The Bishop of that day gave the deepest hole to the parishioners to build a church—about the worst part of what was then his large estate. It cost about £2,000 to fill up the hole to its present level before Trinity Church could be built. This church, like others, the ratepayers paid for with Church Rates. I had the pleasure of seconding a resolution to make the last Church rate in Paddington.
St. Mary’s Hospital was commenced about 1845 and under its excellent management has proved to be a great blessing to Paddington.
On the site of the Trinity Schools in the Harrow Road was a public Maze, a great resort for holiday people as it was then completely in the country. Here too was a magic mirror, in which for twopence any young lady might behold (?) her future husband.
In the Harrow Road, opposite the Vestry Hall, stood until 1860, the oldest charitable buildings in the parish, a block of small almshouses. They afforded shelter for about 16 poor old women. No doubt they felt more independent in their actions than they would have done in the Workhouse. It is doubtful if they were so well cared for as they would have been in the larger house with its excellent Master and Matron, who take a great interest in the comfort of all the inmates.
They are not answerable for the separation of old married couples, against which separation I strongly protest.
It is not, however, every married couple who wish to live together; of this I had a proof once when I asked a man if he would not be more happy with his aged wife? After a moment’s consideration he answered “Thank you sir, I have had enough of her.” This I think must have been a rare exception.
Kensal Green Cemetery had in 1844 already received not a few bodies but the majority have been interred since.
Members of Silver Street Chapel used to look with deep interest at the tomb of John Colston, a much-loved Superintendent of their Sabbath School. With the same deep interest many look upon the grave of a later Superintendent of the School at Westbourne Grove Chapel, the highly esteemed Thomas Faulkes, whose memory is still dear. How many a member of the old and also of the new Westbourne Grove Chapel have gone with sad hearts to that God’s acre. To mention names would be painful to both reader and writer; I only add “Till He come.”
A few names of public men and women buried here will, perhaps not, be out of place:—
Duke of Sussex, Sydney Smith, Anne Scott and Sophia Lockhart, daughters of Sir Walter Scott, John Hugh Lockhart his grandson, Thomas Hood, Thackeray, Calcott, Mulready, John Leach, John Cassel, The Princess Sophia of Gloucester, Statesmen, Poets, Actors, Artists, Physicians and Quacks. The rich and the poor have all found here one common resting place, but amongst those unmentioned names how many an one whom the world has not esteemed will be found in the end to be among the number of whom the “world was not worthy.”