THE PADDINGTON ESTATE.
THE policy which has raised the manor and rectory of Paddington to its
present value {72}—three-quarters of a million sterling; which has
effectually transferred, (so far as private Acts of Parliament can
transfer,) two-thirds of the interest of this “small estate” into private
hands; and which at the same time has kindly permitted the rate-payers of
Paddington to saddle themselves with almost the entire “costs and
charges” of those duties for which the whole of this estate was
originally designed, may be said to have had some show of a _legalised_
beginning exactly a century ago.
In 1753, Thomas (Sherlock), then bishop of London, and Sir John
Frederick, then lessee of the manor, were parties to an agreement with
the parishioners of Paddington; and procured for them, or assisted in
procuring, “An Act for enlarging the church-yard of the parish of
Paddington, in the county of Middlesex;” which ratified that agreement.
It had been agreed, and was now enacted, that “a certain piece or parcel
of ground, adjoining to the east side of the said church-yard, containing
from east to west, on the north side thereof, ninety-six feet of assize;
and from north to south, on the east side thereof, one hundred and eighty
four-feet of assize; and from east to west, on the south side thereof,
one hundred and twenty-one feet of assize; and from north to south, on
the west side thereof, one hundred and thirty-two feet of assize” should
“be annexed to the present cemetery or church-yard of the said parish of
Paddington,” for ever: The churchwardens, or one of them, paying, after
the twenty-fourth of June, 1753, during the continuance of Sir John
Frederick’s lease, “unto the said Thomas, Lord Bishop of London, and his
successors, or to his or their proper officer or agent for the time
being, the annual rent or yearly sum of forty shillings of lawful money
of Great Britain, at or on the feast-day of St. John the Baptist, in
every year, during the continuance of the said lease; and also to the
said Sir John Frederick, his heirs or assigns, the annual rent or yearly
sum of ten pounds of lawful money of Great Britain, at or on the
feast-day of Saint John the Baptist, in every year during the continuance
of the same lease; and from and after the expiration of the said lease,
to the said Thomas, Lord Bishop of London, and his successors, and his
and their grantees, the annual rent or yearly sum of twelve pounds of
lawful money of Great Britain, at or on the feast-day of Saint John the
Baptist in every year for ever:” the rent and all arrears being made
recoverable by action at law with full costs of suit. {73}
For defraying the expenses of this Act and enclosing the said ground, the
inhabitants were permitted to borrow a sum not exceeding two hundred and
fifty pounds at four per cent. interest.
Sir John Frederick died in 1755, having made a will, dated twenty-seventh
of February, 1734, in which he leaves his estate to his sons “in tail
male, remainder to the heirs male of the testator’s own body, remainder
to his own right heirs;” and added a codicil, dated April tenth, 1742, in
which he notices that, since the making his said will, he had purchased
the site and capital messuage of the manor of Paddington, held by lease
for three lives from the Bishop of London, and “he thereby gave and
demised the same to the trustees, in his said will, their heirs and
assigns, during the lives of Judith Jodrell, John Affleck, and John
Crozier the younger, in the said lease named, and for the life of the
longest liver of them, upon trust, out of the rents and profits, to pay
the rent reserved by the said lease, and perform the lessees’ covenants
therein, and to renew the said lease as occasion should require, and
raise the fines and charges for such renewals, and subject thereto,
should stand seized of the said leasehold premises, in trust for such and
the same person and persons as should, from time to time, be entitled to
his freehold land of inheritance, by virtue of his said will or codicils
so far as the nature of the said leasehold premises would admit, and by
the rules of law and equity they might.”
His eldest son, Sir John Frederick, held and enjoyed the same during his
life; and, as he died intestate and without issue, in the month of March,
1757, it came to his second son, Sir Thomas Frederick, who had two
daughters.
In 1763, the third year of George the third, Richard, (Osbaldeston), then
Bishop of London, and Sir Thomas Frederick, then lessee of the manor,
agreed to “An Act for vesting certain parcels of land in Paddington, in
the county of Middlesex, in the Rector and Churchwardens of the parish of
Saint George, Hanover-square, in the said county, and appropriating the
same for a burial-ground for the said parish;” by which “five acres or
thereabouts, lying at the west-end of the field called Tyburn Field,” and
a piece of waste, lying between the highway leading from London to
Uxbridge, and the said field, were settled upon and vested in the rectors
and churchwardens of the said parish, for ever. These lands being
“discharged from the uses in Sir John Frederick’s will, and annexed to
the parish of St. George, Hanover-square;” and the life estate or
interest in the said five acres of ground having been purchased of Sir
Thomas Frederick, the churchwardens agreed, and were bound, to pay, after
the decease of Sir Thomas, fifteen pounds per annum to the person or
persons who shall be entitled to the site of the manor of Paddington, and
the rest of the said leasehold premises under and by virtue of the will
and codicils of the said Sir John Frederick, “during the present or any
subsequent lease to be granted thereof;” and to “the Bishop of London,
and his successors, during the time that the said site of the said manor,
and the rest of the said leasehold premises, shall remain in the proper
hands and possession of the said bishop, or his successors, and not in
lease, to or for the benefit of any person or persons, claiming or to
claim under or by virtue of the will and codicils of the said Sir John
Frederick, the clear yearly sum of twenty-five pounds;” and to “the
churchwardens for the time being of the said Parish of Paddington, for
ever, the clear yearly sum of forty-shillings, in lieu of all parochial
rates, taxes, and assessments which may, or otherwise might, be due and
payable to the said parish of Paddington for or in respect of the said
intended burial-ground, or the lands therein to be contained.” Actions
are given to the several parties for non-payment of these sums; the
churchwardens are to be allowed such payments; and the rector to have the
burial-fees.
In 1795, a private Act of Parliament, the 35th Geo. III, cap. 83,
entitled “An Act for enabling the Lord Bishop of London to grant a lease
with powers of renewal of lands in the parish of Paddington, in the
county of Middlesex; for the purpose of building upon,” received the
sanction of the legislature.
We are informed by the preamble of this Act, which occupies thirty-two
Act of Parliament pages, and recites wholly or in part fifteen
indentures; {75a} that on the fourth of May, 1768, the manor and rectory
were leased to Gascoigne Frederick, his heirs and assigns, for three
lives, and that in consideration of the surrender of this lease, “as also
for divers other good causes and valuable considerations him thereunto
specially moving,” the “Right honourable and Reverend Father-in-God,
Richard, {75b} by Divine permission, then Lord Bishop of London,” granted
unto the aforesaid Gascoigne Frederick, of the Inner Temple, a new lease,
for three lives, bearing date the fourteenth of August, 1776.
