Paddington: Past and Present

by William Robins

“Paid to parish solicitor, his bill in respect of various cemetery-bills in Parliament, £144 9s. 0d.”

This yard, no longer the villagers’ unbought resting-place, in which the almost sacred yew-tree [139] grew, had now become necessary for the support of the church; it must be increased therefore, and every inch of ground must be made the best of. Besides securing this income, another object was attempted to be gained by this Act. The trustees were empowered to contract for the purchase of any quantity of land, “not exceeding three acres in the whole, with or without buildings thereon;” and “corporations, &c., were empowered to sell and convey.” The “house for two tenants called the vicarage house;” had long since been converted into the manor-house; and occupants, more profitable to the Paddington Estate, than the curate, had been found for it; and the house which I believe was afterwards built for a “Parsonage-house,”—a house still standing close to the spot where the old church stood, and which is depicted in John Carey’s map of 1797, as the “Parsonage,”—had been, before this time, converted into the “manor farm-house.” [140a] In fact, the curate had no residence provided for him in the parish. But at the time of passing this Act, the old manor-house had been unoccupied for some time, and was rapidly falling to decay for want of a tenant, whose interest it was to keep it in repair; [140b] and the bishop and his lessees having no further use for it, were anxious to sell; and so the manor house, with a portion of its grounds, was purchased by the church trustees.

The inhabitants, now, much to the chagrin of the schemers, began to find out which way the wind blew; and seeing, (when it was too late,) how their birthright had been sold, resolved to take this little bargain into their special consideration—determining, if possible, to make the best of it, as it had been bought, and to have some control over the receipts and the mode of levying the income which was to be derived from the purchase.

This resolution had the effect of producing many parish squabbles, into some of which even the venerable diocesan himself was dragged. In attempting to regulate the fees to be paid for burials in “the new ground,” certain resolutions were passed by the inhabitants in vestry assembled, by which the bishop “feels himself affronted;” and he declares, he “will not consecrate the new ground, till the offensive resolution is rescinded.” The resolution is not, at once, rescinded. It is resolved that it shall not be. But the bishop is to be informed no offence was intended. All, indeed, that was intended by the people of Paddington, at that time, seems to have been expressed by a resolution of May, 1813; to the effect that “it would be a dereliction of their duty not to leave to posterity the same privileges they have enjoyed.”

But to speak of privileges now, was thought to be a joke by those who had to deal with people, who, either in their innocence, or ignorance, had permitted themselves to be cajoled out of far greater privileges than this. Most assuredly, one could scarcely expect that such people, though repentant, would be listened to; and the matter was ended by a peremptory message from the bishop, in which he declares, “he knows of no privilege belonging to the parish of Paddington, or any other parish respecting the settlement of their own fees;” and that such fees will not be legal, unless confirmed by his Court.

So, although the act for purchasing this ground passed on the eighteenth of April, 1810, no portion of the new burial ground was consecrated till the 9th of November, 1813; and the notion of inducing the parishioners to give up the manor-house for a parsonage-house—which appears to have been the scheme of the sellers, and some of the purchasers,—was not entirely abandoned till 1825; but it was never consented to by the vestry.

The predecessor of the present minister was obliged to be non-resident, for a considerable time, because he could find no house in the parish to live in. He was anxious to be amongst those whose souls had been given to his charge; and in September, 1820, we find he offers to give £200 out of his own pocket, towards purchasing the manor-house, and promises to endeavour to obtain a loan from Queen Anne’s Bounty Fund for the rest of the sum, if the parish will but sell the house. Even a large subscription-list was got up to purchase it. The inhabitants, however, will not now give their consent even to a sale of the property. Having witnessed what the bishop and his lessees got by purchasing the waste, “in the Lanes and Road Ways dispersed in, about, and within the said Parish of Paddington;” perhaps the inhabitants fancied that, by having purchased the very kernel of this estate, they might have also become possessed of some of those tegumentary portions of which their predecessors had been so considerately relieved. But nothing daunted by their refusal, either to give, or sell, and thoroughly knowing their own powers, the managers of the parish bring this question again before a meeting of vestry, held the following month, and the Chairman then declares it to be carried; but on a poll being demanded, and taken, the motion was found to have been lost.

This degree of independence did not at all satisfy the now losing party. That the parishioners should begin to be awake to their own power, was a thing not to be endured, and a local Act was devised for them, into which trap they fell. In this Act, four rambling clauses are inserted as to what may, and what may not, be done with the manor-house. And it may, if a special meeting of the vestry shall think fit, “be thenceforth for ever held and used as and for the parsonage-house and glebe-lands of the said parish, or as a residence for the perpetual curate of the said parish and his successors.” So impressed, however, were those vestrymen who had been so recently elected under the detestable principles of Sturges Bourne’s Act, with their duty to their fellow-parishioners; and with the necessity there was not to outrage the general feeling thus publicly expressed, that no sanction to part with their purchase could be obtained even from them. But the old manor-house, which had been let by the parish to a lady, who for some time kept a boarding-school there, was doomed to destruction. Occupation did not lay the spectres who had claimed this dwelling for their own. It was pulled down; the materials were sold, and the ground on which it stood, with that portion of its pleasure-ground which remained, was consecrated on the tenth of August, 1825, for the purpose of further increasing the size of the church-yard.

As all, rich and poor, young and old, were now crying shame on the spiritual governors of the parish, for not finding their deputy with a suitable residence, the bishops’ building Act of 1825,—acknowledging the scandal, in these words, “and as the present curate of Paddington has not any house attached to his curacy”—finds out “that it would be proper that the said Lord Bishop of London, &c., should be at liberty to set apart, appropriate, and to settle in free alms, part of the demised property, as the site for a residence, &c.;” and by the seventeenth clause of the sixth George IV., cap. 45, it is enacted, that the said William, Bishop of London, &c., within five years from the passing of this Act, by indenture, “enrolled in the High Court of Chancery,” should grant to Charles Theomartyr Crane, or his successors, any quantity of the Paddington estate, “not exceeding one acre,” to hold for himself and his successors for ever in free alms, and that he, the said curate, shall be “a body corporate for the purpose;” and that he may “receive, take and hold such ground with any messuages and buildings thereon, notwithstanding any of the laws against Mortmain, &c.”

Soon after this an acre of ground, a small portion of “The Parsons Field,” [142] was granted and settled on the curate for the purpose named.