Chapter 7

These Sheldons were the nephews of the Bishop Sheldon to whom the manor was restored at the Restoration in 1661. Newcourt tells us that before the Parliament had seized it the church was a donative or curacy in the gift of the Bishop of London; that the pension of the curate was but £28 per annum. This was increased by Bishop Sheldon to £80, and the larger sum was fixed by Act of Parliament, and the lessee was bound by his lease to pay the Vicar £80 a year. The first curate mentioned is one "Griffin Edwards, A.B., licentiat., December 18, 1598." The churchyard proper only comprises about 1 acre of land, but the old burial-ground, including the site of the older church, adjoins to the northward and includes 3 acres. This was laid out as a public garden in 1885. The freehold rests with the Vicar of Paddington. On the east side, above the centre pathway, is a flat stone to the memory of Mrs. Siddons, who died 1831, aged 76. On it are three glazed vases added later by the parish. In the same vault is buried Mrs. Martha Wilkinson, her dresser, who died in 1847, and was laid here by her own especial request. On the west side, below the centre path, is a flat stone to the memory of one John Hubbard, who lived from 1554 to 1665, and therefore reached the patriarchal age of 111 years. The churchyard also contains the remains of Collins, an artist, who painted English coast scenery; Dr. Geddes, translator of the historical books of the Old Testament; Banks, the sculptor, 1805; Nollekens; the Marquis of Lansdowne; Vivares, the engraver, 1780. The churchyard was enlarged in 1753, when Sherlock was Bishop of London, and further in 1810, when the piece of ground at the north-east corner, which is marked on a map of the beginning of the nineteenth century "Manor House," was enclosed. To the east of the church is the famous Paddington Green, now shrunk to very small dimensions. A statue of Mrs. Siddons in white marble has been erected on Paddington Green. The statue was designed by M. Chavalliand, and executed by Messrs. Brindley. The total cost was about £450.

In Greville House, which stands on the north side of the Green, Emma, afterwards Lady Hamilton, lived for four years under the protection of the Hon. Charles Greville, to whom her mother was housekeeper. None of the other houses now standing are old enough to merit comment. Paddington House, "a handsome brick structure," built by Denis Chirac, who had been jeweller to Queen Anne, formerly stood on the east side of the Green, near to Harrow Road. He entered upon his residence here in 1753. At the corner of Church Street, on the Green, stands the Children's Hospital, a large red-brick building. The origin of this was a Free Dispensary for Sick Children, opened in 1862 in Lisson Grove by two medical men. Relief was afforded to 20,000 children during the first six years of the work, which was carried on under the management of a medical committee. In 1869 a building fund was suggested. But it was in 1881, by the earnest work of Mr. George Hanbury, that practical steps were taken for the establishment of a small hospital. In 1883 the freehold of the land at the corner of Church Street was purchased, and the buildings standing there were adapted for the purpose. Further ground was bought at the back in 1885, and an out-patient department established. In 1890, owing to the pressure of applications for in-patients, it was decided to build a new wing. However, for sanitary reasons, it was considered better to pull down the old building and entirely rebuild the hospital. The children then in the hospital were temporarily sent to Harrow, and the new building was commenced in 1894, and was reopened in June, 1895. An interesting old shop at the corner of Church Street was pulled down to make way for it. It contains all modern improvements, including electric light and cooking by gas. There is an isolation ward for any infectious illness which may break out, and two large, bright wards for the ordinary patients. The walls of these are lined with glazed bricks and tiles, and one of the wards contains large tile-work pictures representing well-known fairy tales. Boys are received up to the age of twelve, and girls to fourteen years. Babes of even three and four days are admitted. The out-patients' department is entirely free, no letter of any sort being required. The payment of a nominal fee of a penny to insure genuine cases is all that is exacted. Out-patients are selected by the medical staff to become in-patients. The children look bright and well cared for; the wards are models of cleanliness and comfort. The hospital is entirely supported by voluntary contributions and subscriptions. The temporary house at Harrow has been retained as a convalescent home.

A house, No. 13, close by the hospital, is one of Dr. Stainer's Homes for Deaf and Dumb Children.

The Paddington charities may be here described. But it must be remembered that amounts where mentioned are only given in general terms, and are liable to variation.

The _Bread and Cheese Charity_ is of very ancient origin, and is said to have been founded by two maiden ladies. The bequest was in the form of land, though the name of the donors and the date of the gift are unknown. With the rents of the land bread and cheese were purchased, and thrown from the church tower to poor people on the Sunday before Christmas. The annual income arising from this source is now divided, being expended partly upon education, partly upon apprenticeship, and a certain amount upon coals and blankets to be distributed among the poor of the parish.

