Part 3

“Mr. Wallington rode ‘Bonnie Bess,’ formerly a favourite hackney of George III, for whose service she had been specially trained, and, in order to protect him against sudden assaults, had been taught to rear and trample down anyone who put out a hand to seize her bridle whenever she had a rider on her back. The story ran that Queen Charlotte, a lady of frugal mind, had sold her husband’s stud as soon as his malady had reached the stage that there was no hope that he would ever mount his horse again.”

It was at Ealing too, during his schooldays that the illustrious novelist tasted the bitter sweets of a first love, and his own pen has told the story.

“The country around where my good preceptor resided was rural enough for a place so near the metropolis. A walk of somewhat less than a mile, through lanes that were themselves retired and lonely, led to green sequestered meadows, through which the humble Brent crept along its snake-like way. O God! how palpably, even in hours the least friendly to remembrance, there rises before my eyes, when I close them, that singular dwarfed tree which overshadowed the little stream, throwing its boughs half way to the opposite margin! I wonder if it still survives. I dare not revisit that spot. And there we were wont to meet (poor children that we were!) thinking not of the world we had scarce entered, dreaming not of fate and chance, reasoning not on what was to come, full only of our first born, our ineffable love. Along the quiet road between Ealing and Castlebar, the lodge gates stood (perhaps they are still standing,) which led to the grounds of a villa once occupied by the Duke of Kent. To the right of those gates, as you approached them from the common, was a path. Through two or three fields, as undisturbed and lonely as if they lay in the heart of some solitary land far from any human neighbourhood, this path conducted to the banks of the little rivulet, overshadowed here and there by blosoming shrubs and crooked pollards of fantastic shape. Along that path once sped the happiest steps that ever bore a boy’s heart to the object of its first innocent worship.”

Lord Lytton does not disclose the name of his youthful and unhappy love. He was then 17 and she was, he informs us, one or two years older then he. This seems to be of course. Let the male reader ransack his own experience and it is odds there looms before his mental vision some angel of twenty whom he assured he should be sixteen in a few months, and that he felt old for his age. Lord Lytton had soon to part from the nymph, who, his Life by his son asserts, was forced into an early and uncongenial marriage. For three years, in obedience to duty, she strove to smother the love which consumed her; and when she sunk under the conflict, and death was about to release her from the obligations of marriage and life itself, she wrote a letter to her youthful adorer and with her dying hand informed him of the suffering which she had passed, and of her unconquerable devotion to him, and intimated a wish that he should visit her grave. It is she whom he apostrophizes in one of his earliest essays: “My lost, my buried, my unforgotten! you, whom I knew in the first fresh years of life, you, who were snatched from me before one leaf of the Summer of Youth and of love was withered; you over whose grave, yet a boy, I wept away half the softness of my soul, now that I know the eternal workings of the world, and the destiny of all human ties, I rejoice that you are no more! that custom never dulled the music of your voice, the pathos and the magic of your sweet eyes, that the halo of a dream was round you to the last! had you survived till now, we should have survived, not our love indeed, but all that renders love most divine,” and so the noble writer goes on in an ecstatic passage which means, if it has any meaning at all, that he was glad the lady died, because if she had lived they would have tired of each other.

