanover-square; on the east by the parish of St. Mary-le-bone; and on the west by the parishes of St. Mary Abbots, Kensington, and a detached part of St. Luke, Chelsea.”[103b]

In the population-returns for 1831, this area was said to contain1,220 acres of land.  Whether this return was made for the sake of giving round numbers, or whether the parish has extended during this century, I cannot say; but Lysons says that “Paddington contains, according to an actual survey in the possession of William Strong, esq. (a former bishop’s agent), 1197a. 3r. 30p.”  In the “Registrar-General’s Report on Cholera in England, 1848–49,” I find the “area in acres” of Paddington put down at 1277.  This estimate was given to the Registrar-General by Captain Dawson, R.E. of the Tithe Commission.[104a]

Lysons tells us, “the soil in the neighbourhood of the village is principally factitious, having been much enriched by great quantities of manure.  On the east of a little brook which runs by Kilbourn and Bayswater, the soil is a thin clay upon a dry bed of gravel; on the west side of this brook a deep clay, the springs lying very far beneath the surface.”  In proof of which he states that a well sunk by Mr. Coulson, of Westbourn house, had to be dug 300 feet deep before water was found; the earth of the first 100 feet, he tells us, was a bluish clay, “then, a thin stratum of stone, then, another bed of clay.”  In another well, dug in the same neighbourhood, water was found at the depth of 250 feet.

These statements respecting the water must be taken to refer to the valley through which the Westbourn ran; for on the eastern side of the brook, south of Maida-hill, and on the eastern side of Craven-hill which lies to the west of the stream, many wells existed which were not more than ten or fifteen feet deep.[104b]Indeed, Lysons tells us, that “the springs at Bayswater lie near the surface, and that the water is very fine.”  In fact, the people of Paddington seem to have had no lack of water, nor any reason to complain either of the quality or cost of this essential element of life.

Previously to the present century, the most desirable spots in the district had been selected for the dwellings of the inhabitants; and when the bishop’s first building Act was granted only 200 acres were allowed to be built on, because the other portions of the estate were not considered “fit for building purposes.”  But the modern builder’s art despises any delicate notions about fitness or unfitness for the situation of ahouse.  A plot of ground shall be covered; a street shall be built, says the money-making builder; and, when the street is finished, who will know whether this or that particular house is built on gravel, or clay, or mud?  Who will take the trouble to ascertain whether the elevated road to his entrance-hall, or the spot on which his house is placed, was made by nature’s laws, or by the scavenger’s cart?  As to the drainage of the house, and the supply of water, these are hidden mysteries, with which no dweller in a house, except a master-builder, is expected to trouble himself.  Respecting any of these matters, the owner of the soil will be rarely found to interfere, excepting it is to take part with the builder; for the value of his land has been enormously increased by that industrious speculator.

Fortunately, however, those who live in houses, are beginning to find out that not only the healthfulness of their own dwelling, but that of their neighbours also, very much concerns them.  Fortunately, too, especially for the dwellers in large towns, men who have made hygeic science a study cannot be sneered down, or “put down” by “practical builders.”  But untilthe peoplethoroughly understand the nature of those requirements which constitute healthful dwellings; and until they are determined to press upon the legislature the enactment of those laws which are necessary to constitute them such, and to restrain, by more stringent laws, the lust after mammon of “the speculative builder,” both their health and life will remain in very unsafe keeping.

The builder may say that the legislature of a country has no right to interfere in an affair of so private a nature as the building of a house; that every man is able to judge for himself in what house he will live; and that it is his own fault if he take a bad one.  So long as houses were built to lastmorethan ninety-nine years, and were nearly a mile apart, all this may have been true, but experience has taught us that this does not hold good when applied to towns; it has taught us that cities would be in a much worse state than they now are but for those inefficient laws which exist at the present time; and it has taught us that to choose an abode in ignorance of almost all the necessary requirements which constitute a healthful dwelling is a species of ignorance by no means of the blissful family.  To distinguish good from evil in every object which surrounds us is one of the necessities of our nature; to have “a foe under foot,”[105]a foe overhead, and a foe on every side,without a determination to subdue this legion, does not say much for the wisdom either of the governors, or the governed; and to care nothing about the expenditure of millions collected annually for local purposes, is no proof of confidence in the governors, is no proof of the happiness or wisdom of the governed; it may however prove, that the people are “silly sheep”[106]who may be shorn by any tool, at the bidding of any despot.

Experience has proved that no more healthful situation for a town can be chosen, than elevated ground above the banks of a pure stream; and those who fixed on the south portion of the Westbourn district, and on the site of the old village of Paddington, as spots for their dwellings, could not have been ignorant either of the material advantages such situations afforded, or of the effects produced both on the mind and body by the beauty and salubrity of these localities.

If we spoke of the beauties of Paddington to those whose acquaintance with this place is of recent date, they would naturally think we were about to describe the gorgeous mansions of the fashionable “Tyburnia.”  But the old village of Tybourn, or Westbourn, and the new town of Pædings, were surrounded by a greater combination of natural beauty than those who have not studied the ancient topography of this district can well conceive.

Out of thirty-seven districts, into which, for certain special purposes, the Registrar-General has arranged London and its vicinity, in a series of excellent tables contained in his very valuable Report on Cholera, we find that there are only four parishes of greater average elevation than Paddington; the estimated elevation of this parish above Trinity high watermark being seventy-six feet; Pancras eighty; Islington eighty-eight; Marylebone one hundred; and Hampstead three hundred and fifty.

On referring to those accurate and beautiful surveys published by the Ordnance Map-Office, I find that the highest point in Paddington, the peak of Maida-hill, rises to 120 feet 9 inches, while the lowest, Elms-lane, sinks to 57 feet.  Infact, Paddington consists chiefly of two hills, Maida-hill and Craven-hill; the north-eastern slope of Notting-hill; and a valley, through which the Tybourn ran.  In the south part of the parish this valley is very narrow, but to the north it spreads out into Maida Vale.

Woodfield road, and the neighbourhood, is another elevated spot in Paddington, but in the whole of that part of the parish, as well as in Maida Yale, the clay is immediately below the surface.  In some places the surface has been raised by the earth dug out of the Canal, and in others, by deposits brought from other parts of London; indeed the alterations which have taken place, inconsequence of the removal of the natural soil, and the addition of “made ground,” make it difficult to tell what is the natural elevation of any particular spot in the parish.

The tables from which I have just now quoted, and other authenticated statistical accounts, tend to prove that the number of feet we live above high water-mark is an appreciable quantity in the account of health and disease, life and death.  But elevation is only one item, though an important one, in this important account.  Thenatureas well as theheightof the soil on which we live, influences the health and life of every living being.

