That the Large Hall is intended to be used for purposes of the Vestry, and in fact is now about to be so used for the election of Vestrymen under the Act.
That although a portion of the premises is now temporarily made use of as Reading Rooms, as stated in the letter of your Memorialists to your Finance Committee, those rooms will most probably be required for the Gas Examiner under the Metropolis Gas Act, and the analyst under the Act for the Prevention of the Adulteration of Food and Drink of last session.
That your Memorialists under the 150th Section of the Metropolis Local Management Act deem the whole of the buildings necessary and expedient, and under the 92nd section such buildings are fully authorized inasmuch as they are clearly used for the public concerns of their Parish and the inhabitants thereof.
That no further or additional rate, than was contemplated at the time the original loan of £10,000, was sanctioned by your Honorable Board, will be required.
That the following objects may be mentioned as showing the necessity of the Vestry Hall:—A place of meeting for the local magistrates in petty sessions; a place for the public discussion of important local public questions, as the Embankment of the River at Chelsea, the Enfranchisement of the District, the Removal of the Asylum Wall in the King’s Road, and the Equalization of the Poor Rates.
That with reference to the remarks of your Finance Committee in their report that their inquiries have satisfied them that the building has not been erected exclusively for the purposes of the Vestry, but for other objects not contemplated by the Metropolis Local Management Act, your Memorialists submit that under the Act referred to, it is not imperatively necessary that buildings of this description should be erected exclusively for the purposes of the Vestry; and that the building erected by your memorialists has not been erected for any object not contemplated by the said Act.
Your Memorialists therefore pray that, as they, and the inhabitants of the Parish represented by them, are of opinion that the expenses of the said Vestry Hall, &c., are in relation to the regulation, government, or public concerns of this Parish, and of the inhabitants thereof, and that the sum of £12,000 is necessary for defraying such expenses; and that such expenses will be best defrayed by a loan upon the credit of the rates, your Honorable Board will not deem it expedient to refuse your sanction to the additional loan of £2,000 already applied for.
Given under the common seal of the said Vestry, this 10th day of May, 1861
(Signed) Charles Lahee,
Vestry Clerk.