We are further informed, that this Gascoigne Frederick died intestate,
leaving Mary Frederick, Elizabeth Snell, and Susannah Frederick, all of
Bampton, in the county of Oxford, his only surviving sisters and co-heirs
at law. We are also informed, that in this lease of the fourteenth of
August, 1776, Gascoigne Frederick’s “name was made use of therein only
for the use and benefit of Elizabeth Frederick and Selina Frederick,” and
that they, with their husbands, applied to the ladies of Bampton to sell
all the hereditaments and premises demised to the said Gascoigne
Frederick, in 1776; and which these ladies kindly did for _ten shillings
a-piece_, as is witnessed by indentures, dated fifth and sixth of
February, 1781, which re-convey the said lease and leasehold premises to
trustees for the purposes mentioned in the will and codicil of Sir John
Frederick, and in the marriage-settlements of the granddaughters of the
aforesaid baronet.
By a “fine sur concessit,” levied in Trinity Term, in the twenty-second
year of George the third, “in order to dock, bar, and extinguish all
estates, tail,” &c, this estate was conveyed to Thomas Lloyd and his
heirs for the uses of the trustees, in trust to be applied, one half
according to the marriage settlement of Elizabeth wife of John Morshead,
afterwards Sir John Morshead; the other half subject to the uses of the
marriage settlement of her sister Selina, wife of Robert Thistlethwayte.
These indentures are dated respectively the fifth of July, 1782, and
fourth of March, 1783. They are set forth, in part, in the Act now under
review; and as they were executed during the minority of these ladies,
there are also, as we may suppose, references to sundry opinions,
reports, orders, &c. of that very ancient Court of Equity, whose
interesting proceedings are so excellently depicted in “Bleak House,” by
the great teacher of our time.
By conveying these lay interests in this estate with other interests in
private property to trustees,—by charging the whole with large sums of
money,—by carrying the “remainder” over a thousand years in one case, and
in the other one thousand five hundred;—by changing “the said leasehold
premises from a freehold to a chattle interest;”—and then by making “the
tenure thereof as nearly equal to freehold as possible;”—and by certain
acts which we are about to examine, Gascoigne Frederick’s lease for three
lives has been converted into as snug and nice a little property, as any
lady or gentleman in the land need desire; provided always, it could be
secured from the anxious care of the ancient court before mentioned, and
that more modern tribunal, which will one day be instituted to examine
into the claims the public may have on such estates as this.
As the chief instruments in the formation of the Paddington estate are
those peculiar Acts of Parliament which have been denominated “facts,” to
distinguish them from “laws,” it is from these chiefly that I shall
gather the _facts_ contained in this chapter: and as this Act of 1795 is
somewhat scarce, and as the preamble affords some interesting
information, I shall quote several passages from it entire:—
_Purchase of Waste Lands_.—“And whereas there are certain Pieces or
Parcels or small narrow strips of Land, containing in the whole about
five acres, which lie as Waste or Commonable Lands in the Lanes and
Road-Ways dispersed in, about, and within the said Parish of Paddington,
and are contiguous to and in front of some of the said Lanes,
Hereditaments, and Premises comprised in the said lease, between the
Hedge Rows of the same Lands and the different Road and Carriage Ways
leading to, from and through the said parish, as the public highways
thereof, and which have been used by the tenants of the said lessees for
the purpose chiefly of laying Dung Heaps thereon, and the same are become
a great nuisance, not only to the said Parishioners, but to the Public at
large, and which nuisance would not only considerably increase if the
same Lands were to remain open and unenclosed in their present state, to
the great annoyance of the said Public and Parish at large, but would
greatly impede the good purposes of this Act; and therefore it is
proposed by the said Lord Bishop and his said Lessees, that the said
Waste Lands should be annexed to and become a Part of the said
Hereditaments and Premises so to be demised under the powers of this Act,
and that such Compensation shall be made to the said Parish at large for
any Interest they may claim therein for the benefit of the said Parish,
by way of a Rent Charge, to be paid to the Churchwardens of the said
Parish for the Time being for ever, for enclosing the same as is
hereinafter provided for, and annexing the same to the said Hereditaments
and Premises, discharged of and from any Common Right or Claim, if any
such did exist.”
_Contemplated Destruction of Parsonage and other Souses_.—“And whereas
some few Farm Houses and Messuages have many years since been erected,
and are now standing on Part of the said demised Premises, but the same
with the Out Buildings are now become very ancient and much out of
repair, and in some respects so very ruinous as to be incapable of being
repaired; and a variety of other small and temporary Buildings of Lath
and Plaster, and of a very inferior quality, have also been lately
erected and built, and now are erecting and building thereon, and which
by means of the Persons who inhabit therein may become a great Burthen to
the said Parish in the increase of their Poor Rates, but the principal
Part of the said Ground demised by the said Indenture of Lease of the
fourteenth day of August, 1776, still lies open and unbuilt upon, and on
account of its vicinity to London, the whole is capable of very great and
capital improvement, and if such Improvements were made would render a
very large Increase of Rent, as well to the said Lessees and their Heirs
and Assigns, as to the said Lord Bishop and his Successors for the Time
being, but by reason of the nature of the present Tenure such
Improvements cannot be effected, and therefore in order to induce
Builders and other Persons to take the same and build capital Houses and
Squares thereon, it is thought necessary that the Tenure thereof should
be made in value as nearly equal to Freehold as possible.”
_The Nature of the Lease to be Changed_.—“And whereas it would be greatly
for the Benefit and Advantage of the said Lord Bishop of London and of
his Successors, and of the said Sir John Morshead and Dame Elizabeth, his
wife, and their Issue, (instead of granting Leases for Lives as has been
usual and customary on Fines paid for the same) if a power was given to
the said Lord Bishop and his Successors to grant a new Lease of the said
Premisses comprised in the said Lease of the fourteenth day of August,
1776, together with the said Strips of Waste Land within the said Parish
of Paddington, for such Terms of Years, and with such Powers of Renewal
as are hereafter mentioned, and particularly with a power for the Lessees
therein to grant Under Leases thereof, at such Rents, and under such
restrictions, and in such manner as is hereinafter expressed with respect
to such Original and Under Leases respectively.”
_Division of Profits_.—“And whereas the value of the Interests of the
said Lord Bishop of London and his successors and of the said Lessees in
the said Premises, having been taken into consideration, it is conceived
that the Rents, Issues and Profits which at present are reserved or
payable, or which shall or may arise from and out of the Messuages,
Lands, Hereditaments, and Premises comprised in the said Lease, or which
shall hereafter be reserved or payable, or arise from and out of the said
Premises, and every part thereof, upon any reserved Lease or Leases to be
made under the authority of this Act, or any Under Leases in pursuance
thereof or otherwise, should be appropriated between the said Bishop of
London and his said Lessees in the shares hereinafter mentioned, (that is
to say), One Third thereof to the Bishop and his Successors for the Time
being, and Two Thirds thereof to his said Lessees, their Executors,
Administrators, or Assigns, subject to the said present Annual Rents and
Pension, and such other Deductions as are hereinafter mentioned.”