On rising ground on the outskirts of Ealing where it borders on Turnham Green, stands the historic mansion of Gunnersbury, now owned by Baron Rothschild. The present mansion replaces an earlier edifice, which was pulled down at the end of the last century. The Gunnersbury of that date vied with Holland House and Strawberry Hill. At one time the old building was the abode of Sergeant Maynard who died there in 1690. There for many years dwelt his widow, his third wife, who ultimately married the Earl of Suffolk. On her death in 1721 Gunnersbury was acquired by Lord Hobart and later by the Princess Amelia, daughter of George II, and aunt of George III, who formed a Salon there. The princess had a considerable taste and talent for political intrigue, and her parties were resorted to by all that sought favor at Court. In 1761 we find in a letter of Sir Horace Walpole, “I was sent for again to dine at Gunnersbury on Friday, and was forced to send to town for a dress coat and a sword. There were the Prince of Wales, the Prince of Mecklenburgh, the Duke of Portland, Lord Clanbrassil, Lord and Lady Clermont, Lord and Lady Southampton, Lord Pelham and Mrs. Howe. The Prince of Mecklenburgh was back to Windsor after coffee, and the Prince and Lord and Lady Clermont to town after tea, to hear some new French plays at Lady William Gordon’s. The Princess, Lady Barrymore, and the rest of us played three games at commerce till ten. I am afraid that I was tired, and gaped. While we were at the Dairy, the Princess insisted on my making some verses on Gunnersbury, I pleaded superannuation, but she would not excuse me.” The mansion, the present seat of Baron Rothschild, is surrounded by grounds of considerable extent and laid out with much care and taste. The house contains many noticeable statues, and several striking pictures, one of which limns a historic scene, the introduction of the late Baron Lionel Rothschild into the House of Commons in 1858 after the removal of the Disabilities of the Jews. The baron’s sponsors were Lord John Russel and Bernal Osborne, of witty memory, and on the front benches on either side are to be seen the well-known faces of Lord Palmerstone, Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Gladstone, Cornewall Lewis, and the late Lord Derby.

Gunnersbury House, says Mr. Falkner, is a handsome specimen of the Tuscan order. The South front is 126 feet long, and consists of a centre and wings; the former is three stories high, and the latter two stories. The north front is of the same dimensions, but of more simple construction; it is ornamented with a grand portico with four columns of the Tuscan order; the whole front consisting of three stories. The east end is 60 feet wide, and is divided into two large and splendid bow windows, and is used as a conservatory. The terrace in front of the house is bordered by a dwarf wall and stone coping, and ornamented with vases. At the east end of this terrace is an alcove, in which is placed a statue of Apollo. The west end is bounded by an architectural archway, leading to the gardens. On the west is a handsome temple of the Tuscan order, supported by two pilasters and two columns. On the tympanum of the pediment is a shield with foliage. The interior is chastely arranged, and beautifully furnished with Chinese vases, antique chairs, &c., and the walls are ornamented with bas reliefs, representing the most striking scenes taken from the history of Greece. From the south front of this temple is obtained an extensive view of the surrounding country including Kew Gardens, and the Surrey Hills in the distance. This spot is the most elevated part of the grounds, as well as the most beautiful, and is further ornamented with a circular piece of water, consisting of about two acres. This part of the garden shows evident marks of the hand of Kent, who was employed by Mr. Turner for the purpose of embellishing the grounds and improving the landscape. A row of cedar trees here raise their majestic heads, and are greatly admired. The Italian garden at the back of the Temple is embellished with eight figures on sand-stone of Burns’s “Jolly Beggars,” admirably executed by Thoms.

On the edge of Ealing Common stands The Grove, which, in the later part of the seventeenth century, was occupied by Sir William Trumbull, the friend of Pope, and Secretary of State to William III. Pope wrote his epitaph:

A pleasing form, a firm, yet cautious mind; Sincere, though prudent; constant, yet resign’d, Honour unchang’d, a principle profest, Fix’d to one side, but mod’rate to the rest, An honest courtier, yet a patriot too; Just to his prince, and to his country true; Fill’d with the sense of age, the fire of youth, A scorn of wrangling, yet a zeal for truth. A gen’rous faith, from superstition free, A love to peace, and hate of tyranny; Such this man was, who now, from earth remov’d, At length enjoys the liberty he lov’d.

Elm Grove passed successively into the hands of Dr. Hedges, secretary to Queen Anne, and Dr. Egerton, Bishop of Durham, and Lord Kinnair from the heirs of which nobleman it was purchased by the Rt. Hon. Spencer Percival, Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was shot on May 11th, 1812, as he was entering the lobby of the House of Commons, by one Bellingham, whose mind had been unhinged by commercial misfortunes, and who in some way connected the Chancellor with his adversities. Bellingham was hanged at Newgate. Elm Grove became subsequently an Asylum for the officers of the East Indian Company, and was purchased by Baron Rothschild, and is now dismantled.

