The Rev. Mr. Davies recently appealed to the Vestry for a grant of £100 to make considerable repairs in this old building, it being in a most dilapidated condition (the ground floor, which was the Vestry Room, was for some time previously used as a fire-engine station), and the one school room altogether inadequate for the proper accommodation of the children of the district, promising himself to be answerable for the deficiency in the amount of the expenditure. The Vestry, in consideration of its having been bequeathed to the parish, complied with the request. Mr. Davies likewise obtained for the same laudable object a grant of £20 from the Ragged School Union, the congregation generously contributing the remaining sum required to put the building in thorough repair. The entire cost was rather more than £279. There are now three good school-rooms instead of one, as was formerly the case, and consequently the number of children attending the schools has been greatly augmented.
It may here be mentioned that the “watchhouse,” and the “stocks” for vagrants, formerly stood close to the river, opposite the church.
History of the Manor.
ROYAL AND DISTINGUISHED RESIDENTS.
Blackstone, in his “Commentaries,” says that manors are, in substance, as ancient as the Saxon Constitution. The manor of Chilchell, or Chelcheya (Chelsea), was given it appears, in the reign of Edward the Confessor to the Abbot and Convent of Westminster, by Thurstan, the governor of the king’s palace, who held it of him. This gift was confirmed by a charter, which transfers the manor, with all its rights and appurtenances, as fully as it was held by Thurstan: “besides, together with this manor, as a free gift, every third tree, and every third horse load of fruits grown in the neighbouring wood at Kyngesbyrig” (now called Knightsbridge). This charter, which is in the Saxon language, is still preserved in the British Museum. It is sealed with a waxen seal, suspended by a silken string, after the Norman fashion, in the front of which are the effigies of the king, holding in his right hand a cross, and in his left a globe; on the reverse is the same image, holding in his right hand a spear surmounted by a dove, and bearing in his left a sword, with this inscription on both sides, “The seal of Edward King of England.”
King William, by a charter dated at Westminster, confirmed the land to the Monastery of Westminster.
The Record of Domesday Book, to which we are so greatly indebted, was begun in 1080, and completed in 1086. In it is mentioned the lands in Chelsea, then in possession of the Church of Westminster.
The general description given of menial persons, including those in the manor of Chelsea, at the period when the survey of the land belonging to the lords, or great landowners, was taken, shows the lamentable state of thousands of our fellow-creatures. Slaves were allowed nothing but subsistence and clothes, and were distinguished from freemen by a peculiar dress. Long hair was a mark of dignity and freedom; for that reason, slaves, (menial persons,) were obliged to shave their heads, by which they were reminded of their inferiority of condition. At length Henry VIII. granted manumission to two of his slaves and their families, for which he assigned this just reason: “God at first created all men equally free by nature, but many had been reduced to slavery by the laws of men. We believe it, therefore, to be a pious act, and meritorious in the sight of God, to set certain of our slaves at liberty from their bondage.” The granting of leases, which afterwards followed, almost completely emancipated the “villain-slave,” so that at the time of Elizabeth, scarcely any person existed to whom the former laws applied.
Gervace, abbot of Westminster, aliened the manor of Chelchithe, to his mother Dameta and her heirs. Afterwards it was held by the heirs of Bartholomew de Fontibus.
Several court rolls of this manor, during the reigns of King Edward III. and Richard II. are among the records of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster.
A brewer, of the name of North, was presented at one of these courts for not putting up a sign as was customary; and at another the wife of Philip Rose was fined 6d. for being a common babbler.