Paddington: Past and Present

by William Robins

Denis Chirac, esq., by his will, dated ninth August, 1775, gave to Francis Maseres and Peter Paget, esqrs., one hundred pounds to be laid out or applied as they should think proper for the use and benefit of the charity children of Paddington.

This legacy was applied by Mr. Baron Maseres, together with one hundred and twenty pounds, a year’s rent of his own estate in the parish, towards the building of the school-room.

Abourne’s Charity.

George Abourne, esq., by will, dated fifth August, 1767, gave, after the death of certain persons therein named, the dividends of three hundred pounds in the four per cent. consolidated bank annuities, in meat and bread to as many poor families as might have eight pounds of good beef and a half-peck loaf a-piece, to be given twice a-year, every Michaelmas and every Lady-day, for ever; and all the butchers and all the bakers of the place where he should be buried, to take their turns in serving the meat and bread.

This legacy is now three hundred pounds three per cent. reduced annuities, standing in the name of the testator, George Abourne. The dividends, nine pounds a year, are received by Benjamin Edward Hall, esq., as executor of James Crompton, the surviving executor of Benjamin Crompton, who was surviving executor of the testator, George Abourne. Mr. Hall distributes the amount annually, on the twenty-fourth of January, among poor persons of the parish of Paddington, where Mr. Abourne was buried, by tickets, each entitling the bearer to four pounds of meat and a loaf of the same weight. The number of persons receiving them varies according to circumstances; they are selected either upon Mr. Hall’s personal knowledge, or the recommendation of respectable inhabitants; preference being generally given to the most aged and infirm, or such as are encumbered with the largest families. [68]

Mr. Hall furnished us with a statement of the receipts and expenditure from the time that the charity came into action in 1792, from which it appears that, one year with another, more has been given than the amount of the dividends.

The poor of this parish owe much to Messrs. Robertson and Parton for the trouble they took to preserve the memory of those rights which remained at the time they accepted the office of vestry-clerks. Had it not been for their exertions, I very much question, judging from what had taken place and from the state of affairs when they were appointed, whether anything respecting these lands would have been known now; and there can be no doubt but their “account” was a very imperfect one. All those who were benefited by past peculation, would studiously avoid giving these gentlemen the benefit of their knowledge; and even now it is exceedingly difficult to obtain any traditional information on this subject. One of the oldest tenants of the charity-lands plainly said to me, with a blunt honesty I could not but admire, “You’ll excuse me, Sir, but if I could tell you any thing, I wouldn’t.”

I have already mentioned my notions respecting the origin of the term “Bread and Cheese Lands.” The tale which is told, and which has hitherto been generally received, is to be found in the London Magazine, for December, 1737:—“Sunday, 18th, this day, according to annual custom, bread and cheese were thrown from Paddington Steeple to the populace, agreeably to the will of two women who were relieved there with bread and cheese when they were almost starved, and Providence afterwards favouring them, they left an estate in that parish to continue the custom for ever on that day.”

This custom was continued down to about 1838; a single slice of cheese and a penny loaf, being, at last, all that was thrown; the old method of dispensing alms having been found to be anything but charitable alms’-giving. The Sunday before Christmas was, in fact, in the last century and beginning of this, a sort of fair-day, for the sturdy vagabonds of London, who came to Paddington to scramble over dead men’s bones for bread and cheese.

The dispute about the half-acre is settled, as I am informed, by the bishop having established his right to it; and the whole of the second portion of the bread and cheese lands, mentioned in this Report, was sold to the Great Western Railway Company for £1,200. There remains, therefore, of this charity-estate only a portion of the first, and the third parcels, reported on by the Committee of the House of Commons.