In 1718, Manning being still pasture of a somewhat spongy nature (Guy, in his report, calls it “soggy and poor land, reedy, and fit for little”), there was a rumour that the New River canal would pass through it, and it was sold to Jonathan Hemp. The New River was proved, however, in the pleadings before both Houses of Parliament, to have no necessity for this canal, and Hemp was compelled (as it was a mere speculation on his part) to sell it back again to its distinguished owner at a merely nominal price.
Nothing further can be traced with regard to Manning Green (as it was now commonly called) till the report in 1780 that coal had been found beneath it. Such a deposit so near the metropolis naturally attracted the attention of merchants, and the Family sold the place for the last time to a merchant of the name of Hogg for £20,000.
The report proved false; yet, oddly enough, it was the beginning of Mr. Hogg’s prosperity.
We have no space to dwell on this interesting character. “Hogg’s Trustees” are an ecclesiastical household word in our principal watering-places, and the “Hogg Institute” at Brighton is a monument of Christian endeavour. He was a shrewd bargainer, a just man, and upon his mantel-pieces were to be discovered ornaments in alabaster representing Joshua and Richard Cœur de Lion.
The growth of the metropolis entered largely into Mr. Hogg’s enlightened prevision of the future, and he obtained promises from a large number of people to build houses upon his land, which houses should, after a term of years, become his (Hogg’s) property, and cease to belong to those who had paid to put them up. How Mr. Hogg managed to obtain such promises is still shrouded in mystery, but the universal prevalence of the system to-day in modern England would surely prove that there is something in our Imperial race which makes this form of charity an element of our power.
Mr. Hogg’s only daughter married Sir John Moss, Lord Mayor; and Mr. Moss, the son, was the father of the present Lord Hemelthorpe. Thus something romantic still clings to poor Manning Green, of which Lord Hemelthorpe was, until his recent bankruptcy, the proprietor.
There is little more to be said about Manning Green. The Ebenezer Chapel has a history of its own, written by the Rev. Napoleon Plaything, son of Mr. Honey Q. Plaything, of Bismark, Pa. The success of the boys’ club has been detailed in God’s London, by Mr. Zitali, of the “Mission to the Latin Races.” The book is well worth buying, if only for this one essay, written, as it is, by a brand saved from the burning. Mr. Zitali was for a long time in the employ of Messrs. Mañanâ, the restaurant keepers, and no one is better fitted to deal strenuously with the awful problems of our great cities.
Manning Green is about to disappear, and all its wonderful associations will become (in the words of Swinburne)
“Smoke, or the smoke of a smoke.”
But until it disappears, and until its purchase price is finally fixed by the committee, its historical associations will still remain dear to those who (like the present writer) are interested in this corner of the Motherland. That men of our blood, and men speaking our tongue—nay, that those neither of our blood, nor speaking our tongue, but devoted to a common empire—will remember Manning Green when the sale is effected, is the passionate and heartfelt prayer of