_Increase of Forty Pounds a year in the Stipend of a Single Curate_.—“And
whereas the said clear yearly pension or stipend of Eighty Pounds, so
payable to the Curate of the said Parish of Paddington for the time
being, who is appointed to serve the said Cure by the said Lord Bishop
and his Successors, and which now stands charged upon the whole of the
said Hereditaments and Premises so comprised in the said Lease of the
fourteenth day of August, 1776, and which it is proposed should be by the
said intended Lease or Leases so to be granted under the powers of this
Act, increased to £120 a-year, and be secured upon and made payable, not
only out of the Tythes arising and to arise and become payable to the
said Lessees, as hereinafter is mentioned, but also upon a Farm and Lands
called Kilburn Bridge Farm hereinafter mentioned, and now of the annual
value of £230, and now in the occupation of — Newport, as Tenant thereof
at such Rent, and not be charged or become chargeable upon any other part
of the said Lands, Hereditaments, and Premises to be leased by any such
Under Lease or Under Leases for the purposes intended by this Act, in
which case it would defeat the good purposes of this Act.
_Sole benefit of contemplated change_, _with the exceptions above
mentioned_, _to be for the Bishop and his Lessees_.—And whereas,
notwithstanding it would be for the mutual benefit of the said Lord
Bishop of London and his successors, and the said Sir John Morshead and
Dame Elizabeth his Wife and their infant issue, and the said Robert
Thistlethwayte and Selina his Wife and their Infant issue as aforesaid,
that the said herein-before mentioned Proposals should be carried into
complete Execution, yet the same cannot be effected without the aid of
Parliament.”
Wherefore His Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, Beilby (Porteus)
Lord Bishop of London, on behalf of himself and his successors, Thomas
Wood, (the surviving Trustee of the marriage settlements of the
under-mentioned ladies,) Sir John Morshead and Dame Elizabeth his Wife,
on behalf of themselves and their six children, Robert Thistlethwayte and
Selina his Wife, on behalf of themselves and their six children, and Sir
John Frederick and Arthur Stanhope (new trustees appointed under the
provisions of the aforesaid marriage settlements) joined in beseeching
his Majesty that it might be enacted, and it was enacted, in the usual
form: “That it shall and may be lawful to and for the said Beilby, Lord
Bishop of London, and his successors for the time being, and he and they
are hereby required and directed by Indenture under the Episcopal Seal of
the said Lord Bishop, and his successors, to demise, lease, and to farm
let” to the said trustees “their Executors, Administrators, or Assigns,
or the Trustees or Trustee for the time being, to be hereafter named or
appointed under the Powers” of Indentures of settlement of the 5th of
July, 1782, and 4th of March, 1783, partly recited in this Act, all the
“Hereditaments whatsoever of the said Reverend Father, and belonging to
the bishoprick of London, heretofore demised by the late King Henry the
eighth,” by an Indenture dated 21st of December, in the thirty-fifth year
of his reign, to Richard Rede; “and also all that Annual Rent or yearly
sum of Ten Pounds, charged upon the Parish of Paddington;” “and also all
that Wood and Wood Ground commonly called Paddington Wood, containing by
estimation Thirty Acres, be it more or less, and which was many years
since converted into and is now Pasture Land, together with all manner of
Trees, Hawts and Hedgerows of the said Reverend Father, and belonging to
the said Bishoprick of London, growing or being, or which hereafter shall
grow or be within the Parish of Paddington aforesaid, and also all the
Herbage and Pannage of the said Woods, &c. &c.,” “and all other the
Hereditaments and Premises” leased and comprised in an Indenture, dated
the fourteenth of August, 1776, also partly recited in this Act, “except
Easter Offerings, Mortuaries, and all surplice fees to be paid to and
received by the Curate of Paddington for the time being;” and also all
and singular the strips or pieces or parcels of waste ground
herein-before described “containing about five acres, be the same more or
less;” “To hold for a term of ninety-nine years, and to commence from
the day next before the day of the date of such lease,” and also to renew
the said lease at the end of the first fifty years of the said term of
ninety-nine years, on payment or tender of a fine of twenty shillings,
for a further term of ninety-nine years, to commence and be computed from
the end of the said first fifty years, and so to continue to renew the
lease for the time being so to be granted.” {80}
The Act provides “That before the Execution of the said first Indenture
of Lease, or of any Indenture of Renewal, and at the end of every year
afterwards there shall be delivered by the Lessees therein to be named to
the said Bishop and his successors, or his or their Agent or Steward, a
true and particular account, in writing, of the Rent or Rents, at which
the Premises thereby to be leased, are then let or demised, and to whom,
and for what term or number of years respectively.”
The Act also provides “that there be reserved in such Lease and renewed
Leases a chief rent chargeable on the said Lands, Tenements, &c.,” “for
the benefit of the said Lord Bishop of London and his successors for the
time being, of forty-three pounds, six shillings and eightpence, and also
one-third part of the rents, issues, ground-rents, and other profits
reserved or to be reserved, due and payable, or arising out or from, or
which the same Messuages or Tenements, Lands, Tythes, Hereditaments, and
Premises, and every part thereof shall be let for, immediately before the
passing of this Act, and which the same shall from time to time be let
for, under the leases to be granted as hereinafter is mentioned, or
otherwise, after deducting in the first place the above-mentioned
reserved rent of forty-three pounds, six shillings and eight-pence,” a
pension to the curate of £120 a-year, the fifteen pounds a year rent paid
to the Churchwardens for the waste lands, the land tax, “and such other
taxes as shall or may be hereafter imposed on the Lessor or Landlord in
respect of the said Premises by authority of Parliament.” Such reserved
rents to be paid quarterly “and the first payment thereon to commence, to
the said Lord Bishop and his successors, from the fifth day of April last
past.”
It was also provided that the aforesaid pension or annual stipend of
£120, payable to the curate, should be secured on and made payable from
the tithes of the Parish of Paddington, also on “a farm, called Kilburn
Bridge Farm, containing about forty acres or thereabouts, and of the
yearly value of £230.” It was also provided, that the lease now to be
granted or any renewed lease should contain such or the like covenants as
are mentioned and contained in the Indenture of the fourteenth of August,
1776, “touching the accommodation of the Surveyor or Steward of the said
Lord Bishop and his successors, their servants and horses, on any court
or courts, survey or surveys to be held of or for the said Premises.”
“Provided always, that there be a covenant inserted in such Lease and
Leases so to be granted as aforesaid, that the said Thomas Wood, Sir John
Frederick, and Arthur Stanhope, their Executors, Administrators, and
Assigns, or any succeeding Trustee or Trustees to be appointed as
aforesaid, their or his Executors, Administrators, or Assigns shall not
lease or demise any part of the said Hereditaments and Premises to be
comprised in the Leases so to be granted to them as aforesaid, except in
the manner hereinafter mentioned.”
