I now come to the only remaining charity of which I propose to treat,
which is that now representing the old Parish Free Schools, viz., the
well known schools in Church Court, adjoining the parish church of S.
Mary Abbots, now called the National and Infant Schools.
The first endowment to this charity dates from so long ago as 1645, when
Roger Pimble gave by will two houses in High Street, Kensington, held
under a lease from Brazenose College, Oxford, for “a salary for the
maintenance of a free school in Kensington for poor men’s children in the
said town to be taught.”
In 1652 the parish purchased the leases of the “Catherine Wheel” public
house and a small plot of land adjoining, which were accordingly conveyed
to the Churchwardens and Overseers, and other parishioners, for the use
of the parish; and in 1664 the freehold of these premises was granted by
the Lady of the Manor of Abbots, Kensington, to Christopher Batt and
others in trust “for the perpetual habitation of a schoolmaster; for the
education, teaching and instruction of poor boys and youths of the parish
of Kensington in the same messuage;” and the said schoolmaster was to be
chosen by the parishioners and inhabitants, or the majority of them.
Catherine Dickens by will made in 1702 gave £50 to the Vicar and
Churchwardens, the income thereof to be applied for ever “for the further
maintenance of a schoolmaster belonging to the said parish, for teaching
such poor children to write and cast accounts, whose parents being
inhabitants of this parish were not able to pay for the same.”
In 1705 Mary Carnaby, as I have already mentioned, left £40 for the use
of the poor.
And in 1707 the Parish Officers, with £80 made up of Mr. Dicken’s £50 and
£30 out of Mary Carnaby’s £40, purchased the freehold of the “Goat”
public house in High Street, which was accordingly conveyed to trustees
on trust as to fire-eighths of the rent for the further and better
maintenance of the said schoolmaster, and as to three-eighths “to be
distributed among the poor.”
With these endowments a school was established; there was a building in
which instruction was given and a salary provided to pay a schoolmaster
by whom the instruction was to be given.
The history of the charity thus just established now becomes very
intricate, and it would exhaust your patience still more, without serving
any countervailing useful purpose, were I to attempt to follow the whole
matter in detail. I will therefore spare you all this, and content
myself, and I hope my hearers, by calling your attention to the more
important events.
In 1707 a charity school was established in accordance with the notions
of those days, in which 30 boys and 20 girls were instructed, and were
also clothed in an uniform at the expense of the charity, but were not
lodged or fed, except by a dinner on Sundays to secure their attendance
at church. This object was attained by applying for subscriptions, and
it was then that the Royal bounty which the schools have up to the
present received was first granted, Queen Anne granting £50 a-year, and
Prince George of Denmark her husband, £30 a-year. The next step was to
amalgamate the free school with the new charity school which took place
in 1709, and in 1711 the old schoolhouse on the premises formerly
occupied by the “Catherine Wheel” public house was pulled down and a new
one erected, and was first used in August, 1712. The subscriptions
collected for the building were more than sufficient for the purpose, as
were also those for the carrying on the school, and the surplus was from
time to time invested, first in East India bonds, and afterwards in South
Sea annuities.
Thomas Smith, and his son in 1721, left a house adjoining the school
premises in trust for the habitation of a schoolmaster.
In 1732 the Rev. Dr. Millington, the then Vicar of Kensington, devised
one-third of the rent of some land at Acton to trustees for the use of
the Charity School; and some other small gifts were from time to time
made to the charity.
In 1769 a Mrs. Randolph bequeathed, or gave in her lifetime, a sum of
£275 to the schools, which appears to have been invested in South Sea
Stock.
Another benefactor to the parish was Mr. John Farmer, who died on the 9th
November, 1803, bequeathing his portrait to the schoolhouse, in the
modern representative of which it still hangs, and assists the school
committee in their labours by beaming upon them from the wall of the
school committee room, and a sum of £500, together with the proceeds of
the sale of his household furniture and pictures, saving the aforesaid
portrait. The furniture produced £400, making Mr. Farmer’s, benefaction
amount in money to £900, and the whole appears to have been invested in
South Sea Stock.
At the date of the report of 1810, to which I have frequently alluded,
the property of the charity consisted of the school premises, occupying
an important site in the main road, two sums of South Sea stock,
amounting to £2,275 and £925 each, the Royal bounty, five-eighths of the
rent of the “Goat” public-house, and the rent of the land at Acton given
by Dr. Millington. And the committee recommended that some children be
boarded and longed as well as educated, and that more be educated, and
that the title be changed from “Charity School” to that of “Free School.”