The crime and execution of Bellingham recall another event connected with Ealing the story of which is infinitely sad. It is a story of great talents prostituted to base uses, with dismal tragedy in their train. In the year 1766 the Manor House, subsequently called Goodenough House, was occupied by Dr. Dodd as a boarding School for young gentlemen, and in February of that year, he was there arrested and conveyed to Newgate on a charge of forging the name of Lord Chesterfield to a receipt for money and a bond. The prisoner acknowledged his guilt and alleged the stress of poverty. The jury returned a verdict of guilty, but drew up a recommendation to His Majesty for mercy. The sheriff of London, attended by the City Remembrancer, presented a memorial from the city to the King, entreating mercy; another was sent to the Queen from the Magdalen Hospital, in whose institution Dr. Dodd had borne an active part. Lord Percy handed in one signed by twenty thousand inhabitants of Westminster, and the wife of the unhappy man with whom he had lived in the most perfect conjugal felicity, presented a petition for the Royal clemency to the Queen in person. But their efforts were fruitless, and he was hanged on June 28th, displaying great fortitude. The unhappy man was LL.D. of Cambridge, a clerk in holy orders, and a prebend of Brecon, one time tutor to the celebrated Earl of Chesterfield, and vicar of Wantage in Buckinghamshire. He was a man of singular attainments, but unhappily of a profuse and extravagant style of life. It was the old story, _alieni appetens, sui profusus_, and the embarrassment occasioned by reckless expenditure led him to an awful doom. Whilst awaiting his end he wrote his “Prison Thoughts,” in which he was assisted by Dr. Johnson.

_Ealing House_ in the Park Road, now occupied as Byron House School, belonged to the Bonfoy family in 1691; in 1715 to Sir James Montagu, Baron of the Exchequer, later to General John Hawke and the Earl of Galloway. A further notice of this house will be found in later pages.

_Its Schools_. Few, if any, places of anything like the same size, contain so many and so excellent Colleges, Academies, Boarding and Day Schools, as Ealing. Many circumstances have conspired to this result. In the first place, the _fons et origo_, probably, of this consummation, nature seems to have marked the spot for schools. The situation is near enough to the Thames to make the loveliest haunts of the river easily accessible, and it is distant enough to be free from the fogs and low humours of a riparian situation; it is remote enough from London to be almost pastoral in its charms yet close enough to be reached by many routes within an hour. The streets of the town and the urban roads are broad and well made, the latter lined with noble chestnuts that, in the spring, are a mass of spiked bloom, suggesting the boulevards of continental cities rather than the prosaic high ways of English life. It abounds in large open spaces, wide stretching greens and commons, everywhere foliage and bloom greet the senses. No noisome factories belch poison into the air. It is _rus in urbe_ in effect. The man of business can be wafted almost without effort to the very heart of the business centre of the world, and yet his home lie in gracious avenues lined with stately trees, and far remote from the toil and turmoil of the city and its eternal din. In all Ealing there is not what may be reasonably called a slum, and its most confined and gloomy alley might almost claim to rank as an open space compared with the crowded courts of the East End. Little wonder that the schoolmaster who is often spoken of as abroad is very much at home in Ealing. The illustrious men, distinguished in every pursuit of life, in arms, in commerce, in the calm of the cloister, and in the strife of the forum, in literature and in arts, who have drunk their first draughts of the Pierian Spring at Ealing, their names are many, illustrious, and historic. The most celebrated Private School in Great Britain, beyond question, was that kept in Ealing by Dr. Nicholas, and known as the Great Ealing School. It stood formerly on the site of the present Post Office in Ranelagh Road, and that of the buildings on the opposite side of the Ranelagh Road now used as a Repository. The House now called Thorne House, or St. Mary’s College, conducted by Mr. Fiscn, M.A., was. occupied as a Master’s House. Dr. Nicholas himself is spoken of more than once in Thackeray’s Papers as “Dr. Tickle-us of Great Ealing School.” How few private schools, indeed can any other private school? claim among its alumni such men as Sir Henry Lawrence, Lord Lawrence, Bishop Selwyn, Charles Knight, Sir Henry Rawlinson, William Makepeace Thackeray, Cardinal Newman, Professor Huxley and W. S. Gilbert. Charles Knight says of his schooldays here, “my school life was a real happiness. My nature bourgeoned under kindness.” The present Great Ealing School stands on the opposite side of the road to the former premises. It was built by Dr. Nicholas for his son, but the early death of that gentleman frustrated that scheme. The School is now conducted by Rev. John Chapman. It stands on a gravel soil, and is surrounded by nearly seven acres of ground, with lawns and orchards. If the list of the conspicuous successes gained in nearly all the Public Examinations of the present day are any augury for the future, the Great Ealing School bids fair to sustain its illustrious traditions. No school could do more.

