It is usual to date the beginning of the great volunteer movement from 1859, when General Peel, then Minister of War, sanctioned the acceptance by the authorities of those who offered themselves to take part in the national defence, but the way had been long before prepared by the formation of local associations, amongst which that of Wimbledon, founded in 1799, was the first. A corps of cavalry and one of infantry were quickly formed, in which all the leading gentlemen of the parish were enrolled. The example thus set was eagerly followed, and in 1798 George III. reviewed on Wimbledon Common a regiment more than six hundred strong. By 1803 the volunteers numbered no less than 355,307, and there can be no doubt that had Napoleon realised the expectations of the people of England by invasion, the self-constituted army would have proved itself fully equal to the emergency. After the battle of Waterloo the volunteer force was disbanded; but the spirit which had animated it was not extinct, and when some years later a new war with France seemed imminent, a single spark was all that was needed to kindle anew the patriotic enthusiasm of the whole nation, which resulted in the formation of a new volunteer army, in many respects superior to its predecessor. In June 1860 Queen Victoria reviewed that army in Hyde Park, and a month later took place on Wimbledon Common the inauguration of the National Rifle Association, Her Majesty firing the first shot. From that time to 1887, when the meetings were transferred to Bisley, the volunteers encamped on the beautiful common every summer, representative teams from every part of the United Kingdom and some of the colonies taking part in the various competitions, which, with the reviews that terminated the operations, attracted thousands of spectators. Wimbledon Common is now comparatively deserted, but the memory of the volunteers is kept green by the fine flagstaff, the loftiest in England, that rises up a short distance from the windmill, and consists of the trunk of a single Californian pine that was towed across the Atlantic by a liner, and was the gift of a Canadian corps in acknowledgment of the hospitality received during a visit to the camp. Now and then, as when in 1906 the London companies of the Royal Volunteer Army Medical Corps and a party of Electrical Royal Engineers rehearsed first aid to the wounded after a fight supposed to have taken place in the night, the common is still turned to account as a practising-ground, but it is at present chiefly noted as being the headquarters of the London and Scottish Golf and the All-England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Clubs.

Merton

Within easy reach of Wimbledon are a number of villages, including Merton, Morden, Malden, Mitcham, and Tooting, which, though they have all recently been promoted to the doubtful dignity of becoming suburbs of London, still retain some few relics of the days gone by when they were secluded woodland hamlets. Of these the most important is Merton—inseparably connected with the memory of Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton—the history of which can be traced back to the eighth century, when its site was the scene of a terrible tragedy, for it was there that in 784 the noble king of the West Saxons, Cynewulf, who was on a visit to a lady to whom he was deeply attached, was treacherously slain, with all his attendants, by the Ætheling Cyneheard, a crime that was fearfully avenged the day after, when the murderer and all his followers but one fell victims to the rage of Cynewulf's thanes. According to some authorities, it was near the Surrey Merton that the battle took place between the English and the Danes in 871, when King Æthelred was wounded to death, and at which his brother, the future King Alfred, was present; but it must be added that the balance of evidence is in favour of that important event, which inaugurated a new era for England, having occurred elsewhere. In any case, however, it is certain that Merton—the name of which is supposed to signify the town on the mere, from its vicinity to the ponds of the Wandle—was a valuable manor at the time of the Conquest, when it was the property of King Harold. It was confiscated by William I., and was retained by the Crown until it was bestowed by Henry I. on the so-called Gilbert the Norman, founder of the famous priory of Merton that was long the glory of the neighbourhood.

Originally a humble community of monks living in a small timber-built house near a Norman church, also built by Gilbert, the new settlement quickly attracted so many novices that it was soon decided to transfer it to a more extensive site, and in the course of a few years a stately structure, of which, unfortunately, but a few scanty relics remain, rose up on the banks of the Wandle. The first stone was laid by Gilbert the Norman in 1130, but he did not live to see the completion of his work, for he died the same year, after having carefully secured the property to the Augustinians. From the first the priory enjoyed many special privileges, including that of a seat in Parliament for its abbot and the right of sanctuary, of which Hubert de Burgh, who had acted as Regent during the minority of Henry III., availed himself when he was fleeing from the wrath of his ungrateful master in 1234. It was in the spacious hall of the priory that met, two years later, the great council of the nation that defeated the attempt of the king and pope, who were for once inspired by a common ambition, to force upon the people what was known as the 'Rule of the Canon Law for the legitimisation of children born before the wedlock of their parents.' Earls and barons alike stood firm, declaring that nothing would induce them to change the established laws of England; and it was not until several centuries later that what became known as the Statute of Merton was to a great extent nullified by the passing of the Legitimacy Act of 1858.