A power was given to the said Trustees or their Assigns to demise any
part of the said premises comprised in the lease and leases to be granted
by the bishop and his successors, “not exceeding two hundred acres
thereof,” without application to Parliament for farther powers, “to any
person or persons who shall be willing to build upon, rebuild, or
substantially repair the same, in the manner by the Lease or respective
Leases to be granted thereof to be specified,” for any term not exceeding
ninety-eight years (“provided that the said Lord Bishop for the time
being be a party to all such Under Leases,”) “so as there be reserved in
and by such Leases, &c. the best and most improved yearly rent that can
be reasonably had or gotten for the same, to be made payable quarterly,
free from all deductions whatsoever, without any Pine, Premium, or
Foregift, or any Thing in the nature of a Fine being taken for the making
thereof.”
The leases were to contain covenants to build and keep in repair the
messuages, &c. agreed to be built, and to keep these buildings “insured
from damage by fire to the amount of four-fifths of the value thereof;”
and “to surrender and leave in repair the messuages, &c. to be erected
and built, or rebuilt and repaired” at the end of the term or terms in
such leases granted. And all “other usual and proper covenants,
provisos, and conditions” were to be inserted “usually contained in
building leases near the City of London.” These under-lettings were to
take place from time to time by public auction to the best bidder, (if
approved of by the bishop and his lessees), notice of the time and place
of such auction having been given to the bishop or his agent by the said
lessees. Separate lots were to be made for every house, “whose breadth
in front shall be twenty-eight feet and upwards;” and for houses of
smaller dimensions no more than one hundred feet frontage was to be let
in one lot. The under-lessees were to be bound to build on this land, so
taken, within a specified time, “and agreeably to such a plan as shall be
approved by the Lord Bishop of London and his successors, and the said
lessees for the time being.” Three counterparts of these under-leases
were to be provided, one to be delivered to the bishop or his agent, for
the registration of which a fee of six shillings and eight pence was to
be paid; the other two being for the trustees of the two families
interested in the Bishop’s lease. Any number of these sub-leases might
be taken by any one person, so that the quantity altogether did not
amount “to more than fifteen acres of the said land.” It was also
provided, that “Farm Leases at Rack-rent for twenty-one years may be
granted with the consent of the Bishop of London,” but to be determinable
on six months’ notice being given.
The patronage of the Church of Paddington was reserved to the Bishop.
The trustees were to stand possessed of the new lease on leases to be
granted by the Bishop, in trust, one half for the person and persons, &c.
to whom the same ought to go or belong by virtue of the Indenture of
Release of the fifth of July, 1782; the other half in trust for the
person and persons, &c. entitled by virtue of the Indenture, dated fourth
of March, 1783; certain new provisions having been necessary in
consequence of the change of interests.
The trustees were not to make any leases under the authority of this Act,
without the consent in writing of Sir John and Lady Morshead, and Mr. and
Mrs. Thistlethwayte.
And this Act was not to prevent the Bishop and his Lessees from treating
with the Grand Junction Canal Proprietors “for such part or parts of the
said premises, over and above the number of acres hereinbefore limited
for building on;” neither did it do so; for by “An Act for making a
Navigable Cut from the Grand Junction Canal, in the precinct of Norwood,
in the county of Middlesex, to Paddington, in the said county,” passed in
the same year as the preceding, the 35th Geo. III, cap. 43, we find that
although the cut was not to be made through the Paddington Estate without
the consent of owners yet that consent had already been given as to
certain lands at Westbourn-green; and in 1798, by an Act for confirming
and carrying into execution certain articles of Agreement made and
entered into between Beilby, Lord Bishop of London, the Lessees of the
Paddington Estate, and the Company of Proprietors of the Grand Junction
Canal, “and for other purposes therein mentioned”—the 38th Geo. III, cap.
33.—we find that the said Company had then entered into a covenant with
the said Lord Bishop, and his lessees, for certain other Pieces or
Parcels of Land lying in the Parish of Paddington, amounting in the whole
to “Forty Acres, Two Roods and Thirty-seven Perches,” at a yearly rent of
£814 12_s._ 6_d._ being at the rate of twenty pounds per annum per acre;
also certain other Pieces or Parcels, all in the aforesaid Act
particularly set forth, {83} amounting in the whole to “Seven Acres and
Two Roods,” at a yearly rent of thirty-nine pounds, seven shillings and
six-pence, being after the rate of five pounds per acre per annum: in
addition to which the Company agreed to pay a further rent of thirty
pounds per annum, in respect of Buildings standing on the ground agreed
to be demised: and this annual sum of £884 was agreed to be paid “by the
said Company of Proprietors, their successors and assigns, free and clear
of all manner of taxes, and from all other deductions and outgoings
whatsoever:” one-third part to be paid to the said Lord Bishop and his
successors, and the remaining two-thirds to the trustees, as lessees of
the said estate. What good and valuable consideration, over and above
the rent specified, was given to the Bishop and his lessees to induce
them to consent to lease this land for ninety-nine years, bating one day;
and to agree, for themselves and their successors, to renew the lease
every fifty years for the same term, on the tender of a fine of twenty
shillings, I cannot tell. These holders of the land, in all probability,
had a less exalted notion of its value than their successors have had,
but still it is very probable _some_ compensation was given to induce
them to part with it at such a rent.
Nine years after the passing of the Bishop’s first Building Act, it was
found that it required “altering and amending,” and the 44th Geo. III.
cap. 63, was passed for that purpose; “and for granting further powers,
the better to carry into execution the purposes of the said Act.”
By this Act, two new trustees, Frederick Treise Morshead, eldest son of
Sir John and Lady Morshead, and Henry Frederick Thistlethwayte, son of
Sir Robert and Selina Thistlethwayte, were appointed in the place of
Thomas Wood, deceased. And we are informed that those parts of the first
Act which limited the letting to public auction only, and required, in
the leases for twenty-one years, the insertion of a notice that the
occupancy might be terminated after any six months thereof, were “found
to be very prejudicial to the interests of the parties interested in the
said estate, and a great check to the future improvement thereof,” and it
was thought that it would “tend greatly to the advantage of the See of
London, and the other parties interested in the said estate,” if further
powers were given. These clauses of the aforesaid Act were, therefore,
repealed, and in lieu thereof, the lessees or lessee of the Bishop, with
his previous consent first had and obtained in writing, were allowed to
treat, by private contract, or otherwise, with any person or persons,
willing to build on this land, for the whole or any part of the two
hundred acres in the previous Act mentioned to be let for building upon,
for any term not exceeding ninety-nine years.