A considerable portion of the ground, composing the south and south-eastern parts of Paddington, consists of sand and gravel; the northern and north-western parts being clay.  Vast quantities of the former have been removed; and although the Paddington soil was sufficiently “factitious” at the time Lysons wrote, it has become much more so since that time.  Those only who have carefully watched the modes which have been adopted to raise the ground for making new roads, and for elevating the basement of houses in certain parts of this parish, can form any idea of the immense quantity of “rubbish” which has been “shot here.”  As to the nature of a great deal of that rubbish, I will not offend my readers by attempting any description.  Suffice it to say, that thousands of loads of sand and gravel have been taken away since the Act passed which permitted the sale of this natural soil, and vegetable and animal matters of all kinds, and in all stages of putrefaction, have been emptied into hollow places.  Besides the effect produced by the poisonous gases which must arise from such factitious soil, other bad effects frequently follow the removal of the natural earth and the substitution of made ground.  All the house-drains which are laid on the latter, sink, and in a short time become either partially, or wholly, useless for the purpose forwhich they were made; and new drains, constructed at great expence and inconvenience, are necessary.  When from this or any other cause, the drain does not empty itself into the common sewer, it is emphatically termed by the men who work in the sewers, “a dead’un.”

Having for several years lived in a house which owned one of these dead drains, and having been very nearly “a dead’un” myself in consequence, I was led to enquire into this subject somewhat minutely; and although the drainage of an immense city is too important a subject to be treated of by the topographer in a sketch of a single parish, yet I cannot refrain from saying a word or two in this place on a point of such vital consequence.

The Thames having been most mischievously used as the great common sewer for London and its neighbourhood; and Paddington which is so much above its level, having been drained into it, one would have imagined that the system of drainage here would have completely removed all debris from so elevated a spot.  Such, however, has not been the case, as I have learned from the Reports of the Sewer Commissioners, and from a personal inspection of some of the sewers.

Nothing worthy the name of a system of drainage, can be secured, till the great river, which was intended by its Creator to bring health and life to the people, instead of being made by man the instrument of his own disease and death, is freed from the sewerage of a whole metropolis: yet much good may be done in the mean time, and at a comparatively small outlay.

Thousands of drains, now existing, have been made of such porous bricks, and these have been placed side by side with such an unadhesive layer of dirt, that instead of acting as an impervious tube through which the soil could pass to its destination, the common sewer, the bottom of the drain acts as a mere filter for its contents.  Glazed earthenware pipe-drains have been introduced to obviate this and other great evils; and the dwellers in towns have seldom had a greater blessing befall them, than this discovery.  These tubular drains are cemented together, so as to form a hollow tube, and are laid at so much per foot under the regulation of the Sewers Office, by workmen who understand what ahouse-drainshould be; and it must be understood that ahouse-drain and afield-drain are two distinct things; though very many builders have thought what would do for one, would do for the other.

Why there is not a good system of main drainage for London; why the Thames is still made the generator of disease anddeath, I do not know, except it be to shew the inefficiency of our governors; but if the New Sewers Commission had done no other good, it deserves praise for the facilities it has given for the use of this more perfect system of house-drainage; and after all it is of more consequence that the drain to the sewer should be perfect, than that the sewer itself should be so, although the latter is undoubtedly essential.

All those who wish to live in a healthful house, will adopt this tubular system of house-drainage; but those who cannot or will not have a perfect drain, may adopt a small part of the modern tubular system with great advantage and at a trifling cost.  At present, the great majority of drains open directly into the common sewer, and act as chimnies for the conveyance of poisonous gases into the interior of the houses, the water-traps only partially preventing this evil.  Others enter the sewer so low, that when they are not performing this office, they frequently form a portion of the common sewer itself, and are invariably filled with its contents, when “flushing” is performed.

A simple lid of glazed earth, hanging from the upper part of the mouth of the drain, provides against these evils to a very great extent; and this precaution should always be used, till a more effectual substitute is found.

Some portions of Paddington which have been built on, are amongst the most desirable spots, as places of residence, to be found in the immediate vicinity of London; and these would be rendered unexceptionable by a perfect system of water supply and drainage.  But, as yet that good time has not come even for the most healthful and most fashionable houses in Tyburnia.

So much has been said and written on the subject of burying the dead in the midst of the living, that it would appear useless to add another word on this subject; and at length some of the effects produced on living bodies by the poisonous gases which arise from church-yards are well known.

We have already seen that Paddington is blessed with two burying grounds, one of which was established for the benefit of the rector of St. George’s, Hanover-square, and his rich parishioners; and although this burial-ground was at one time extra-mural, the inhabitants of Albion-street, Upper Berkeley-street, Connaught-square, and St. George’s-row, have found out that it is no longer so.  For some of the particular evils attendant on having this large burial-ground surrounded by houses, I must refer my readers to “An account of the measuresadopted by the Medical Practitioners residing in the Western District of Paddington,to obtain theClosureof theBurial-Groundsituated in theUxbridge Road,” and to a Return on the Metropolitan Burials, Act, just printed by order of the House of Commons.  For an exposition of the general evils of intra-mural interment, and an account of some of the disgraceful practices connected with it, I cannot do better than refer to “GatheringsfromGrave Yards,” and Mr. Walker’s other works on these subjects.

To secure a healthful dwelling, then, it is necessary to know something of the elevation and the nature of the soil; the quality of the water; the efficiency of the drainage; the size of the house relative to the number of its intended inhabitants; and indeed, all those considerations which influence the quality of the air we breathe, should be taken into account.  But it is not my intention to enter into an examination of all the items which compose a healthful dwelling; much less to count up those points which give an ideal value to a house on a “Bishop’s Estate,” though, judging from the puffing advertisements, which for years crowded the advertising columns of theTimes, there must have been great and healing virtues in these magic words.  In those advertisements, however, we saw no account of the contracted area; the deep narrow back yard; the thin and crumbling walls; the gaping doors and windows; the damp and ill ventilated basement; the absence of drainage; the want of bath-rooms, &c. &c.;—all such things had to be found out by the in-coming tenant, and remedied at his cost.  But for the want of these essentials, the “pretty paper,” or the “handsome cornice,” made but poor compensation, even in houses advertised for sale at a few thousand pounds, “with a trifling ground-rent of seventy-five pounds per annum.”

