Edward Morton Daniel - The Endowed Charities of Kensington: By Whom Bequeathed, and How Administered

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

The Endowed Charities of Kensington;

BY WHOM BEQUEATHED,
AND
HOW ADMINISTERED.

BY

EDWARD MORTON DANIEL, Esq.

Reprinted from the S. Mary Abbots Parish Magazine .

Printed for Private Circulation

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

By EDWARD MORTON DANIEL, Esq .

A Paper read at a Meeting of the Kensington Ratepayers Association, held at S. Marks Parish Rooms, Notting Hill, on Tuesday, 21stApril, 1891.

[Reprinted from the S. Mary Abbots Parish Magazine .]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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