The previous Act limited the use of the brick-clay, gravel, &c. which
were dug out of this estate, to the improvement of the premises whereon
these were found, but to no other purpose; but it was now declared, that
“for as much as it will tend greatly to the Improvement of the said
Estate, to raise a Fund for the purpose of making main drains, forming
and paving streets, forming and gravelling roads, making bridges, and
erecting bridge ways for the improvement of the said estate,” it should
now be enacted, that these materials might be sold to form a fund for
carrying out these objects, “and for the general improvement of the said
estate.” {85a}
Provision was made by this Act for the redemption of the land tax, which
was charged at £132 per annum, the consideration for which is stated to
have been £4,840 capital stock in the three per cents. This was bought
for £3,075 0_s._ 10_d._, by the sale of 4A. 1R. 36½P. which brought in
£3,653 4_s._ 5_d._, the expenses thereon being £64 11_s._ 10_d._ {85b}
In 1805, another Act of Parliament relative to the Paddington estate, the
45th Geo. III. cap. 113, became the law of the land, and “all judges,
justices, and others” were directed to admit, as evidence, printed copies
thereof; but as this Act can be obtained in the usual way, my notice of
it will be very brief. It recites in part the two preceding Acts; states
that “considerable progress has been made for carrying into execution the
said Acts;” and attempts to remove “doubts which have arisen whether the
trustees of the original lease for the time being, though with the
consent of the said Lord Bishop, (Beilby, still bishop of London), or his
successors, have a power under the said Acts, or either of them, to enter
into contracts for granting building leases at a rent to be specified in
the contract, payable for the whole ground agreed to be demised; and
afterwards, as the houses or buildings shall be completed or covered in,
to grant separate leases of such houses or buildings, at separate rents,
amounting in the whole to the rent originally contracted for.” Which
mode of contracting, we are told, “is by experience found to be a
necessary preliminary to the granting of any such Lease.”
The Act therefore declares that the lessees or lessee of the Bishop for
the time being, with his consent, may contract and agree, to demise,
lease, or grant any part of the premises to be let, (but not exceeding
the two hundred acres agreed to be let by the first Act,) and afterwards
grant separate leases under certain conditions; one of which is that if
the ground-rent of any one house exceed “an equal proportion of the
original rent agreed to be reserved for the whole of the land or ground
comprised in the contract,” it shall “not exceed one-seventh part of the
clear yearly rack-rent or value of the land and buildings to be by such
lease demised, {86a} so that the yearly rent to be reserved by any Lease
to be granted in pursuance of this Act, be not in any case less than
Forty Shillings:” “the Bishop of London for the time being to be a party
to all such Leases.”
The second clause of this Act provides that a memorial of every lease,
and also of every contract, shall be registered at the public Office for
registering Deeds and Conveyances, as prescribed by the seventh of Anne;
and that every such memorial shall contain a full description of the
land, the term of years for which it was let, and the yearly rent or
rents reserved thereon. {86b}
Sir John Morshead being at this time absent from the kingdom, “and
restrained from returning to the same by His Majesty’s enemies,” certain
clauses are enacted respecting his consent being obtained, before leases
are granted.
In 1808, another Act “for altering and enlarging the powers” of the 35th.
44th. and 45th. of George III. appears to have become necessary; for in
that year we have the 48th Geo. III. cap. 142, passed for this purpose.
The preamble of this Act notices an Indenture of Assignment, bearing date
on or about the twenty-fourth of July, 1807, made between Eliza Mary
Thistlethwayte, widow of Alexander Thistlethwayte, on the one part, and
Thomas Thistlethwayte, her brother-in-law, the third, but eldest
surviving son of Robert Thistlethwayte, on the other, wherein it is
witnessed that, “for the consideration therein expressed,” the said lady
assigned her interest in the Paddington Estate to the said Thomas
Thistlethwayte, his executors, &c. “for his and their own use and benefit
absolutely;” subject to the life interest of his mother, then Selina
Thistlethwayte. {87a}
By this Act certain parts of previous Acts are repealed; power is given
to the lessees to pull down all buildings standing upon the premises
comprised in any under-lease; the Bishop’s chief rent of forty-three
pounds, six shillings and eightpence, is no longer to be charged on the
whole of the hereditaments and premises; all lands comprised in the
under-leases, to be exonerated and indemnified from the payment of the
same; and the signatures of Sir John Morshead, Robert Thistlethwayte, and
their wives, to the under-leases are to be no longer necessary. The sale
of brick-earth, sand, gravel, &c., having been found totally inadequate
for payment of costs of Acts, making drains, streets, &c. {87b} Beilby
Lord Bishop of London {87c} and the trustees of the estate agree to
execute a mortgage of “a competent part of the said premises,” charging
it with any sum not exceeding ten thousand pounds, with lawful interest,
for these purposes; or the money may be raised by annuities for lives
instead of mortgage.
The eighth section of this Act relates to the “conduit upon the said
estate belonging to the corporation of London, situate near Bayswater,
and the pipes or drain therefrom, and the tanks or wells connected
therewith.” And it is stated that as these pipes “run through the same
estate diagonally so as to intercept the carrying on of the building
improvements upon any eligible plan,” the Bishop and his lessees were
empowered to treat with the mayor and commonalty and citizens of the said
city of London, for the removal or varying the line of the said pipes,
&c., and to make satisfaction for all damages which may be sustained by
the city in consequence thereof: the estate to be charged with any sum
not exceeding two thousand pounds for effecting this object.
Provision is made in the tenth section—“That nothing herein contained
shall extend, or be constructed to extend, to authorize the making or
forming any new drain or drains, tunnel or tunnels, except for the
conveying and receiving the water from the conduit as aforesaid, which
shall or may run into the Park, called Hyde Park, or Kensington Gardens,
or into any drain, &c., running into or communicating with the same
places, or either of them.” But the rights, powers and authorities,
vested in the Commissioners of Sewers, were not to be affected by this
Act.
In a schedule to this Act annexed, signed S. P. Cockerell, we find the
“estimate of the expence of building a main drain or sewer for carrying
off the water from the estate being at least, five thousand three hundred
feet in length, four feet clear breadth,” was ten thousand and sixty-four
pounds. And the “estimate of the expence of moving the pipes and drains
from the conduit at Bayswater, and the tanks and wells connected
therewith,” was two thousand pounds. Yet this arrangement, with respect
to the Bayswater conduit and the pipes, &c., proceeding therefrom, was
not sufficient to satisfy the owners of the Paddington estate; for, in
four years after it was made, another Act was passed “to enable the mayor
and commonalty and citizens of the city of London to sell, and the Right
Reverend the Lord Bishop of London and his lessees of the estate at
Paddington belonging to the See of London to purchase, certain waters and
springs and the conduits and other appurtenances thereto within the
several parishes of Mary-le-bone and Paddington, in the county of
Middlesex.” 52nd Geo. III. cap. 193. And articles of agreement dated
the first of July, 1812, relative to the purchase of the said conduit,
springs, &c., for the sum of two thousand five hundred pounds, are
confirmed by this Act. It also empowers John (Randolph) Lord Bishop of
London, and his successors for the time being, with consent of the
lessees, to raise money “for the completion of the said purchase and
payment of the incidental expenses;” either by sale of all or any portion
of thirty-two acres of land particularly described in a schedule to this
Act annexed; or by a mortgage on any portion of the estate; or by
annuities; but the sum of money “which may be raised under or by virtue
of all, any, or either of the provisions contained in this Act, shall not
together and in the whole exceed the sum of four thousand five hundred
pounds.”