The school premises erected in 1712 by means of the subscriptions to
which allusion was just now made, was long one of the glories of
Kensington. It was designed by Sir John Vanbrugh, the constructor of
Blenheim Palace, and the fashionable architect of his time. Sir John was
also known as a great and successful courtier, as well as a dramatic
author and poet of somewhat doubtful reputation. Many of us are in a
position to criticise from memory one at least of his works, viz., the
front of these Kensington National Schools, which stood until removed to
make way for the new Town Hall. There were figures of a charity boy and
girl in the costume of the period decorating the front. Sir John
Vanbrugh seems to have satisfied the taste not only of his own but of
some succeeding generations with this building, for Faulkner, writing in
1820, speaks of it in terms of high praise, and makes a boast of
Kensington possessing it, but I must confess I personally never admired
it, and am far from regretting its destruction.
Following on the recommendation of the committee of 1810, the charity was
reconstructed. New schoolrooms were built, still behind Sir John’s
front, which were first opened in June, 1818, on the National system of
education which had been first established in the parish in 1809. In
August, 1819, according to Faulkner, there were 140 boys and 100 girls in
the school, the whole of whom were taught by one master and one mistress,
without any assistants. Mark that, ye moderns! 70 girls were clothed,
but only 12 boys. The children were all day scholars, the hours of
attendance being from 9 to 12, and 2 to 5 on week-days, and on Sundays
twice to church.
I now come to the more modern history of the Charity. The older
parishioners will remember the time when Archdeacon Sinclair was Vicar,
and the interest he took in the matter of the parish schools. In my
search for information on the subject I applied to the Rev. Wm. Wright,
now Rector of Sutton, near Sandy, in Bedfordshire, who was for twenty
years, from 1855 to 1875, senior Curate of Kensington under the
Archdeacon, and who acted as secretary to the schools all that time, and
he has been very kind in answering my questions. This is how Mr. Wright
describes the schools:—
“In 1855 there was next to the Vestry Hall and Churchyard a large
room consisting of four walls, three of which were dead, _i.e._,
skylight.
“The room was divided by masonry and folding doors; on one side was a
boys’ school and on the other a girls’ school. The building was
hideous in the extreme, internally and externally. Adjoining was a
residence for teachers, comfortless and miserable, but with a
make-believe frontage to High Street of brick work which was admired
by the ‘craft’ and the antiquarians, I should say. Behind this was a
wretched schoolroom for infants abutting on Church Court. The whole
lot of building save the frontage a miserable affair.
“There was no boarding of children in my time. There was free
education, but leave was obtained to make a change subject to a small
free list being maintained. As to clothing, there was a partial
clothing of some children, but as the uniform of charity was
distasteful it was dropped, and the saving thereof thrown into the
educational fund of the school.
“The question of new schools arose, and what we did was, first, to
buy up the house in Church Court next to the police station, and on
the site of it build the girls’ schools. {16} This done, it was
after a time rumoured that the adjoining houses were likely to be
sold for purposes which would destroy the quiet of the schools. We
then, secondly, bought the houses adjoining. Accommodating ourselves
to the times, we had to look out for better schools, and the thought
struck us that as the wretched room in High Street was a very
valuable site for almost any other purpose in the world than a
school, we might sell it and with the proceeds build a boys’ and
infants’ school on one of the best sites for such a thing, viz.,
Church Court and on the verge of the closed churchyard. Accordingly
we sold the school site in High Street to the Vestry, and with the
money so obtained built the boys’ and infants’ schools.
“As to the funds of the school: they were drawn upon to effect the
purchase of the close houses, and there were sums of ‘accumulated
balances’ which were at the disposal of the trustees for such
purpose. Of course when the schools were built the rents of the
houses on its site were gone for ever. There were other sources from
which help was obtained to aid the cause.”
I am sure every one interested in Kensington will feel grateful to Mr.
Wright for kindly giving us such full and accurate information, which
probably no other man now living could have supplied.
Exactly according to Mr. Wright’s recollection I find an order of the
Charity Commissioners dated the 15th December, 1874, sanctioning the sale
of the school site to the Vestry of Kensington for a sum of not less than
£7,100.
This sale was effected, and upon the site was erected the new Town Hall,
which we of this generation admire as much as our forefathers did, Sir
John Vanbrugh’s school, and we are conceited enough to believe with far
more reason.
The schools are now regulated, like most of the other charities, by an
order of the Charity Commissioners, dated the 13th August, 1875.
That order contains a schedule of the property possessed at the date by
the Charity, and it then consisted of:—
The sites of 3, 4, 5, and 6, Church Court, {17a} forming the site of the
proposed new schools for boys and infants, and also the school buildings
and site adjoining the girls’ schools.
