Within the Church are many monuments and mural inscriptions, but not all of them are of so general interest as to call for record here. There are however exceptions. On the east end of the north aisle is placed an ancient plate to the memory of Richard Amondesham, merchant of the staple of Calais, with brass figures in the dresses of the fifteenth century. There is an oval tablet to the memory of some members of the family of John Oldmixon, a party writer in the days of Pope and Addison, and who secured the questionable honour of a niche in the Dunciad. A black marble table with gilt letters contains some particulars of the family of Sir Frederick Morton Eden, Bart; a pyramid with arms recalls the memory of Joseph Gulston, of Ealing Grove, five times M.P. for Poole, and one of the South Sea Directors, who died in 1766. A monument of white marble is sacred to the names of John Loving, of Little Ealing, one of the Tellers of the Exchequer in the reign of King Charles the Second, King James the Second, and King William the third. Other monuments there are to Major-General Sir James Lomond, C.B. and to Sir Frederick Wettherall, G.C.H., and a noble piece of ornamental statuary bears an eloquent inscription to the virtues of Dame Jane Rawlinson, who died in 1713, leaving £ 500 for teaching twenty poor girls of the parish of Ealing. A slab on the floor informs us that Elizabeth wife of John Maynard, Sergeant at Law, was buried here ye 4th day of January, 1664. Sir John Maynard’s remains are in the Churchyard. He died at Gunnersbury not long after the Restoration. His name will ever be associated with the prosecution of Strafford and Laud and other State Trials of the period. It is said that when he paid his duties at the Court of William of Orange, the King observed on his great age and asked if he had not survived all the lawyers of his youth ? “Yes, sir; and if your highness had not come over here, I should have survived even the law itself,” was the diplomatic and perhaps the true reply. A character of very different type found, in the Churchyard of Ealing, rest. His vault bears the epitaph, “John Horne Tooke, late of Wimbledon, author of the Diversions of Purley, was born June, 1736, and died March 18th, 1812, contented and grateful.” Happy the demagogue and agitator who can close his life with such a message to posterity! John Horne Tooke, was born at Westminister, the son of John Horne, a poulterer, the surname Tooke being assumed in regard for a friend, William Tooke, on whose behalf he had resisted an inclosure bill for lands in Purley, near Goistone, in Surrey. Tooke was educated at Westminster and Eton Schools, and St. John’s College, Cambridge. He entered the Church in compliance with the wishes of his father, but against his own. That the duties of his sacred office were irksome and uncongenial he has left on record in a letter, in execrable taste, to his friend Wilkes. It was largely owing to the exertions of Tooke that Wilkes was elected for Middlesex in 1768, and he was closely allied with that agitator in the foundation of the society for supporting the Bill of Rights, and in the contests in which that politician engaged with Parliament. Tooke obtained his degree of M.A. though not without opposition, many members of the University resisting the conferment, Dr. Paley among others, and in his political strife Tooke drew upon him the bitter invective of Junius. On the breaking out of the American War of Independence, Tooke sympathized with the revolted colonists, and assualted the ministry so unguardedly that he was tried for libel, fined and imprisoned. On his release he sought to be called to the bar, but the Benchers rejected him as a clergyman. He unsuccessfully contested Westminster on more than one occasion, but in 1801 he was returned by Lord Camelford for the rotten borough of Old Sarum, an anomalous position for an advanced reformer. Tooke was the last clergyman to sit in the Commons, an act being passed in 1802 to disqualify clergymen in holy orders. Tooke’s chief claim to fame rests however on his “Diversions of Purley,” a sort of Grammatical and Philological Treatise couched in Dialogue. Tooke’s was a troubled life. What was the secret of the epitaph?
There are many charities, more noble monuments of the dead then ought ever graved by the sculptor’s art. The chief of these are John Bowman’s Charity (1612) for such goodly and charitable uses as the officers thereof for the time being shall deem meet and convenient; Richard and Mary Need’s, a Brentford Charity; Richard Taylor’s and Lady Capell’s Bequest, by which one-twelfth part of the income of an estate in Kent, called Perry-court Farm was given in 1721 by the will of the Rt. Hon. Dorothy Dowager Lady Capell, for the support of the Charity School of Ealing, and Dame Jane Rawlinson’s Bequest, by her will of October 7th, 1712, which has been already mentioned. Particulars of these and many others may be found in Falkner’s History of Ealing.