We are informed by a schedule attached to the 6th Geo. IV. cap 45. that
under the powers of this Act, eight acres, one rood, and nineteen perches
of land, were sold to purchase these waters; the amount received for
which, including “interest and auction duty,” was two thousand, nine
hundred and nineteen pounds, sixteen shillings and sixpence.
The lands, described in the schedule annexed to this Act, are said to be
“the most convenient for sale,” being “detached parts” of the estate.
How there came to be any “detached parts” in so snug an estate, the Act
does not inform us. But it does tell us that in these detached parts
there are two closes of land called “The Lower Readings,” and “The Upper
Readings,” names very significant in themselves, and which must, I think,
at some time, have had some connection with Readers.
Another Act—the Regent’s Canal Bill—was the same day added to the list of
those Acts which, together, have made the Paddington Estate a subject of
such notoriety. But there was an Act also for each of the intervening
years.
In 1810 “An Act for further enlarging the Church-yard of the parish of
Paddington, in the County of Middlesex,” the 50th Geo. III. cap. 44,
enabled the trustees appointed under previous Acts, relative to the
church and church-yard, to charge the burial-fees, pew-rents, and
church-rates, with a sum not exceeding two thousand five hundred pounds,
in order to complete a purchase of two acres, one rood and twenty-nine
perches of land belonging to the said John, Bishop of London, and his
lessees. For this piece of ground, with the trees standing thereon, and
the old manor-house, the parish paid two thousand, two hundred and
sixty-three pounds, seven shillings and sixpence. This sum I presume was
divided in the usual proportion between the Bishop and his lessees: for
this does not appear to have been any part of the land authorised to be
sold for the purposes mentioned in one of the preceding Acts.
In 1811, the fifty-first of Geo. III. cap. 169, established the Grand
Junction Water Works Company; the thirty-third section of which Act
confirms and ratifies a previous arrangement, made by the previous
Bishop, Beilby Porteus, with the Grand Junction Canal Company, for the
supply of the tenants on the Paddington estate, with water at ten pounds
per cent. less than they could be supplied by others. The clause is as
follows:—
“_Provided also_, _and be it farther enacted_, _that the said Company
of Proprietors shall_, _and they are hereby required from Time to
Time_, _and at all times hereafter_, _to supply the several Lessees
or Tenants of the Estate belonging to the See of the Bishop __of
London at Paddington aforesaid with Water_, _at the Rate of Ten
Pounds per Centum at the least below the average Rate which shall be
demanded and taken by the said Company_, _or any other Company or
Companies_, _for supplying with an equal quantity of Water the
Inhabitants of Souses of the like Magnitude and Description of any
other of the Districts or Streets within the Cities of London and
Westminster_.”
Whether or not the tenants of the Paddington estate have, up to this
time, received the full benefits of this important clause, I leave them
to decide for themselves. I, for one, can say that I have not; and after
a full investigation of this subject, I cannot undertake, (as I have been
requested to do, by a gentleman very much interested in the Company,) to
point out the injustice of this clause. I make no doubt this clause was
well considered, before it was allowed to form a portion of this Act; and
was taken by the bishop and his lessees as a part of the _quid pro quo_
in their arrangements with the Company.
Whether it was done as an act of kindness to the tenants, as a
compensation for the loss of the public watering places which existed on
several parts of this estate, or to increase the value of the estate
matters little to our purpose: but we cannot suppose that a public
Company would have consented to this clause without some adequate
consideration; and even if the value of this consideration is no longer
felt, which I believe is not the case, {90} that is no reason why their
obligation should not remain. To have had a tall chimney, with all its
consequences, as well as some acres of reservoirs filled with water,
standing for years in the centre of the parish, could have been no
improvement to the surrounding property, though the convenience to the
company must have been very great; and if any injustice is to be
discovered in this clause, I think it must be found in confirming the
benefit to a portion of the parish only. But if the Company at that time
had seen any injustice in this arrangement, it could and most probably
would soon have been altered, for “the aid and authority of Parliament,”
was required in 1812, the very year after the passing of this Water
Company’s Act, to make “valid, binding, and conclusive,” certain articles
of agreement, dated the twenty-fourth of March, which were entered into
between John, then Bishop of London, and his lessees, and the company of
proprietors of the Grand Junction Canal; which agreement, amongst other
things, was entered into, to enable the latter to lease to the Grand
Junction Water Works Company, the requisite quantity of land for the
completion of their works. {91}
After fifteen years, in the seventh of Geo. IV, cap. 140, the same clause
is again to be found; and in the seventh and eighth of Victoria, cap. 30,
this agreement for supplying cheap water to the tenants of the Paddington
estate is again ratified and confirmed; so that the subject has been well
considered and ought to be fully enforced by a co-operation of the
tenants.
By the fifty-second Geo. III, cap. 192, the Act just referred to, anno
1812, the said articles of agreement are “absolutely ratified, confirmed,
and established,” by which thirty-six acres, three and a-half perches of
land are demised to the end of the term for which the land previously
leased to this Company was let, renewable for a further term of
ninety-nine years, every fifty years, on the tender of a fine of twenty
shillings, at a rent commencing at £427 3_s._ in 1812, and advancing year
by year to 1818, when the annual rent was fixed at £570 3_s._; one-third
part of which was to be paid to the Bishop of London for the time being,
the other two-thirds to his lessees.
Besides this lease of fresh portions of the estate, certain small pieces
were exchanged, and the Company reconveyed to the bishop and his lessees
rather more than two acres of that which had been previously leased to
them, so that, altogether, rather more than eighty-two acres of the
Paddington Estate is leased to the Grand Junction Canal Company, at a
rent of £1,454 3_s._ per annum.
In the same year, 1812, the fifty-second of Geo. III. cap. 195,
incorporated the Regent’s Canal Company, and gave full power and
authority to that Company, “to make and maintain a Navigable Canal from
the Grand Junction Canal, in the parish of Paddington to the River Thames
in the parish of Limehouse;” to supply the same, as well as steam
engines, Reservoirs, &c. with water from the River, and to effect other
objects therein set down. The land required of the Paddington Estate for
making this Canal amounted to two acres, three roods, twenty-eight
perches; the purchase money for which was £2,000.
This canal was opened from Paddington to the Regent’s Park Basin two
years after this Act passed, but was not finished till August, 1820. The
other Canal and Water Company Acts which affect the Paddington Estate,
are the fifty-sixth of Geo. III. cap. 4 and 85; the fifty-ninth Geo. III.
cap. 3; and the seventh Geo. IV. cap. 140. But it appears that one Act
of Parliament was not sufficient to ratify and confirm the articles of
agreement of the twenty-fourth of March, 1812; for the fifth of Geo. IV.
cap. 35, passed in 1824, was called into operation “to carry into
complete effect” these articles of agreement; and the twenty-six pages of
which this Act is made up, shew pretty clearly that “some doubt” must
have been entertained whether the things therein agreed to be done, could
be “legally and effectually” done.