As time went on Merton Priory became a celebrated place of education, numbering amongst its pupils many boys who later rose to eminence, including Thomas à Becket, who was there for some time before he was sent to Pevensey Castle for his military training, and Walter de Merton, who became Lord High Chancellor of England in 1261, and founded in 1264 at the neighbouring village of Malden the college of Merton, that was transferred in 1274 to Oxford, and enjoys the distinction of having been the first institution in that city that was organised on collegiate lines.

Within easy distance of London, Merton was often visited by the reigning sovereigns, who repaid the hospitality they received from the abbot with constant gifts of land or money, so that by the time of the suppression of the monasteries the abbey grounds, that were enclosed by a wall, a few portions of which are still standing, were no less than sixty acres in extent, and its revenues amounted to more than a thousand pounds a year. In addition to this, the priory owned many estates in other parts of the country, with the advowsons of several churches, but all its property was snatched away by Henry VIII., who let the abbey on lease, but retained the manor of Merton, which remained the property of the Crown until 1610, when it was sold by James I. to a certain Thomas Hunt, since which time it changed hands again and again before its lands were broken up into small holdings and built upon. Of the ancient manor-house not a trace is left, though possibly the so-called manor farm may occupy its site, but the abbey remained uninjured for some time longer. It had been given by Queen Mary just before her death to the monastery of Sheen, but was reclaimed by her successor, who granted a long lease of it to the cofferer of the royal household, Gregory Lovell, who died at Merton in 1597; and was buried in the parish church. In 1610 the historic building was sold to a certain Thomas Hunt, who passed it on to his heirs in good preservation, as proved by the fact that it was one of the strong places fortified during the Civil War. In 1668 it became the property of a member of the Pepys family, and its purchase by his 'Cosen Tom' is referred to by Samuel Pepys in his Diary for that year. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the priory and chapel were still beautiful buildings, but long before the end they had been despoiled and converted into a calico-printing factory. Part of the materials were used to build a mansion that occupied the site of the modern house now called Merton Abbey, and a single Norman arch incorporated in the factory is all that remains to bear witness to the glory of the monastery founded by Gilbert the Norman. The railway connecting Wimbledon and Tooting runs right across what were once the abbey grounds; but in the portion belonging to the house referred to above are some fish-ponds that were probably used by the monks.

Fortunately the parish church of Merton, in which Lord Nelson, Sir William and Lady Hamilton often worshipped, with its tiled roof, squat timber tower, and octagonal spire, its Norman arch at the northern end and Early English pillars in the nave, retains, in spite of frequent restoration, very much the appearance that it did when first completed early in the twelfth century. Two of the ancient lancet windows remain, the arms of the priory in old stained glass have been worked into the modern east window, on the south wall is a mural monument, with kneeling effigies, to the memory of Gregory Lovell, his wife, and their eight children, and in the nave are the hatchments of the great families who at different times owned the manor of Merton, and also one bearing the arms of Lord Nelson that was presented after his death by Lady Hamilton. In the vestry is preserved the pew in which the lovers used to sit, and in the churchyard are several quaint old tombs, including that of the second wife of the famous bookseller, James Luckington, who lived for some years at Merton.

Opposite to the church is an interesting Elizabethan mansion standing well back from the road in extensive grounds, with fine entrance-gates of wrought iron, that was long erroneously supposed to have been the original manor-house of Merton, and close to the gates is a flight of stone steps that are said to have been used by Lord Nelson for mounting and dismounting when he rode to church from his beloved home on the Wandle, known as Merton Place, where he spent the happiest years of his life, and from which he went forth never to return five weeks before the battle of Trafalgar, in which he lost his life.

Unfortunately, absolutely no trace is now left of Merton Place, for it was sold in 1808 by Lady Hamilton, to whom it had been bequeathed, and its site is now occupied by a street of commonplace villas, the names of Nelson Place and the Nelson Arms alone recalling the days when the great naval hero was a familiar figure in the village. Opposite the railway station, however, is a ruined castellated gate overgrown with ivy that once gave access to the estate which Nelson and his beloved Emma called Paradise Merton, which witnessed the closing scenes of a romance without a parallel in history or fiction. On the improvement of that estate large sums of money were expended, and after the credulous or wilfully blind Sir William Hamilton had passed away, the long disowned but deeply loved Horatia was brought to live with her mother, her absent father betraying in his letters a deep solicitude for her welfare, as when he begs that 'a strong netting about three feet high may be placed round the Nile,' as he called the stream running through the grounds, 'that the little thing may not tumble in.'

Malden