_Johnson's Charity_ is a rent-charge of £1 a year, distributed in small sums among the poor of the parish. The date of this bequest is not known.

_Lyon's Charity_ is of very ancient date--namely, 1578. It consists of an estate in Kilburn and an estate in Paddington, and is distributed among many different parishes. The greater part of the income, which, of course, varies in amount, goes to the repairing of roads.

_Harvest's Charity_ in 1610 bequeathed an estate to the parishes of Paddington and Marylebone for repairing the highways. The income derived from this source is devoted to the above-mentioned purpose.

_Dr. Compton's and Margaret Robertson's, or Robinson's Charity._--This is supposed to have been partly the gift of Dr. Compton, Bishop of London. The first grant was made in 1717, which was after Dr. Compton's death, but it is possible that he promised the gift which was granted by his successor, Dr. Robinson. Lysons says "the donation was confirmed by Dr. Robinson." "The first admission to the land, the property of Margaret Robertson's Charity, was on the 18th day of April, 1721" (Charity Commissioners' Report). The same persons are trustees for both charities. The gross total income, which amounts to about £535, is distributed as follows: £321 for education purposes, £107 for apprenticing, and the same as the latter sum to be given to the poor of the parish in kind.

_The Almshouse Charity._--Paddington is singularly deficient in almshouses, the only houses of the kind having been pulled down between 1860 and 1870. These stood opposite the Vestry Hall, and are mentioned below. The Almshouse Charity includes the charity of Frances King. It is described as having been mentioned first on the Court Rolls of the manor of Paddington in 1720, but Lysons, in referring to the same charity, says: "Several small almshouses were built at the parish expense in the year 1714." There were seventeen of these almshouses in all, inclusive of four built by Samuel Pepys Cockerell. Two of them were used as rooms by the master and mistress of the Charity School. Some of these houses must have been pulled down previous to the year 1853, for at that date the Vestry applied for permission to pull down the twelve almshouses in the Harrow Road, considering that the estate could be more advantageously administered. It was not until 1867, however, that the order of the Court of Chancery was finally obtained, and after the demolition part of the land was let on a building lease. Another part, with a frontage to the Harrow Road, was let also on a building lease 1869. The houses erected on this are Nos. 111, 113, 115, 117, 119, Harrow Road. Frances King's Charity was £200, given by will in 1845 to be expended in coals for the inhabitants of the above-mentioned almshouses. The total income of the Almshouse Charity is somewhere about £200; of this amount the trustees pay a yearly sum of £50 to the trustees of St. Mary's School, and the remainder is applied to necessary expenses, and to pensions of £10 to £12 a year to deserving candidates in the parish.

Denis Chirac left in 1777 a sum of £100 (Report Charity Commissioners; Lysons says £138) for the benefit of the poor children of the parish. This amount, together with £120 given by Baron Maseres, was applied to the building of a schoolroom. The old Charity School, still standing near the site of the almshouses, was built in 1822 upon copyhold land granted for the purpose by the Bishop. St. Mary's Schools at present stand near the spot in Church Place.

_Abourne's Charity_ was left in 1767. It is at present £300 in stock, and produces an annual income of from £8 to £9, distributed in bread among the poor of the parish.

_Simmonds' Charity_ consists of the dividends on £600 stock, from which an annual income of from £16 to £20 is distributed among poor women of the parish in sums of 10s. 6d.

_Marion Mayne's Charity._--In 1854 Marion Mayne left a sum of money by her will for keeping in repair certain tombstones, tablets, etc., including her own, and a sum for the maintenance of Paddington Green in good order, and a sum to be expended in annuities among the poor of the parish. The present income is derived from the dividends on £6,416 1s. 7d. stock, the latest income of which is expended as directed.

_Smith Charity._--Under Augustus Frederick Smith's will, proved March 19, 1881, dividends on £9,985 3s. 8d. were left to the parish. The income is between £200 and £300. This is distributed amongst poor women about sixty years of age resident in Paddington, in pensions of not more than £20, or less than £10 per annum.

Following St. Mary's Terrace northwards, we see on the east side a curious little passage leading to a small Welsh chapel, an iron building. Close by the chapel stands a genuine old cottage, whitewashed and thatched, a remnant of the time when Paddington was largely composed of open ground. This cottage is said by an antiquarian authority to be several centuries old. It was granted to the Welsh congregation by the Bishop of London in 1890. Not far from this, up another narrow opening, is an old brick house with quaint red-tiled roof. This is Claremont House. It is picturesque, but has no authentic history. Opening out of St. Mary's Terrace on the east side, Howley and Fulham Places and Porteus Road recall the ownership of the Bishops of London.