After setting forth the title of those claiming the Paddington Estate at
this time, (1824,) the Act renders it lawful for William (Howley) Bishop
of London, and his successors, and their lessees, and further requires
and directs him and them to ratify and confirm to the said Company all
the parcels of land mentioned in the said articles of agreement.
This Act informs us, too, of a field called “Lower Field,” containing ten
acres thirty-eight perches, which was purchased or agreed to be
purchased, by the Grand Junction Canal Company, of James Crompton, esq.,
in 1801, but which was forfeited to his Majesty in consequence of not
having been used for the purposes of the said Canal; which forfeiture,
however, his Majesty was graciously pleased to remit: and by the third
section of this Act, the said field is “discharged of all forfeiture to
his said Majesty, his heirs and successors, under any Statutes of
Mortmain.” These Statutes are also dispensed with by the tenth clause
for other lands conveyed; and the Company indemnify the bishop and his
lessees from the rent-charge of £349 15_s._, payable to the aforesaid
James Crompton, his heirs and assigns. The twentieth section confirms
the leases already granted to this Company; and the twenty-first, enacts
that all future leases shall be conformable to the one already granted.
A plan, but on a smaller scale, similar to the one attached to the
preceding Act, is also appended to this.
But the great Act relative to the Paddington estate—that which was
intended to give an epitome of preceding Acts, to bind and cement the
whole, and put the key-stone into this expansive legislative arch—is the
forty-fifth chapter in the sixth year of the reign of George the fourth,
anno 1825, entitled—
“An Act to enlarge the powers of several Acts passed in thirty-fifth,
forty-fourth, forty-fifth, and forty-eighth years of the reign of his
Majesty King George the third, for enabling the Lord Bishop of London
to grant a lease, with powers of renewal, of lands in the parish of
Paddington, in the county of Middlesex, for the purpose of building
upon, and to appoint new trustees, and for other purposes relating
thereto.”
In 1824, the rate-payers of Paddington were seduced, in a manner
hereafter to be mentioned, to resign into the hands of the wealthy
proprietors, and a certain number of vestry-men, elected under the
detestable principles of Sturges Bourne’s Act, those inherent rights
which their predecessors had protected, with more or less determination,
for centuries; and the next year saw the official representatives of this
select body, and the curate of the parish, joining the Bishop of London
and his lessees, in beseeching his Majesty that the several objects
contained in the aforesaid Act, might be accomplished. One object was,
to increase the quantity of land to four hundred acres, for which
building leases might be granted; and another, to exclude the “Curates of
Paddington, the said Churchwardens and their successors” from “all
estates, right, title, interest, benefit, claim, or demand whatsoever of,
into, out of and upon the lands and hereditaments comprised in or which
are or may be subjected to” “the lease granted by Bishop Porteus, in
1795; excepting in so far as is expressed in this Act.” And in
consideration of this wholesale surrender of all the interest, benefit,
&c. which the inhabitants of Paddington ought at this time to receive out
of the Rectory and other lands, William (Howley) Bishop of London, and
his lessees were graciously pleased to consent, that it may be enacted,
“that the Curate’s former stipend of £120 a-year shall be increased to
£200 per annum;” that ground may be granted for the site of the said
Curate’s residence, “not exceeding one acre;” and “that any quantity of
the said estate not exceeding four acres may be conveyed by deed to
trustees or commissioners, appointed under Church Building Acts.”
Having already analysed preceding Acts, it only remains for me to notice
here, that this ponderous piece of private legislation, which occupies no
less than seventy-three pages of the statute book, is chiefly a resume of
that which had been before enacted. It provides, however, as we have
seen, for double the number of houses, and therefore for a vast increase
in the revenues of this estate; it provides for the increase of a
curate’s stipend, by eighty pounds per annum; and it grants sites for
churches—“if at any time hereafter it should on account of the increase
of the population, or on any other account, be found necessary or
convenient to erect and build the same.” It also provides for the
appointment of new trustees both at the present, and any future period;
for altering the conditions in the covenants in under-leases; and for
raising an additional twenty thousand pounds by mortgage.
It further informs us that the previous mortgage of ten thousand pounds
was settled on Dame Morshead; and it enacts that the former sum, as well
as this, shall be paid off by fines on the renewal of the present
building leases; the Bishop of London for the time being, to be
answerable for one-third of the interest on these sums, and the trustees
for the other two-thirds. The sum permitted to be borrowed by this Act
is to be used in improving the estate, as well as all monies received for
the sale of gravel, &c., and any sum that may arise from selling or
letting the waters, springs, &c, purchased of the corporation of London;
which by this Act the Bishop and his lessees are empowered to let or sell
for that purpose.
There are two schedules annexed to this Act, both bearing the signature,
J. H. Budd. The first is a description of the several pieces and parcels
of land composing “the Paddington Estate,” amounting in the whole, it is
here stated, to six hundred and eleven acres and a half. The second
contains an account of sums received and paid on account of the same
property. By this account we learn that twelve acres, three roods, and
fifteen perches and a half of land belonging to this estate had been sold
under the Land-tax Redemption Act, and the 52nd George III; for which, it
is stated, £6573 0s. 11d. was received. £2000 was also received for two
acres, three roods, and twenty-eight perches, “used by the Regent’s Canal
Company.” £10,256 12s. 3d. “by sale of brick earth, gravel and sand.”
And £1140 18s. 2d. by sale of old materials, water pipes, &c. Making
with the £10,000 borrowed, a sum of £29,970 11s. 4d. The payments being
£27,857 6s. 2d. including the small item of £4,530 17s. 11d. for law
expences.
In these Acts and Deeds will be found the true history of “the Paddington
Estate;” the few finishing touches which have been given to it, during
the possession of the See of London by the present Bishop, being
comparatively unimportant. But Dr. Blomfield has derived more personal
benefit from the policy of his predecessors than those who assisted in
establishing it could have contemplated would ever fall to the lot of any
one bishop. What have been the actual receipts from this estate for the
last twenty years, few men can tell; but if we were to calculate the
average for that period at £5,000 per annum, I think we should not
over-rate the bishop’s receipts from this “little farm;” and one hundred
thousand pounds in twenty years from one estate is not so bad.
With the exception of the Great Western Railway Bills there has been, so
far as I know, only one Act of Parliament passed since the great Act of
1825, having especial reference to the Paddington estate. This was “an
Act for confirming and carrying into execution certain articles of
agreement made and entered into between Charles James, Lord Bishop of
London, the Trustees of the Paddington estate, the Grand Junction Canal,
and the Grand Junction Water Works Companies, and for other purposes
therein mentioned.”
