Paddington: Past and Present

by William Robins

Paddington, however, is no longer what it was; the lay element, independent of all craft, has thoroughly diffused itself through the country; and its advent in this place, though attended with much cunning, was the real cause of the wonderful transformation which has taken place here within the last half-century.

The Reformation and the Revolution added to the numbers and importance of the people; and the execrable act of that vain braggart, who wildly called himself the State, not only increased the population of Paddington, but brought out to useful purpose the christian virtues of the residents of this village. Here, on the revocation of the edict of Nantes, many of the exiled protestants of France found a home, which had been denied them by their great King; and here, too, the memory of their sufferings and virtues will be kept green, so long as one of their graves shall be permitted to remain in the Old Church-yard.

It is impossible to tell what number of persons lived in this parish, at any one period previous to the present century. The oldest Parish Register, now to be found in Paddington, is dated 1701; and all the written proceedings of the rate-payers in vestry assembled, previous to the second of April, 1793, are said to have been burnt, lost, stolen or destroyed. The only sources from which I have been able to form any conjecture respecting the ancient population of Paddington, are, therefore, necessarily very imperfect, and open to many objections.

By the Subsidy Rolls, however, we discover the names of those who were rated in particular places, at different periods, when the respective subsidies were levied; and although their tombstones may have crumbled into dust, or may have been removed by Act of Parliament, and sold “for the best price that could be got,” yet in these tax-papers their names may receive a notice which will, for centuries, preserve their memories.

From the Subsidy Roll of the sixteenth year of Henry the eighth, I find that twenty persons, then living in Paddington, were taxed for the subsidy levied that year, although the amount of tax collected in this parish was but forty-eight shillings. All the heads of families might not have been included in this levy; but, if we suppose that all were included, and that each of these twenty persons represented a family, and if we calculate further five individuals for each family, we shall make the population of Paddington, in 1524, one hundred; which in all probability, was not very much under, or over, the number at that date.

The value of land, goods, and wages, on which this sum was assessed, amounted to £77 6s. 8d. But if these descriptions of property were all charged in this Subsidy, they were not taxed in the same proportion, on the capital sum assessed; for, although the wages of the labourer were taxed, they were taxed at only one-and-a-quarter per cent.; while goods were charged two-and-a-half per cent.; and land five per cent. So that, three hundred years ago, a more equitable property-tax existed, than that which is the result of present legislative wisdom.

In the thirty-fifth year of the same reign, the valuation for this parish was raised to £272 13s. 4d. Fifteen families only, however, were included in the subsidy for this year—land and goods alone being charged.

In a Subsidy Roll, of the thirty-ninth, of Elizabeth, Marylebone and Paddington are united, to produce a small sum.

In a Subsidy made in the eighteenth year of James the first, the name of Sir Rowland St. John occurs, as I have before observed; and, as this is the first time I find the name of a lessee of the manor on these Rolls, I am inclined to think Sir Rowland was the first lessee, who lived on the Paddington Estate.

It was not the son of Sir Rowland, but another Oliver St John, a relative of this Knight of the Bath, to whom the people owed so deep a debt of gratitude. That man of noble birth and noble mind, opposed the Tyranny of his time, not only in thought, but in word and deed; for he was one of the brave soldiers of that army, which fought and bled for the liberties we now enjoy; and the people of Paddington who preserved the sacred mound of liberty, which they erected within sight of his relatives’ windows, must have felt themselves ennobled, when the Lion settle echoed his valorous deeds. The people of Paddington knew the value of liberty, if their lords did not; and the public houses which were the only celebrated institutions in this rural village, were their debating clubs. Two, at least, were in existence, before “the house for two tenants” was occupied by the lord or his lessees; for they claim to have been established before the Reformation. There are three lions still in Paddington, each contending for the most ancient origin. The “White lion,” in the Edgeware-road, was established, according to the date on its present facade, in 1524—the year in which hops were first permitted to be imported, to preserve our beer. The “Red Lion,” in the Edgeware-road, near the commencement of the Harrow-road, claims a more ancient date for its establishment. In one of its old wooden chambers, taken down, some few years ago to make room for the present house, tradition tells us Shakspeare played; [182a] and many a story has been told of the haunted chamber in this house, as well as of that in the Manor House. The other ancient “Lion,” also “Red,” is situated in the Harrow-road, having taken up its present position as near to its old quarters, as the alteration in that road would permit. This house was formerly situated near the bridge which carried the Harrow-road over the bourn; and was, as I conceive, the property described in an Inquisition, held the second year of Edward the sixth,—vide p. 51—as the “two tenements, called the Bridge-House.”