Many suggestions have been offered relative to the derivation of the wordPaddington; but that suggested by Mr. Kemble—one of the greatest living authorities on antiquarian topography—seems to me to be the most deserving consideration.  Mr. Kemble observes, in his preface to the third volume of the Codex Diplomaticus, that the Anglo-Saxon, like most German names of places, are nearly always composite words; that is, they consist of two or more parts; the second generally of wide and common signification; the first a kind of definition limiting this general name to one particular application.

The former portion of these compound names, he says, may be classed under various heads, as the names of animals, birds,trees, fishes, &c.; others refer to mythological or divine personages; and others contain the names of individuals and families.  To this latter division he refers Paddington in the first volume of his “Saxons in England;” where he has inferred a mark—“Pædingas”—for the name of this place—Tun, the enclosure or town, Pædingas of the Pædings.  It is true, this is one of three names, of which Mr. Kemble appears to entertain some doubt; but all other explanations I have met with appear to me open to more serious objections.  Dr. R. G. Latham, the father of the modern school of English philology, tells us that “in the Greek language the notion of lineal descent, in other words, the relation of the son to the father, is expressed by a particular termination;” and that this Greek mode of expression is very different from the English termination,son, and the Gaelic prefix,mac; which in fact make the words to which they are joined only compound words.  But he asks is there anything in English corresponding to the Greek patronymics, and answers, “In Anglo-Saxon the terminationingis as truly patronymic asIDESis in Greek. * * * In the Bible-translation the son of Elisha is called Elising.  In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle occur such genealogies as the following:—Ida was Eopping, Eoppa Esing, &c.—Ida was the son of Eoppa, Eoppa of Esing, &c.”  The learned Doctor further informs us that “In the plural number these forms denote therace of—as Scyldingas—to the Scyldings, or the race of Scyld,”[111]or Pœdingas—to the Pædings, or the race of Pæd.

With other names in Paddington there is not much difficulty.

The burne, bourn, or brook, which ran through Paddington gave its name to a district.  Tybourn I believe to have been the original name; but the houses erected on the west side of this stream, with the district surrounding them, were eventually called by the name of Westbourn; the name which was given to the stream.  Respecting the origin of the word Bayswater—a name given to a portion of the Westbourn district—many suggestions have been offered; but the first of the three given by Mr. Osborne in his letter to Mr. Urban, in the Gentleman’s Magazine, dated March 25th, 1798, appears to me to be the correct one.  He says “Perhaps the name of Bays is derived from the original owner of the land;” and from the Inquisitions taken in the early part of the fourteenth century, to be found in the first part of this Work, it will beperceived that there was then a Juliana Baysbolle holding land in Westbourn.  At the end of the fourteenth century, we find from Tanner’s note, before quoted, that the head of water given by the Abbot was called Bayard’s Watering Place; and although this may have been the name used in legal documents for the district surrounding it, yet Bays Watering has been the name used by the people.  There may, indeed, have been two watering places for the weary traveller; and mine host Bays, and mine host Bayard, may have been rivals for public favour; the one living on one side of the King’s highway, and the other on the opposite.

Knotting, or Notting, seems to have been but a corruption of Nutting; the wood on and around the hill of that name, having for centuries being appropriately so called.

Kensell, or Kensale, comes, as I take it, from King’s-field.  In the Harleian MS. (printed at page 38,) the green of this name is called Kellsell, and Kingefelde.  In Mary’s reign, we perceive by this document, also, that “the Green-lane” and “Kingsefelde-green” were the same place.  And as “the Green-lanes” now exist—in name—we may ascertain with something like accuracy the situation of this field, or green, which formerly belonged to the King.

The names of Squares, Terraces, Streets, &c., have been for the most part furnished by the names of the owners of property, past or present, their native counties, or country residences.

Spring-street, Brook-street, Conduit-street, Market-street, &c., point out the situations of objects formerly on, or near, those sites.

“Tichborne-street,” although not built in the time of Henry the eighth, reminds us of one “Nicholas Tychborne, gent., husband of the second daughter and co-heir of Alderman Fenroper;” of Alderman Tichbourn, one of Cromwell’s peers and King Charles’s judges; and of a dirty ditch which ran down the side of the Edgeware-road from Maida-hill; and Maida-hill, itself, reminds us of the famous battle of Maida.  Praed-street preserves the memory of the banker of that name; one of the first Directors of the Grand Junction Canal Company; and of the lands they secured, as well for the purposes for which they professedly obtained them, as for the purposes to which they have been applied.

The name of Frederick, once well known here, became so distasteful to the people of Paddington, that it is preserved only in a mews; while the memory of the capacious generosity ofthe Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond, to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, will be long preserved in Paddington by the Squares and Terraces of those names.  There is now a Shelden-street, to remind us of a bishop’s gift to his nephews; and a Porteus Road and Terrace, that we may not forget the good and generous Beilby who gave away, or sold, two-thirds of the proceeds of the Paddington estate.  Pickering-place and Terrace preserve the memory of a former curate, and of a friendly Chancery suit relating to the property here; and while all sorts of changes are rung on the names of the living, it has been thought expedient to place Blomfield and Cromwell Terraces in a continuous line in the highway to a Public School.

The civil division of the land, recognised by the Anglo-Saxons, were the Mark, or March; the Gâ, or Shire; and the Hid, or Hide.  To understand these divisions, as Mr. Kemble has described them, is to comprehend the natural origin of every inhabited place in this country; and the origin of all our constitutional law.

The Mark he describes to be the smallest and simplest division of the land which was held by many men in common, or by several households under settled conditions, the next in order to the private estates, the hids or alods of the markmen.  “As its name denotes, it is something marked out or defined, having settled boundaries; something serving as a sign to others, and distinguished by signs.  It is the plot of land on which a greater or lesser number of free men have settled for the purposes of cultivation, and for the sake of mutual profit and protection; and it comprises a portion both of arable and pasture land, in proportion to the numbers that enjoy its produce.”[113]Other meanings were attached, to this word, Mark, which are thoroughly examined by this learned historian, and to his works I must refer those of my readers who wish to obtain a complete insight into the ancient divisions of the land, and the manners and customs of our Saxon ancestors.

The Gâ or Shire was but a number of these marks united under one general government.

The Hid or Hide was “the estate of one household, the amount of land sufficient for the support of one family.”  By a series of learned calculations and investigations Mr. Kemble has proved that the hide was a stated quantity ofarableland, not much over thirty Saxon acres, equal to forty Norman acres; he shews that the Saxons had a largeand a small acre, and explains, by this fact, how the hide came to have been considered one hundred and twenty acres.  He shews that the forest, meadow, and pasture-land was common property; and that it was attached to the hyde as of common-right.  But, for a complete exposition of this subject, I must also refer my readers to the fourth chapter of the first book of Mr. Kemble’s history.

