To this letter Earl Bathurst replied as follows:—

Whitehall, August 28th, 1821.

Sir,—I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 27th inst., relative to a riot which took place at Knightsbridge on Sunday last. I had, before the receipt of your letter, given directions for an inquiry to be made into the circumstances of this transaction, in consequence of representations made to me, which, I am bound to say, differ in many essential particulars from the statement I have received from you.

I cannot refrain from expressing my regret and surprise, that when the civil power under your direction was fully adequate (as you state) for the preservation of the peace among the people, a mob should have been permitted to remain in a continued state of riot, after the soldiers had been withdrawn within their barracks, until the Riot Act was read by Mr. Conant, and the rioters dispersed by the peace officers under his immediate orders; and I do not understand that in the execution of this duty he received any assistance from you.

I am, Sir, &c.
Bathurst.

Mr. Sheriff Waithman.

CHAPTER III.
MODERN PAROCHIAL DIVISIONS: THE STREETS, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, ETC. THEIR ASSOCIATIONS, EMINENT INHABITANTS, ETC.

“I pray you let us satisfy our eyes
With the memorials, and the things of fame
That do renown this city.”

Shakspeare.

The parish church of St. Margaret, Westminster, is the mother church of this locality. Although the Decree of 1222, before referred to, limited the western boundary of that parish to the Tyburn stream, it declared that beyond that stream lay the town of Knightsbridge, which belonged to it. In what parish the manor of Eia was situated is not stated, but it is most likely that the higher portion of it was a forest, and the lower, it is certain, was partly a marsh, and consequently altogether unnoticed by the assessors; for the growth of parishes was very gradual, and their proper boundaries for ages undefined. St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields is mentioned as early as 1225, but did not become a regular parish till after 1337, and not independent of St. Margaret’s till 1535. In St. Martin’s the whole of the manor of Eia was then included; it consequently reached as far as the Westbourne, and included a part of Knightsbridge; this arrangement continued till the parish of St. George, Hanover Square, in 1724, was formed out of St. Martin’s, and then this distant part was included, absurdly enough, within the new parish.

On the west of the rivulet, which here divides St. George’s parish from St. Margaret’s and Chelsea, the hamlet stands partly in those and partly in Kensington parish. St. Margaret’s stretches from William Street, behind Lowndes Terrace, across the top of Sloane Street, behind Brompton Road, continuing the line behind Arthur Street to the bottom of Ennismore Mews, where, abutting on the north wall of Brompton Churchyard, it strikes off in a north-west direction and crosses the Kensington Road just below Hyde Park Terrace, whence it runs along the road into the town, and, including a few houses on the north side of High Street, it enters the Royal Gardens, including a considerable portion thereof, and the whole of the palace, within its boundary; it joins Paddington at a point on the Uxbridge Road, and thence returns through the Serpentine to Knightsbridge.

The parish officers of St. Margaret alone beat the bounds now, and they appear always to have been strict in this duty, which, from some entries in their books, one would consider to have been a little festive occasionally:—

1595. Item, paid for bread, drink, cheese, fish, cream, and other victuals, when the worshipfull of the parish, and very many others of the poorer sort, went the perambulation to Kensington, in this hard and dere time of all things, as may appear by a bill of particulars £7 10s. 0d.
1597. Item, for the charges of diet at Kensington for the perambulacion of the parish, being a yere of great scarcity and deerness £6 8s. 8d.
1642. Item, spent at Knightsbridge, when divers of the burgesses and vestriemen of this parish went the perambulation £2 19s. 9d.
1668. Item, expended at a perambulation this yeare at Knightsbridge £26 13s. 4d.

Henry VIII.’s corpse passed through Knightsbridge for interment at Windsor. In the St. Margaret’s books is the following entry:—

1547. Paid to the poor men that did bere the copis and other necessaries to Knightsbridge, when that King Henry the Eighth was brought to his burial to Wynsor, and to the man that did ring the bells £0 3s. 0d.