We must now mention the Grand Junction Canal. When it was first opened it was the fashion to go excursions by the day on the water, a custom referred to in "Nollekens and his Times." In 1812 the Regent's Canal Company was incorporated and given authority to make and maintain a navigable canal from the Grand Junction Canal in the parish of Paddington to the river Thames in the parish of Limehouse. The canal to the Regent's Park basin was opened two years after this, but was only completed in 1820. About "Paddington Basin," as it is called, are clustered many poor houses. The streets between the Harrow Road on the one side, and the basin on the other, are miserable and squalid. At the corner of Green Street is a church formerly belonging to the Catholic Apostolic community, later purchased by the Baptists, and now belonging to the Salvation Army. This is a structure of Kentish ragstone in a Gothic style with small steeple. In the Edgware Road are one or two public-houses, which, if not actually old, stand on the sites and inherit the names of famous old predecessors. The White Lion, now amalgamated with a music-hall, bears date of foundation 1524. It is said that G. Morland, the animal painter, painted a sign for this. It is No. 267. Northward, at the corner of Church Street, is the Wheatsheaf, which, says Robins, "has the credit of having frequently entertained honest and learned Ben Jonson."

The Red Lion, No. 239, a little to the north of Praed Street, claims as ancient a date. Tradition says that Shakespeare acted in one of the old wooden rooms, now vanished, and the inn boasts a haunted chamber.

In Cambridge Place is St. Mary's Hospital and Medical School. The suggestion of a hospital was discussed in 1840, but the foundation was not laid until 1843 by the late Prince Consort. The building was designed to hold 380 beds, but though it has been added to from time to time it still contains less than this, a supply totally inadequate to the demand for accommodation. The first wing was opened in 1857, and contained 150 beds. In 1865 the present King laid the foundation-stone of a further wing, and in 1892 the stone of the Clarence memorial wing. By 1886 all the building land acquired by the hospital had been used, and it was found necessary to purchase other land. In 1887 negotiations were made by which the Grand Junction Canal Company agreed to sell their interest in the required land. After five years' labour and the expenditure of £48,000, the desired result was achieved, and the Clarence wing was commenced. The hospital now faces Praed Street as well as Cambridge Place, the intervening houses having been pulled down. It is a great square red-brick building with stone facings. Behind the hospital are All Saints' Schools, and to the west of them the Great Western Railway Terminus. The Act for the extension of the Great Western line to Paddington, and for the erection of a station, was dated 1836. The first station was, however, only temporary. The present one was designed by I. K. Brunel, commenced 1849, and completed in 1854. It contains three passenger platforms, and the roof is divided by columns into three great spans, of which the centre one measures over 102 feet in width, and the outer ones 68 feet each. The station buildings and platforms at Paddington cover an area of 373,407 feet, but even this extent is insufficient for the railway purposes. Adjacent houses have consequently been adapted for the offices, and there is continual need for further accommodation. There are eight platform lines, and the platforms themselves are 780 feet in length. The daily passenger trains number from 250 to 300, and with the addition of excursion trains in the season the total daily average has reached 350. The diurnal number of passengers is estimated at 14,000, but high-water mark has been touched between 40,000 and 50,000. Twenty-five tons of news parcels are despatched from Paddington in one day, and nearly 3,000 mail-bags and parcels-post packages pass through the station in the same time, besides about 5,000 milk-churns. The above figures give some indication of the enormous traffic at this great terminus. The army of workers employed numbers 2,000, exclusive of the large clerical staff employed in the general department. The Great Western Hotel in a Renaissance style fronts Praed Street. It was built from 1850 to 1852, and its frontage is nearly 89 yards in length, and it is connected with the station by means of a covered way. Covered ways also connect the station with Praed Street and Bishop's Road Stations of the Metropolitan Railway.

In No. 19, Warwick Crescent, Robert Browning lived for five-and-twenty years, a fact recorded by a tablet of the Society of Arts. He came here in 1862, broken down by the death of his wife, and remained until a threatened railway near the front of the house--an innovation never carried out--drove him away. We are now once more in the region where the name of Westbourne is freely used. There is Westbourne Terrace and Square, Westbourne Park Crescent and Terrace Road. Near to Park Crescent in Chichester Place is a Jewish synagogue of red brick, with ornate stone carving over doors and windows. Next door is a curiously built Primitive Methodist chapel, with bands of differently coloured bricks in relief. St. Mary Magdalene's Church and schools stand at the corner of Cirencester Street. A temporary church was first opened in 1865, and the real building in 1868. This was the work of G. E. Street, R.A., and is a compactly built church of dark-red brick, with apse and very high spire, 202 feet in height. It stands in rather a peculiar situation at the junction of three or four roads, and suits the position well.