The fact of Paddington in Surrey, or “Padendene” as it was called, being mentioned in the Conqueror’s survey,[114a]while Paddington in Middlesex was not noticed, inclines me to believe thedene, orden, in Surrey, was the original mark of the Pædings; and that the smaller enclosure in Middlesex was at first peopled and cultivated by a migration of a portion of that family from thedenwhen it had become inconveniently full.

I do not mean to say the Surrey valley was too crowded when this migration took place; but the lord, or his man, one or both might have pressed a little too hard on some of the young cubs in the Surrey den; and as they had no Press through which to make their wrongs known, they may have thought it best to move off before any other wrongs were inflicted.

At what period this migration happened, it is impossible to say; but there is very little doubt that the first settlement was made near the bourn, or brook, which ran through the forest.  And this brook, though now a deep under-ground sewer[114b]which has been made, by the aid of the mason, to give a few more ground-rents to the bishop and his lessees, while it carries its hidden pollution to the capacious bosom of “Father Thames,”—once gave life to a most beautiful valley, and was itself, at times, no insignificant stream.  At the beginning of this century it was a favourite resort for the young fishermen;and, as depicted in Norden’s Map of Middlesex,[115a]we see what it was in the time of Elizabeth, when the waters, taking their natural courses from the hills of Hampstead and Highgate, found their way into it.

What amount of disease and death has been caused by the impurities it has been made to hold since that time is a mystery; but one into which those have had a peep, who have taken the trouble to read the disclosures which have been made respecting the Serpentine,[115b]into which it was for years made to pour its many abominations.

By the side of a pure and then beautiful stream, at a later period named the Westbourn, the first “clearing” was made; and in all probability on the eminence above this brook, perhaps on the very spot where the first Christian temple was raised, the inhabitants of this Mark first offered up their adoration to that God which their intelligence had taught them to worship; and let not those who occupy their places in well cushioned pews near this spot, decry or despise that worship; for it was the sincere and spontaneous act of the unenlightened mind, unmixed with the sins of a cold formality, or the hypocrisy of a political sham.  However misguided our ancestors were, they were sincere, and they wanted not the support of the State to bolster up their peculiar dogmas, but freely consecrated a portion of the Mark to the services of religion.  And the present christian Bishop of London, and his lay lessees, may now have the honour of receiving the proceeds of land once dedicated to Pagan worship.[115c]

The Mark included a considerable extent of the forest around the portion cleared; and this portion of the Mark, the forest or waste-land, was, as we have seen, the common property of the inhabitants.  To protect their rights in this common property against powerful and ambitious individuals, was for centuries the constant care of the people, as it was the special object of many of our ancient laws.  How these laws were evaded; how by force or fraud “the lords of the soil” managed to transfer those lands to their own keeping; and how cunningand designing men have over-reached them in return; so that, at last, scarcely a scrap of all their former rights remain to the public, for public uses, I have made some attempt to tell, so far as the Paddington Mark is concerned.  But a complete history of these transactions remains to be written.

The formation of the Mark, and the reception of its occupants into the family of the state, were not the work of a day: and these long preceded the parochial arrangement; which latter, indeed, was an ecclesiastical division of the land, said to have been introduced into England in the seventh century by Honorius, Archbishop of Canterbury: but this is evidently one of those errors so common in history, where one man is often credited or debited with deeds which belong to, and should be fairly divided among many individuals.  It is this error, as Mr. Kemble has most strikingly pointed out, which has frequently made a saint, or a devil, when no heroic quality belonged to the person so set on high for admiration or detestation.

Modern research has made it pretty certain that the ancient parishes, “parochiæ,” of England were the districts adopted by the several teachers of Christianity who first promulgated the truths of the gospel in this country.  These divisions, made for securing the spread of the “Good News” through the whole of the country, must necessarily, at first, have been very rudely defined—but then there was not, at that time, any fear that these overseers, or bishops, would set people by the ears about territorial titles.  They were much better occupied, by the promulgation of God’s tidings, than to trouble themselves about those things which have lately become of so much more concern to christian bishops than the conversion of the heathen; and when those earnest and good men were assisted by others whom they had imbued with their religious spirit they lived in one house, in common, on the free-will offerings of a grateful people.—The overseer of the district being their overseer, and his parish, their parish.

As the religious wants of the people increased, these centres were found to be inconveniently remote from the circumference.  The teachers, too, considerably increased in numbers; they demanded as a right that which had been conceded as a favour; and ambition creeping into their community, as their riches increased, separate spheres of action because additionally desirable.  So at length, and by degrees, our present parochial system arose; the sub-divisions bearing the same name, diocese, or parish, as the original divisions had done.

THE PARSON—ORIGIN AND USE OF TITHE—PARSONAGE, RECTORY, OR VICARAGE—APPROPRIATION, AND IMPROPRIATION—A LIVING—A SINECURE—A CURACY WITHOUT THE MEANS OF CURE.

“AParson,persona ecclesiae,” says Blackstone, “is one that hath full possession of all the rights of a parochial church.  He is called parson,persona, because by his person the church, which is an invisible body, is represented; and he is in himself a body corporate, in order to protect and defend the rights of the church, (which he personates,) by a perpetual succession.  He is sometimes called the rector, or governor, of the church: but the appellationof parson(however it may be depreciated by familiar, clownish, and indiscriminate use) is the most legal, most beneficial, and most honourable title that a parish priest can enjoy; because such-a-one (Sir Edward Coke observes) and he only, is saidvicem seu personam ecclesiae genere.  A parson has, during his life, the freehold in himself of the parsonage-house, the glebe, the tithes, and other dues.  But these are sometimesappropriated; that is to say, the benefice is perpetually annexed to some spiritual corporation, either sole or aggregate, being the patron of the living; which the law esteems equally capable of providing for the service of the church, as any single private clergyman.  This contrivance seems to have sprung from the policy of the monastic orders, who have never been deficient in subtile inventions for the increase of their own power and emoluments.  At the first establishment of the parochial clergy, the tithes of the parish were distributed in a four-fold division; one for the use of the bishop, another for maintaining the fabrick ofthe church, a third for the poor, and the fourth to provide for the incumbent.  When the sees of the bishops became otherwise amply endowed, they were prohibited from demanding their usual share of these tithes, and the division was into three parts only.  And hence it was inferred by the monasteries, that a small part was sufficient for the officiating priest; and that the remainder might well be applied to the use of their own fraternities, (the endowment of which was construed to be a work of the most exalted piety,) subject to the burthen of repairing the church and providing for its constant supply.  And therefore they begged and bought, for masses and obits, and sometimes even for money, all the advowsons within their reach, and then appropriated the benefices to the use of their own corporation.  But, in order to complete such appropriation effectually, the king’s licence, and consent of the bishop, must first be obtained: because both the king and the bishop may sometime or other have an interest, by lapse, in the presentation to the benefice; which can never happen if it be appropriated to the use of a corporation, which never dies: and also because the law reposes a confidence in them, that they will not consent to any thing that shall be to the prejudice of the church.  The consent of the patron also is necessarily implied, because (as was before observed) the appropriation can be originally made to none, but to such spiritual corporation, as is also the patron of the church; the whole being indeed nothing else, but an allowance for the patrons to retain the tithes and glebe in their own hands, without presenting any clerk, they themselves undertaking to provide for the service of the church.”[118]