Fifty years ago there was but one Church in Ealing, there are now eight, besides Chapels; Christ Church which was built in 1852 at a cost of £10,000. It is in the Geometrical Decorated style, was designed by Sir Gilbert Scott and is of singular grace and beauty. St. John’s Church in Ealing Dean was built in 1876 of brick, with stone and terra cotta facings in the Early English style of architecture. St. Stephen’s Church, near Castle Hill, erected in 1875 is of Gothic Style. There are also the Churches of St. Matthew’s in the North Common Road, St. Peter’s in the Mount Park Road, St. James’s in the Alexandria Road, Ealing Dean, and St. Saviour’s in Grove Place. There are moreover Presbyterian, Congregational, Baptist and Primitive Methodist Chapels.
Mansions.
As might be expected, Ealing and its vicinity abound in noble mansions, large and stately dwellings, standing in rich and ornate grounds, surrounded by lofty walks, and sheltered by noble trees. Here for generations the great and noble have sought repose from the distractions of society, the studious have found quiet and serenity, the statesman calm, the gallant soldier peace, the merchant prince contentment, and all a sweet and healthful retirement. On Castlebar Hill stood formerly Castle-hill Lodge, which up to the year 1812 was the seat of the Duke of Kent, and at one time the residence of Mrs. Fizherbert. The Duke of Kent married in 1818 a princess of the House of Coburg, and our gracious Queen Victoria was issue of this alliance. At the eastern extremity of Ealing is Fordhook, where Fielding dwelt until he left England for Lisbon in the last desperate search for health. It was at Fordhook that “Tom Jones” and “Amelia” were written. His Journal under date Wednesday, June 16th, 1754, contains the following touching passage. “On this day, the most melancholy sun I ever beheld arose, and found me awake at my house at Fordhook. By the light of the sun I was, in my own opinion, last to behold, and take leave of some of those creatures on whom I doated with a mother-like fondness, guided by nature and passion, and uncured and unhardened by all the doctrine of that philosophical school, where I had learned to bear pains and despise death. In this situation, as I could not conquer nature, I submitted entirely to her, and she made as great a fool of me as she had ever done of any woman whatsoever; under pretence of giving me leave to enjoy, she drew me on to suffer the company of my little ones during eight hours; and I doubt not, whether in that time I did not undergo more than in all my distemper. At twelve o’clock precisely my coach was at the door, which was no sooner told me than I kissed my children round, and went into it with some little resolution. My wife, who behaved more like a heroine and a philosopher, though at the same time the tenderest mother in the world, and my eldest daughter followed me; some friends went with us, and others here took their leave; and I heard my behaviour applauded with many murmurs and praises, to which I knew I had no title; as all other such philosophers may, if they have any modesty, confess in the like occasion.” Fielding died at Lisbon in the following October. Fordhook was subsequently occupied by Lady Byron, the poet’s hapless wife, and here, in 1853, their daughter “Ada, sole daughter of my house and heart,” was married in the drawing room by special license to the Earl of Lovelace.
But novelists as great if not greater than Fielding have sojourned in Ealing. Thackeray was at school here, of which more anon. Dickens used often to ride over to visit his sister, Mrs. Hogarth, at Ealing Dean. Dibdin wrote many of his best songs at his house in Hanger Lane; and Edward Bulwer Lytton was at school in a house that stood in what was then called Love Lane. The school was kept by Mr. Wallington, and a correspondent of Lytton’s biographer furnishes us with an interesting sketch of school and pedagogue.
“We drew up in front of a massive old-fashioned arched door in a high brick wall, above which nothing but the chimneys and projecting gables of the attic windows of Mr. Wallington’s house were visible. It was a large, ancient, time-worn edifice, in which the lord of the manor or other great man of the parish, might be supposed to have lived in the time of William and Mary or Queen Anne, but it had been disfigured by a mean-looking brick building tacked to its northern side, possibly by its present proprietor.”
“I was not long in discovering that Mr. Wallington was not the scholar I had hoped to find him. Not only had he no objection to our preparing our lesson by the help of English translations, but at lessons he used a like ‘crib’ and, even with its assistance, failed as often as not, to explain the grammatical structure, or throw light upon the meaning of some passage in Sophodes or Thucydides, which had baffled Gore, by far the most advanced student of our lot. Nevertheless, by being always at his post, in cheerful readiness to take his share in our tasks, he kept us up so well to our work that there was no falling off in our previously acquired knowledge of Latin and Greek.”
“In Mr. Wallington, we had always before us the example of one who in principles, as well as manners, was a gentleman in the best sense of the word; courteous in bearing, pleasant in speech, with patience, fine temper, and a tender regard for the feelings of others.”
“Mr. Wallington rode ‘Bonnie Bess,’ formerly a favourite hackney of George III, for whose service she had been specially trained, and, in order to protect him against sudden assaults, had been taught to rear and trample down anyone who put out a hand to seize her bridle whenever she had a rider on her back. The story ran that Queen Charlotte, a lady of frugal mind, had sold her husband’s stud as soon as his malady had reached the stage that there was no hope that he would ever mount his horse again.”