The former Master’s House, we have said, was, with an adjacent row of houses, opened as a school for boys by Mr. Ray. In his hands it became widely known, and was one of the largest private educational establishments in the neighbourhood of London. The present Principal is Mr. Jas. Fison, M.A., (London), who has given regard to the needs of pupils preparing for the Universities, and the Public Examinations. The tendency of modern education is to lay greater stress than formerly on scientific study, and extensive chemical and physical laboratories are now being erected with a well-filled workshop. It is confidently anticipated that these will not only be of service to the pupils at the school, but will be availed of by students residing in the neighbourhood, who seek to obtain practical experience in scientific or technical subjects. A large and well-appointed gymnasium is also in course of erection in the playground attached to the school and classes in physical education will be formed.

In point of numbers the Byron House School, whose principals are Mr. B. Bruce Smith, LL.D., and the Rev. E. J. Hockly, M.A., and which is situate in the Park Road bears the palm. This School had a noble beginning. It was instituted by Lady Byron, the poet’s wife, and for many years that lady paid the fees of the boys admitted on her nomination. Her Head-Master was Mr. Charles Nelson Atlee, and in 1848 the increasing years and infirmities of her ladyship, combined no doubt with a desire to mark her gratitude for Mr. Atlee’s co-operation for so many years, prompted Lady Byron to hand over the school entirely to Mr. Atlee, and it was carried on by him and his son, Mr. Charles Atlee, A.C.P., till the father’s death in 1866, and its efficiency and success may be guaged by the fact that in that period the number of pupils rose from 40 to 100. The school remained in Mr. C. Atlee’s hands till 1886, when Dr.Bruce Smith acquired it. It now numbers over 200 pupils, and thirteen resident and three visiting masters constitute a teaching staff of exceptional strength, and their efforts have borne fruit in the University and other competitive Class Lists. One of the greatest living musicians and one of the best of our modern sculptors received their early training at Byron School, and many of the banks and commercial establishments of high repute throughout England and the Colonies have officered their desks from former pupils of the School. In its earlier days Byron House supplemented the Battersea Training College as an Academy for Teachers, and a circumstance of special interest to Masters, may be noted in the fact that the College of Preceptors was practically founded in the private dining-room of Byron House School. It is beyond all dispute that the scheme for testing the efficiency of private schools, which led to the foundation of the Oxford and Cambridge Local Examinations, has done more than any other movement to stimulate education in this country. It annihilated the sluggard school-master, and considerably wakened up the sluggard school-boy.