A sum of £7,543 consols standing in the names of the official trustees of
charitable funds.
The leasehold houses bequeathed by Roger Pimble, being Nos. 51 and 53,
High Street, held from Brazenose College, Oxford, for twenty-one years,
from Lady Day, 1864, at £4, and underlet at £220 per annum.
Five-eighths of the rent of the “Goat” public house, from Catherine
Dicken’s bequest.
The Millington land at Acton, being 5a. 0r. 7p. copyhold {17b} of the
Manor of Acton, let at £20 per annum.
A sum of £421 17_s._ 3_d._, representing a bequest by William Briant
Arundell made about the year 1830.
The royal bounty of £73 10_s._ received from the Commissioners of Woods
and Forests in respect of an annual grant of £50 per annum by Queen Anne,
and £30 by Prince George of Denmark.
And by this order of the Charity Commissioners of 13th December, 1875,
which is made “in the matter of the Charity called the National Schools
in the parish of Kensington, with the subsidiary endowments belonging
thereto,” it was directed—
That the piece of ground being the site of Nos. 3, 4, 5, and 6, Church
Court, should be held in trust by the Vicar and Churchwardens of
Kensington, “to permit the premises to be for ever appropriated and used
solely as and for a school for the instruction of children and adults of
the labouring, manufacturing, and other poorer classes of the parish of
Kensington.”
Such school was directed to be conducted as a public elementary school
under the 7th section of the Elementary Education Act, 1870.
The management of the school is vested in a committee named by the order,
which also provides for their future appointment, and in whom is vested
the power of engaging and discharging the teachers and regulating the
attendance fees and all other matters.
The school remains as constituted by this order.
A large sum of money was necessarily expended in the erection and
equipment of the new schools, so large that I find the income from rents
during the year ending 31st December, 1890, only amounted to £143 16_s._
5_d._ (which since the charity received five-eighths of the present rent
of the “Goat” public house, which is £150 a-year, or the sum of £93
15_s._ from that source) shows that very little other endowment is left.
{17c}
I regret to say that I learn that the royal bounty is to be reduced for
the future to the sum of £10 10_s._ a-year, the Commissioners of Woods
and Forests declining to pay any larger sum, regulating the payments of
the royal bounty by the proportion which the contributions from the
public in the parish bears to the total property of the parish, and the
proportion which the Crown property bears to the other property in the
parish.
On the other hand, I hear that the land at Acton is coming in for
building, find will probably shortly be sold on advantageous terms, or
leased at an increased rent.
There is accommodation in these schools for 364 boys, 256 girls, and 260
infants, a total of 880.
The number of children attending during the year 1890 was 864, and
altogether the Kensington National Schools are an institution of which
the parish may well be proud.
I have now concluded the task I set myself, of endeavouring to explain to
you the endowed charities of Kensington.
Of course there are numberless other most admirable and deserving
charities in the parish endeavouring to provide for the temporal and
spiritual necessities of a population of 188,000 souls, but upon these
neither the scope nor the limits of my paper allow me to touch.
May I hope that the enumeration of all these almost exclusively ancient
charitable bequests to the parish, and the slight survey of the good they
have accomplished I have been able to give this evening, may awake in the
minds and hearts of those possessing means a feeling of emulation with
their ancestors, and lead them by adding to the endowments of the
existing parish charities and by the foundation of new ones, to prove
that Kensington still deserves the reputation it has long enjoyed of an
eminently christian and charitable parish.
May I be permitted one word relative to myself before I sit down: I
undertook the preparation of this paper some two months ago, at the
urgent request of the Secretary of the Kensington Ratepayers’
Association. I then had no idea, nor do I think anyone else had, that I
should be called upon to take an active part in the management of these
charities to which my paper has related.
When in the country during the Easter holidays engaged in the study of
the charities of Kensington for the purposes of this paper as a holiday
task, I heard that I had received the unsolicited and unexpected
appointment of Churchwarden of Kensington, and am therefore now to
administer as part of my duties the very charities of which I have been
discoursing.
The labour of love I undertook in the preparation of this paper will not
then be thrown away after its immediate purpose has been served, but the
knowledge I have gained will greatly aid me in the performance of my
duties.
And may I finally conclude by saying what I am sure we all feel and
endeavour to practice, that it is the duty of every individual to do what
he can according to his opportunities on behalf of the general cause of
charity, and that by endeavouring to ameliorate the condition of our
fellow creatures, we better and improve our own, and what is even of
greater importance, enlarge and stimulate our own hearts and sympathies.