The great modern historian of our ancestors—Mr. Kemble—also informs us that the tithe—that property which cunning and selfish individuals in the course of time, and little by little, appropriated to their own uses—was originally divided into three portions: one for the reparation of the church; a second to the servants of God; “and a third to God’s poor and needy men in thraldom.”  And Mr. Kemble further states that when the accidental oblations were replaced by settled payments, whether land or not, they were directed to be applied in definite proportions to these objects.

So that the maintenance of the place of religious worship was as much provided for as the clergy who were to do duty therein; the poor, too, were equally taken care of, at the same time and by the same means; for to use the emphaticwords of this great historian, “the state had a poor-law and the clergy were the relieving officers.”  Mr. Barnes, the registrar of the diocese of Exeter, in his examination before the select committee of the House of Commons, on the fourth of July, 1851,[119a]says, that he believes Blackstone was mistaken in attributing the charge of the repair of the church to the tithe; but I think Mr. Kemble has fully established the truth of the position taken up by that learned Judge.

And this was not all, the bishops, and clergy, were to feed the poor out of their own incomes.  A parson who possessed a superfluity and did not distribute it to the poor was to be excommunicated.  And the clergy were to practice handicrafts, “not only to keep them out of mischief, but to help to feed their poor brethren.”  Many of them were masons; and Mr. Kemble is of opinion that more churches existed in the tenth century than at the present time.

Before that time there appears to have been “a tendency to speculate in church-building;” for the sake of obtaining “the oblations of the faithful;” the builders claiming for themselves that portion of the church—the altare—on which the offerings were laid.

To ensure the support of the churches so built on speculation, the bishops found it necessary “to insist that every church should be endowed with a sufficient glebe or estate in land: the amount fixed was one hide, equivalent to the estate of a single family.  Which, properly managed, would support the presbyter and his attendant clerks.”  And this glebe-land the bishop could not afterwards interfere with, or alienate from the church to which it was given.

Mr. Kemble also tells us that by the time of Eàdgàr it had become quite a settled thing to pay tithe; “the English prelates having laid a good foundation for the custom long before they succeeded in obtaining any legal right from the state.”

He also states that “cyricsceat,” (as the church-tax was called,) was “originally a recognitory service due to the lord from the tenants of church-lands.  But that in process of time a new character was assumed for it, and it was claimed of all men alike as a due to the clergy.”  And then those who refused to pay were visited by the king’s reeve, by the bishop’s, and by the mass-priest of the minster,[119b]and they took “by force a tenth part for the minster whereunto it was due.”  A ninth part only was left for the refractory subject.  Whilethe other eight parts were divided into two.  And of this, says the ordinance, “let the landlord seize half, the bishop half, be it a king’s man or a thane’s.”[120]

I think it not at all unlikely that those who cultivated the soil in Paddington received no friendly visits from the tithing man till the time of Edgar.  Dunstan, at this time Abbot of the Monastery he had restored at Westminster, looked, without doubt, pretty keenly after the loaves and fishes which were to feed his little flock; and as the enclosure of the Pædings was not too far north to escape his acute glance, he might have been the first who took tithe here.  When Bishop of London, which he was at the time of his pretended gift of the little farm, he might, too, have obtained property here, as elsewhere, by the means above indicated.  For, if any of the accounts we have of him be true, he was evidently not the man to fail in carrying out any scheme of aggrandisement which he had once planned, even when the law was not, as it was in this case, in his favour.  And even so late as the tenth century of the Christian era, some inhabitant of this place might have been found, whose refractory and pagan spirit prevented his seeing all the justice and good policy there might be in giving up quietly the tenth portion of his produce to the monks of Westminster.  Those monks, in Dunstan’s time only ten in number, though able to visit Paddington occasionally, were too much engaged at Westminster to pay that attention to this little settlement which was required to teach the inhabitants all their christian duties.

If this saint, who so honoured the old gentleman’s nose, did in truth first tithe Paddington, he may, in one sense, be said to have bestowed on his monks a small estate here; for this impost remained from his time to the Conquest as a fixed charge on the land.  And those who first received tithe here (being, in all probability, sufficiently impressed with the necessity of appropriating it according to law) may have built a chapel in Paddington, with that portion which was legally assigned for the support of a material structure in which the services of the church might beperformed.

There is yet another “probable supposition,” viz. that a speculating builder existed among the Pædings, even in those days, who, for the sake of what he could get for himself, built a chapel here; and the clever Dunstan, or some other bishop, having caught him in thus defrauding God, and God’s poor, made him give a hide of his land to endow the place he had built for his own profit: and who knows, if this wereso, but that this churl (ceorl) was aping his betters in some other mark, by aspiring to be greater than he really was; for by a law of Athelstan’s a freeman “who had the possession and property of full five hides of land, and had a church, a kitchen, a bell-house, and a hall, was henceforth entitled to the rank of a Thane.”[121]

We have already seen that a chapel was built and endowed in Paddington before the ecclesiastical decree of 1222 assigned this district, with those of Westbourn and Knightsbridge, to St. Margaret’s, Westminster.  And one may well suppose, if no Tybourn rector interfered, that a parson was appointed to the cure, and a district assigned to him, whenever this building was erected; and to say that one of the monks who lived in the Convent at Westminster, under the laws and regulations of St. Benedict, was the person first appointed to this cure, does not, surely, invalidate that supposition.

Paddington, therefore, may have existed as a rectory and a separate parish, before the beginning of the thirteenth century—before the decree of Stephen Langton, and his brother-priests, converted it into an appendage to a vicarage.  But this benefice having been thus appropriated to the use of their own corporation by the company of Benedictin monks, the rectory, if there had been one, became a sinecure; and the poor souls in Paddington were transferred to the tender care of the vicar of St. Margaret’s.