_The Castle Hill School_. This School presents one notable feature. Standing in some half-acre of ground, abutting on four acres of play-ground, the building itself has been designed and constructed specially for the use to which it is now devoted. A building whose original purpose is private residence is not always best adapted for a large school, but the architect for the Castle. Hill School with the initial advantage of commodious and appropriate site has produced a School whose adaptation of means to end, strikes the merest observer. The central school-room is 60ft. long, 23ft wide, and 16ft. high, and the sanitary arrangements of the whole structure are beyond criticism. The Castle Hill School was founded, but not on its present site, by the Rev. O. G. D. Perrott, M.A., in 1875, who transferred it in 1885 to the present Head-Master, Mr. E. J. Morgan, 1st B. A., (London) and by him the present school was erected in 1891. Admittedly the Cambridge Local Examinations are a severe test of a school’s efficiency and that out of the 19 certificates gained at the Ealing Centre at the last Examination, 11 were secured by pupils of Mr. Morgan, one with first-class honours, speaks highly in the School’s favour.

Space forbids the specific mention of all the educational advantages of which Ealing can boast, but lest it should be assumed these are confined to budding geniuses of the sterner sex, we may refer to the Princess Helena College, a High School for Girls, situate in Montpelier Road, of which the following account appeared in the excellent work, “Ealing Illustrated,” published in 1893, by Messrs G. Tyer and Co., London.

“At Montpelier Road, we find the public High School for girls, known as the Princess Helena College, which has an interesting history attaching to it. It was originally founded in 1820, as a training school for governesses, and also for the education of the orphans of Military and Naval officers, members of the Civil Service, and Clergymen, having been established as a memorial to H.R.H. Princess Charlotte of Wales. At this time, it was known as the Audit and Orphan Institution, and was situated near Regent’s Park, London. Greater accommodation eventually became necessary, however, and a movement was set on foot, under the presidency of Princess Christian, to erect larger and more suitable buildings. The site now occupied was chosen, and the present erection was built at a cost of £10,000, from designs by Mr. S. Bannister, of Lincolns Inn Fields. Although, as we have stated, it is now a Public High School for girls, the original object of its foundation has not been lost sight of, and a portion of its revenue derived from subscription is devoted to the education of girls of the classes before referred to.”

Ealing is the home of many charitable institutions and the Training College for Teachers of the Deaf, situate at Elmhurst, Castlebar Hill, under the Presidency of the Archbishop of Canterbury, has a wide reputation. One of the Homes of the London Police Court Mission is to be found in Church Lane, where, under the energetic and sympathetic superintendence of Mr. Robert Marshall, those who have slipped from the straight path, find help and encouragement in the hard and uphill struggle to redeem the past.

The municipal Government of Ealing is vested in a Local Board formed on May 25th, 1863, superseding the old Highway Board with its nine life members. That the Local Board has been enterprising a retrospect of thirty years would amply prove: that its policy has been successful, a few figures abundantly establish. In 1863 the population was about 5,200. It now exceeds 37,000. In 1863 its rateable value was £18,396, it is now over £167,000, That it has jealously insisted that sanitary safeguards should accompany the swift stride of progress may be inferred from the fact that Ealing has but a death-rate of 11:23 per 1000, whilst professed and we may say professional health resorts like Eastbourne, Harrogate, Cheltenham, and Scarborough, range from near 15 to close on 19 per 1000.

For Parliamentary purposes Ealing, with Chiswick and Acton, constitutes the Ealing Division. Lord George Hamilton is the present member, and it may be said that the Conservative view is in much favor in Ealing. There are those who assert a necessary connection between this fact and the abundance and excellence of its educational advantages. This History sayeth not how this may be.

The municipal Hall of the Town Fathers is in the Uxbridge Road, and is an imposing structure in the Early Decorated Style from the designs of Mr. C. Jones, C.E. surveyor to the Local Board to whose skill and care Ealing is much indebted. The Public Buildings comprise a Free Library, Science and Art School and the Victoria Jubilee Hall, largely used for public meetings and popular entertainments. If to this we add that the Lyric Hall furnishes forth a charming theatre, to which the cult of the higher drama attracts the not infrequent visits of world-famed artistes, enough has been said to assure the most confirmed haunter of cities that though Ealing is not Mayfair, one might have a worse fate than to be banished thither. It was interesting in the past, it is beautiful and flourishing in the present, and it has no fears for the future.