By this Act we learn that the Grand Junction Water Works Company, having
erected other works and reservoirs near Kew Bridge and at Camden Hill,
were desirous of using their land in Paddington for building-ground, as
it had become much more valuable for that purpose than for the purposes
for which it was originally leased. To enable them to do this the
Company had to apply to the Bishop of London, and the trustees for their
consent; and this consent was granted, upon condition “that the said
sites, as well the freehold as the leasehold parts thereof, shall be laid
out and built on by such class and description of buildings as approved
by the surveyor of the Paddington estate.” “And also upon condition that
the said Company shall give up and relinquish, for the site of an
intended hospital,” a plot of ground two hundred feet from north to
south, and one hundred and eighty feet from east to west; and also give
up and relinquish another plot, seventy feet by one hundred feet, “for
the site of an intended new church.”
By this Act the Grand Junction Canal Company are for ever released and
discharged from all covenants, agreements, and undertakings, relating to
the powers and privileges of supplying with water the inhabitants of this
parish; and the Grand Junction Water Works Company take upon themselves
their liabilities in this respect: the bishop, and trustees, agreeing to
lease the land, already occupied by this Company, with the exception of
the plots mentioned, “at the yearly rent of a peppercorn.” The expences
of this Act were to be wholly borne by the Company, and the Company are
bound by it to provide the inhabitants of Paddington, and parishes and
streets adjacent, with water as heretofore. The tenants of the
Paddington estate, “including the inhabitants of the houses proposed to
be built on the sites of the said present reservoirs and other works of
the said Company,” to be supplied with water at the reduced rate of ten
pounds per cent., as provided for by previous Acts.
We have already seen how preceding Acts direct that “no fine, premium, or
foregift, or any thing in the nature of a fine” should be taken on
letting any portion of the land which Parliament permitted to be let for
building; excepting at the end of the terms for which the first leases
were granted; but this arrangement extended only to four hundred acres,
and as the situation of these acres was nowhere defined in these Acts,
the Great Western Railway Company, when they wanted thirty-nine acres of
land belonging to this estate for the completion of their line and
terminus, obtained the same at a rent of sixty pounds, thirteen
shillings, and seven-pence three-farthings per annum, per acre, {96} upon
paying the present bishop and the lessees of the estate £30,000.
Since this bargain was struck the bishop and his lessees have sold other
parcels, though at a less famous figure.
On the nineteenth of February, 1841, a special meeting of the Vestry of
Paddington was called to receive and take into consideration a
communication from the Lord Bishop of London, respecting a piece of
ground west of the church-yard. It was feared this breathing spot was
about to be purchased by the insatiable builders. So, besides the
“cordial thanks of the vestry for his kind and timely communication,” an
offer of £3500 was made to the bishop and his lessees for this little
lot. Four thousand pounds, however, was the lowest sum they would take
for this portion of the old green; and the vestry were obliged to be
content with the southern portion; for which the parish paid £2000. The
northern portion was sold to one of the much-dreaded builders; and is now
covered with houses; while on that portion purchased by the parish the
new Vestry-hall is being built; to lay, if possible, the ghosts which are
said to have haunted it.
On the first of April, 1845, the Vestry received a letter from Messrs.
Budd and Hayes, stating that the portion of “The Upper Readings,” found
by the recent admeasurement of Mr. Gutch to be 5a. 2r. 27p., may be
secured by the Vestry for the purposes of building a workhouse thereon;
“provided that the powers of the local Act are sufficient to enable his
lordship and the trustees to effect such sale;” and that £5,700 be given
for the same.
Another portion of “The Upper Readings” was sold to the trustees of the
Lock Hospital. Subsequently to these purchases, some mutual exchanges
took place, which have reduced the workhouse plot to 5¼ acres, and the
cost of the land to £5,168 15_s._
Other facts relative to this estate, will be found in the next part of
this Work, and after perusing them, in conjunction with those I have
collected in this, I think my readers will conclude, with me, that the
inhabitants of Paddington—who have to pay the owners of the Paddington
Estate most exorbitant prices for the privilege of living on their
land—owe but little gratitude to these lords of the soil for the small
favours they have given, in return for the enormous wealth the industry
of others is placing in their hands.
PART II.
THE PARISH AND THE PEOPLE.
CHAPTER I.
DEFINITION—SITUATION—BOUNDARIES AND EXTENT—GENERAL AND MEDICAL
TOPOGRAPHY—ETYMOLOGY OF NAMES—ORIGIN.
BLACKSTONE defines 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 “Fynnesberry and 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 contain 1,220
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 a house. 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 until
_the people_ thoroughly 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 last _more_ than 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. In fact, 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. The _nature_ as well as the
_height_ of 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 for which 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 a _house-drain_
should be; and it must be understood that a _house_-drain and a
_field_-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 and death, 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 measures
__adopted by the Medical Practitioners residing in the Western District
of Paddington_, _to obtain the_ CLOSURE _of the_ BURIAL-GROUND _situated
in the_ UXBRIDGE 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
“GATHERINGS from GRAVE 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 the _Times_, 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 word
_Paddington_; 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
termination _ing_ is as truly patronymic as IDES is 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 the _race 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 be perceived 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 of the 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 of _arable_ land, not much over thirty Saxon acres, equal
to forty Norman acres; he shews that the Saxons had a large and 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 the _dene_, or _den_, 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 the _den_ when 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 cunning and 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.
CHAPTER II.
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.
“A PARSON, _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 appellation _of 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
said _vicem 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 sometimes _appropriated_; 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 of the 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 emphatic words 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. While the 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
be _performed_.
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 were so, 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 be _sufficiently_ endowed.” 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 poor
parochians, 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 became
_impropriate_. {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 with the 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 is _a rectory and a_ mannor and Tythes _and_
other oblations and gleabe Lands with certeyne houses thereto
belonging of which _a house for two tennants called the_ vicarage
house all which is at the rate of fortie-three pounds per annu or
thereabouts _And_ Wee _are informed_ that the Tythes _houses and
lands before_ mencŏned was let by George Moun_taigne_ late Bishopp of
London to Sir Rowland St John, and Sybyll his Wife and to Oliver _St
John_ their sonne for their lives and that the said Bishop bound them
to noe certayne _stipends or took any nor for the cure of souls butt
left it_ unto his Tenants and that the said Sr. Rowland St. John had
heretofore _a reading minister or_ Reading ministers who served _for
ten_ pounds per annu in Paddington and Marybone at the like sallary
of Mr. Forsett and that of late years Sr. Rowland St. John paid _for_
a preaching minister twentie eight pounds per annu which is the Rent
of the Tythes of that _land in the parish that doeth_ not belonge to
the Bisshopp And that there is a minister that preacheth twice every
Lord’s Day one Mr. A_nthony Dodd_ and _that we humbly think_ that the
Parish of Marybone and Paddington is very fitt to be united in one
and that both the Churches may be pulled down and _both made_ one 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 bee _placed_ to 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 Rectory _or vicearidge in_ one Mr. Browne that
hath purchased _the manner_ by vertue of a grant to him _from the
trustees appointed_ by Parliament for the sale of the Bishopps Lands.
_Signed_
_William Roberts_ _John Browne_
_Richard Dowton_ _James Pascall_
_Edward Martin_ _John Thorowgood_”