How long Paddington remained in this unenviable condition I cannot say; but we are told by Blackstone, that the appropriating corporations served the churches “in so scandalous a manner, and the parishes suffered so much by the neglect of appropriators, that the legislature was forced to interpose: and accordingly it is enacted by statute 15th Richard II, cap. 6, that in all appropriations of churches, the diocesan bishop, shall ordain (in proportion to the value of the church) a competent sum to be distributed among the poor parishioners, annually; and that the vicarage shall besufficientlyendowed.”  And this great Judge adds, “It seems the parish were frequently sufferers, not only by the want of divine service, but also by witholding those alms, for which, among other purposes, the payment of tithes was originally imposed: and therefore in this Act a pension is directed to be distributed among the poorparochians, as well as a sufficient stipend to the vicar.”  And he goes on to say, “but he being liable to be removed at the pleasure of the appropriator, was not likely to insist too rigidly on the legal sufficiency of the stipend: and therefore by statute 4, Henry IV, cap. 12, it is ordained, that the vicar shall be a secular person, not a member of any religious house; that he shall be vicar perpetual, not removable at the caprice of the monastery; and that he shall be canonically instituted and inducted, and be sufficiently endowed, at the discretion of the ordinary, for these three express purposes, to do divine service, to inform the people, and to keep hospitality.  The endowments in consequence of these statutes have usually been a portion of the glebe, or land, belonging to the parsonage, and a particular share of the tithes, which the appropriates found it most troublesome to collect, and which are therefore generally called privy or small tithes; the greater, or predial, tithes being still reserved to their own use.”[122a]And thus, the appropriates of those days were compelled by statute to provide, in some sort, both for the souls and bodies of those, from whom proceeded the revenues of the church.

But before these statutes could be obtained, the voice of Wickliffe had been heard not only at Lutterworth, but in London and Westminster; and the degenerate Church, which this worthy rector denounced, could no longer resist some of those reforms, which the State had long seen to be necessary.[122b]

We have seen by Tanner’s note that Paddington was spoken of as a parish in the time of Richard the second, and by the Valor Ecclesiasticus of Henry the eighth that the rectory, no longer an appendage to St. Margaret’s, yielded, like the manor, a separate revenue to the Abbey.

Since, then, the ancient laws were totally disregarded, and tithe, and other church property, was perverted to individual uses for so long a period with perfect impunity, we cannot be surprised to find these more recent appointments were gradually evaded, or abused; so that, step by step, the doings of that church, which still boasts of its rule and guide over millions of minds, was so utterly detested in this country that even the genius of a Wolsey could not save it from perdition.

And what secures and sustains the present structure?  How has the church in Paddington been supported since the Reformation?

We have already seen that the rectory was disposed of, with the manor, by Henry the eighth, to Sir Edward and Dame Baynton.  It thus becameimpropriate.[123]

But it was again appropriated; this time by a corporation sole.  For, when the bishops of London claimed the rectory of Paddington as a “member and appurtenance” of the manor, did they not become the real rectors of the parish?  Certainly, from time to time, since Bishop Sheldon’s day, if not before, they have leased the rectory with the manor, and exercised the right of appointing the curate here.  Are they not, then, accountable for the proper application of the rectory revenues?  And how have these revenues been applied?

We are informed that the fourth protestant bishop of London thought Paddington would make a comfortable retiring pension for his porter; and the enemies of Bishop Aylmer brought this misdeed as one of their many accusations against him.  His faithful biographer, Strype, admitting the fact, thus defends the bishop:—

“As for the charge, that the bishop made his porter a minister; all things considered he thought it to be justifiable and lawfully done, and not to lack example of many such that had been after that sort admitted, both since the Queen’s coming to the crown, by many good bishops, and by sound histories ecclesiastical.  That where churches, by reason of persecution, or multitudes of Hamlets and free chapels, had commonly very small stipends for their ministers, honest godly men, upon the discretion of the governors of the church, had been, and might be, brought in to serve, in the want of learned men, in prayer, administration of the sacraments, good example of life, and in some sort of exhortation.  And this man therefore when the bishop found him by good and long experience to be one that pleased God, to be conversant in the scriptures, and of very honest life and conversation, he allowed of him to serve in a small congregation at Paddington, where commonly for the meanness of the stipend no preacher could be had; as in many places it came to pass, where the parsonage was impropriate, and the provision for the vicar or curate very small.  And how that good man behaved himself there, time and trial proved him; for he continued in that place withthe good liking of the people eight or more years till he grew dull of sight for age, and thereby unable to serve any longer.”[124a]

“As for the charge, that the bishop made his porter a minister; all things considered he thought it to be justifiable and lawfully done, and not to lack example of many such that had been after that sort admitted, both since the Queen’s coming to the crown, by many good bishops, and by sound histories ecclesiastical.  That where churches, by reason of persecution, or multitudes of Hamlets and free chapels, had commonly very small stipends for their ministers, honest godly men, upon the discretion of the governors of the church, had been, and might be, brought in to serve, in the want of learned men, in prayer, administration of the sacraments, good example of life, and in some sort of exhortation.  And this man therefore when the bishop found him by good and long experience to be one that pleased God, to be conversant in the scriptures, and of very honest life and conversation, he allowed of him to serve in a small congregation at Paddington, where commonly for the meanness of the stipend no preacher could be had; as in many places it came to pass, where the parsonage was impropriate, and the provision for the vicar or curate very small.  And how that good man behaved himself there, time and trial proved him; for he continued in that place withthe good liking of the people eight or more years till he grew dull of sight for age, and thereby unable to serve any longer.”[124a]

What Fletcher, Bancroft, Vaughan, Ravis, Abbot, and King did for Paddington, I cannot tell.  But the truth is, that the protestant bishops, no more than the popish abbots, have applied the revenues of the church to their original purposes.  It is true that much of the revenue of the church vanished at the Reformation.  The great Reformers of the Church did not possess the princely fortunes of their predecessors; or of the present bishops.[124b]But the reformed bishops did not relinquish the old practice of receiving fines, for granting life-leases, when the impropriate leases dropped in.  Rectory lands, and tithes, were still badly managed; and the fines raised by leasing them were appropriated, as heretofore, to individual uses.  To such an extent was this “waste of church lands” carried that the people saw little good had been done, in this respect, by that revolution which had been sanctioned by Henry the eighth.

During the next reformation another survey of ecclesiastical property was made.  Commissioners were appointed in 1649, by the parliament, to enquire into the nature of ecclesiastical benefices; and from their report we learn the condition of the “living of Paddington” at that time.

The following survey is printed from the original still existing with the Records in the Rolls’ Chapel.  The portion in italics being so much defaced in the original document as to be illegible, I have been enabled to supply from the twelfth volume of the Lambeth Manuscripts, by the kind permission of the Archbishop’s secretary.

Survey of Church livings.MIDDX.“Paddington.—Item there isa rectory and amannor and Tythesandother oblations and gleabe Lands with certeyne houses thereto belonging of whicha house for two tennants called thevicarage house all which is at the rate of fortie-three pounds per annu or thereaboutsAndWeeare informedthat the Tytheshouses and lands beforemencŏned was let by George Mountaignelate Bishopp of London to Sir Rowland St John, and Sybyll his Wife and to OliverSt Johntheir sonne fortheir lives and that the said Bishop bound them to noe certaynestipends or took any nor for the cure of souls butt left itunto his Tenants and that the said Sr. Rowland St. John had heretoforea reading minister orReading ministers who servedfor tenpounds per annu in Paddington and Marybone at the like sallary of Mr. Forsett and that of late years Sr. Rowland St. John paidfora preaching minister twentie eight pounds per annu which is the Rent of the Tythes of thatland in the parish that doethnot belonge to the Bisshopp  And that there is a minister that preacheth twice every Lord’s Day one Mr. Anthony Doddandthat we humbly thinkthat the Parish of Marybone and Paddington is very fitt to be united in one and that both the Churches may be pulled down andboth madeone and sett on Lisson Greene  And that we verylie believe that the whole Tythes of Paddynton is worth one hundred pounds per annu if it were lett at the true value  And we humbly desire that a godly able preaching minister may beeplacedto serve for the Parish of Paddington and Maribone and settled with mointeynance not lesse than one hundred pounds per annu as you in your great wisdomes shall thinke fitt  And that we are informed that there is a right of Presentation to the Rectoryor vicearidge inone Mr. Browne that hath purchasedthe mannerby vertue of a grant to himfrom the trustees appointedby Parliament for the sale of the Bishopps Lands.SignedWilliam RobertsJohn BrowneRichard DowtonJames PascallEdward MartinJohn Thorowgood”

Survey of Church livings.MIDDX.

“Paddington.—Item there isa rectory and amannor and Tythesandother oblations and gleabe Lands with certeyne houses thereto belonging of whicha house for two tennants called thevicarage house all which is at the rate of fortie-three pounds per annu or thereaboutsAndWeeare informedthat the Tytheshouses and lands beforemencŏned was let by George Mountaignelate Bishopp of London to Sir Rowland St John, and Sybyll his Wife and to OliverSt Johntheir sonne fortheir lives and that the said Bishop bound them to noe certaynestipends or took any nor for the cure of souls butt left itunto his Tenants and that the said Sr. Rowland St. John had heretoforea reading minister orReading ministers who servedfor tenpounds per annu in Paddington and Marybone at the like sallary of Mr. Forsett and that of late years Sr. Rowland St. John paidfora preaching minister twentie eight pounds per annu which is the Rent of the Tythes of thatland in the parish that doethnot belonge to the Bisshopp  And that there is a minister that preacheth twice every Lord’s Day one Mr. Anthony Doddandthat we humbly thinkthat the Parish of Marybone and Paddington is very fitt to be united in one and that both the Churches may be pulled down andboth madeone and sett on Lisson Greene  And that we verylie believe that the whole Tythes of Paddynton is worth one hundred pounds per annu if it were lett at the true value  And we humbly desire that a godly able preaching minister may beeplacedto serve for the Parish of Paddington and Maribone and settled with mointeynance not lesse than one hundred pounds per annu as you in your great wisdomes shall thinke fitt  And that we are informed that there is a right of Presentation to the Rectoryor vicearidge inone Mr. Browne that hath purchasedthe mannerby vertue of a grant to himfrom the trustees appointedby Parliament for the sale of the Bishopps Lands.

Signed

William RobertsJohn BrowneRichard DowtonJames PascallEdward MartinJohn Thorowgood”

This authentic record is something more than a mere curiosity.  It establishes several important facts; and enables the reader to form a just estimate of the care taken of the cure of souls in Paddington, by bishop Mountain.

I think it not at all improbable that the “Vicarage House” had been made into “a house fortwotenants,” by Sir Rowland St. John; for, so far as I can discover, he was the first lessee who resided on the Paddington estate.  The lords of the manor had preferred to live in the monastery, and the episcopal palace; and their lessees were only middle-men, whose object was—as the object of this class very frequently has been—to get as much out of the land-workers as possible, and give as little as possible in return.

It is my opinion, however, that Sir Rowland St. John added very considerably to the parsonage-house; and adopted it as his own residence, (no uncommon thing at this period), by which it arrived at the dignity of a manor-house; and, as the bishop had “left it unto his tenants” to do what they pleased for the cure of souls, Sir Rowland, also in compliance with the fashion of the time, kindly gave house-room to some poor half-starved curate, who had never taken upon himself the ministry as a money-getting profession, or having done so had found his expectations most woefully deceived.  The pay of his “reading minister” may astonish those who do not remember the account given by Mr. Macaulay, or some equally trust-worthy author, of the condition of the great majority of the clergy in the seventeenth century.

The learned historian just referred to, states, what one may readily believe, seeing what the lords of Paddington and Marylebone paid the minister of those places, that “for one who made the figure of a gentleman, ten were menial servants;” and he adds, “a large proportion of those divines who had no benefices, or whose benefices were too small to afford a comfortable revenue, lived in the houses of laymen.”

“The Ordinary,” in his “discretion,” or in his hurry to secure a more lucrative preferment for himself—the see of London in Dr. Mountain’s time was not the richest in England, and therefore not worth sticking to—had forgotten to make any provision for that cure of souls in Paddington, which devolved on him, and for which he was paid.  “The reading minister;” and afterwards Mr. Anthony Dodd, “the preaching minister,” were glad therefore to become tenants in the great man’s house; having no rectory-house to themselves, and not being provided with a sufficiency of the rectory profits “to do divine service, to inform the people, and keep hospitality.”

At this time, indeed, “a young Levite, such was the phrase in use, might be had for his board, a small garret, and ten pounds a year, and might not only perform his own professional functions, might not only be the most patient of butts and of listeners, might not only be always ready in fine weather for the bowls, and in rainy weather for the shovel-board, but might also save the expense of a gardener or a groom.  Sometimes the reverend man nailed up the apricots, and sometimes he curried the coach horses; he cast up the farrier’s bills; he walked ten miles with a message or parcel; he was permitted to dine with the family, but he was expected to content himself with the plainest fare, he might fillhimself with the corned beef and the carrots, but as soon as the tarts and cheese-cakes make their appearance he quitted his seat, and stood aloof till he was summoned to return thanks for the repast, from a great part of which he had been excluded.”[127a]

This certainly was not a very cheerful state of things for the working clergy and the people; and, although thehigh dignitaries of the churchhad few kind words to bestow on Cromwell, or the Commonwealth, it will be observed that the clergy and the people of Paddington had no reason to regret the establishment of the Parliamentary Commission.  The commissioners wished to see the tithes let at something like their real value: a new church built out of the rectory funds; and “a godly able preaching minister” appointed, whose pay was to be something more than the paltry stipend allowed by the lessee, previous to the Revolution; or than poor Mr. Anthony Dodd’s liberal salary of twenty-eight pounds per annum, for his two full services and two sermons “every Lord’s day.”

But, if the suggestions of the commissioners were not completely carried out, the report of 1649 was not entirely unheeded, even after the restoration of the episcopacy; for the trustworthy public notary, Newcourt, tells us that Bishop Sheldon bound his nephews “to pay the curate here eighty pounds per year, at the four most usual feasts, viz. twenty pounds per quarter;” and he also informs us that “The church was but small and being very old and ruinious was about the year 1678 pulled down and new built from the ground, at the cost and charges of Joseph Sheldon, knight, sometime Lord Mayor of the City of London, and his brother, Mr. Daniel Sheldon, then lessees of the manor of Paddington.”  And one would have thought that the memory of these events would have been preserved in less crazy heads than Mr. Dick’s; that the good example set to his successors by Bishop Sheldon would have been followed; and as the population of this place increased, and the value of the rectory-lands was thereby increased, the religious wants of the people would have been provided for out of these increased funds.

Two hundred pounds per annum, and the quantity of waste land for which Bishop Porteus and his lessees agreed to give the parish fifteen pounds a-year, is, as we have already seen, all that the liberal bishops of London, for the last century, have provided for the cure of fifty thousand souls,[127b]out of anestate which now yearly brings in thirty thousand pounds; and which, like the population, must increase for many years to come.  Such paltry provisions for the cure of souls in Paddington will be a lasting monument of disgrace to all parties concerned in these transactions.

To smooth down the unmitigated selfishness developed in the several private Acts of Parliament, which we have examined in a previous part of this Work, it has been said “the system was in fault.”  But when it was enacted, that two hundred acres of land which had been claimed by the church might be occupied by human beings, instead of cows and cabbage; “the system” could as easily have provided suitably for the religious education of the contemplated dwellers on this soil, as it did for the increase in the stipend of a single curate; or as it did for the transfer of two-thirds of the estate into the hands of lay lessees; and, when permission was given by another Act, to extend the power of granting building leases to four hundred acres of this estate, we find the rector of the parish, the lord of the manor, the bishop of London—three important personages in one—content with providing out of that estate an increased salary of eighty pounds a-year for a single curate; and with obtaining permission to give, “in case of need or convenience,” land which cost the owners of this estate fifteen pounds a year, I think the most charitable must say, that the inhabitants of this parish are not indebted to “the system” alone, for all the paternal care which their governors have bestowed on them and the cure of their souls.

Newcourt tells us Paddington “is exempt from the Archdeacon, and wholly subject to the Bishop of London and his Commissary;” and that the church is a donative of curacy in the gift of the bishops of that see, and is “supplied by a curate by virtue of the bishop’s license, wherein is committed to him thecura animarum.”

Whether Paddington has lost much by not having been overlooked by the archdeacon—“the bishop’s eye”—I cannot pretend to say; but we see that the rectory of Paddington, like that of many other places, overlooked by archdeacons, has been allowed to become a sinecure; and the curacy to exist without the means of cure; that the parson is a triune body; and thatthe rightsof the parochial church belong much more to the bishop, and his lay lessees, than to the excellent minister, to whom the “cure of souls,” with a stipend few gentlemen could live on, and none perform the necessaryduties with, is so considerately bestowed.  And, with such scandals as this daily staring us in the face, is it very surprising that the law, which heretofore reposed confidence in bishops, and assumed, “that they will not consent to anything that shall be to the prejudice of the church,” should have at length begun to discover, that its confidence has been somewhat misplaced, and that all bishops cannot be trusted?

It certainly has been discovered that Parliamentary enquiries are necessary in our day; and it has been found out, even by ecclesiastics, that the appointment of ecclesiastical commissioners could no longer be delayed if the church was to be saved.  But ecclesiastical commissioners are but men; the people, therefore, in every parish in England should themselves look into their own ecclesiastical affairs; and demand with one united voice the fulfilment of those religious duties to God and God’s poor, which devolve on those who claim the lands of the church.  Sooner or later a demand so just must be fully recognised; and governors will assuredly arise, who will have both the power and the will to execute justice.

Such malversations as those which have been recently exposed by the Rev. Mr. Whiston, and others, cannot last for ever; and the sooner the whole system is altered, if it be the system that is in fault, the better for all parties.

By returns moved for by our honourable member, Sir B. Hall, (to whom the whole country is deeply indebted for the information on ecclesiastical affairs which he has brought to light,) we find that the portion of the “Revenuesof theSeeofLondon, for the seven years ending thirty-first December, 1850,” arising from the “Share of Paddington Rents, &c.” amounted to £56,939 1s.6d., while the “share of the various payments in respect of share of Paddington estate,” for the same period, amounted to £1742 10s.3d.The correctness of that return is certified to, and signed “C. J. London.”[129]

The lay lessees received double this sum, as per agreement, so that for seven years £170,817 4s.6d.has been paid,chiefly in the shape of increased house-rent be it observed, by that portion of the people of Paddington, who have had the felicity of living on “The Bishop’s Estate.”

A law, which already exists, will affect the income of the next occupant of the See of London, and therefore his relations to the rectory of Paddington; and it has been hinted that something may be done, in that event, for this parish.But the people of Paddington do not desire such patchwork arrangements.  They want that which the whole country is asking for, and which cannot be much longer delayed—a law to regulate the whole of the estates of the church; and there is one pleasing anticipation for the people of Paddington in the contemplation of such a measure; viz. that, whatever may be the effect of that law, it cannot maketheirposition worse than it is at the present time.

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