On July 13, 1872, while workmen were still busy with the roofing, the church caught fire. The damage, however, was not great. The church was finally completed in 1878. The services are High Church. The patronage is held by Keble College, Oxford, and the population of the parish is about 10,000. The ward of Maida Vale is bounded by Church ward on the south, Westbourne and Harrow Road wards on the west, and the borough boundary north and east. Between the Maida Vale Road and St. Saviour's Church in the Warwick Road there is nothing to comment on. The church of St. Saviour is in a Decorated style of Gothic. It is ornately built, with a square tower buttressed and pinnacled. The church was consecrated in 1856, and in 1883 a very fine and solidly-built chancel was added. This is faced on the interior with Cosham stone. Carved stone niches run on the north and south and on both sides of the Communion table. Some of these contain life-size statues of saints and the Apostles. A very handsome set of sanctuary lamps, after a Florentine design, hang across the chancel. In Formosa Street are the Church schools of St. Saviour's, and in Amberley Road there is a Board School. At the north of Shirland Road is a dingy brick building like a large meeting-room. This is the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church; in it the services are held in Welsh. Across Sutherland Avenue, at the corner of Shirland Road, is a very large brick building faced with red brick, which has two doorways with porticos supported by columns with ornamented capitals. This is a Wesleyan Methodist chapel, built in 1876. The schools in connection are beneath the chapel. Further northward in the Shirland Road is a large brick building with two entrances. This is the Wordsworth Ladies' College and a branch of the Kilburn Orphanage. It was built in the year 1887 for both purposes, and there is no interior division between the college and home. The orphans are only kept here until nine years of age, when they are passed on to the Central Home. The Kilburn Sisters have patented a form of cot surrounded with wire to prevent the very little ones from falling out in their sleep. The room where there are rows upon rows of these cots with head curtains is a very curious spectacle, though it certainly suggests the desirability of further accommodation. The college has large class-rooms and a studio for art students. Some students board here, but the greater number attend daily. The terms are very low--fifteen shillings a week, including board, lodging, and tuition. The college is intended to assist girls desirous of passing the Government examinations as elementary school teachers. Almost immediately opposite the college is a small brick Baptist chapel, considerably below the level of the road. In Elgin Avenue there is a school of the Girls' Public Day School Company. On either side of Elgin Avenue are large spaces of open ground used by market-gardeners and others. To the north lies Paddington Recreation Ground, with cricket, football, and tennis grounds, running and cycling tracks. Beyond this, in the most northerly part of the borough, is the Kilburn Orphanage. This was begun in 1875 in two houses in the Kilburn Park Road, but funds were raised for building purposes, and in 1880 the present orphanage was completed. The Sisters themselves supplied quite half of the money required. The rule of the Sisterhood is that, though each retains control of her own capital, her income goes into the common fund. The orphanage is a large red-brick building standing in Randolph Gardens. The western wing, now connected with the main building, was added later, and the chapel last of all; it was not completed until about 1890. The chapel is well fitted up, and the whole building has an air of comfort and warmth in the interior. The passages are paved with tessellated pavement, and the floors of the large schoolrooms are of parquet. This is only one of the orphanage homes. There is a large establishment at Broadstairs, which is partly a home for convalescents and partly for orphans; and another at Margate; a relief home for little ones, already mentioned, in the Shirland Road; and homes for boys at Brondesbury, Oxford, and elsewhere. In Burwood Place there are printing-offices and workshops connected with the orphanage, entirely managed by the boys. During the last few years there has been much discussion on the methods of the orphanage, and several charges have been brought against the Sisters, of which the chief are: (1) Want of business method and properly audited accounts; (2) injudicious methods: advertising for illegitimate children without inquiry, to the encouragement of vice; (3) receiving payment with such children, when the foundation was intended for the absolutely destitute; (4) repudiation of all external control, evidenced by deposing the Archbishop of Canterbury from his post of patron when he attempted inquiry. These offences seem to have been chiefly the result of mismanagement, not deliberately wrought, and might be condoned. The orphanage receives children from the workhouse under five years of age, and also foundlings. The community comprises about 160 Sisters, of which many are abroad. The orphan girls are trained in domestic work, and do all their own work in the home. They do not leave until they are nineteen or twenty years of age.

Adjoining the orphanage is the large red-brick church of St. Augustine. This is a remarkable church both inside and out. It was designed by J. L. Pearson, who thereby obtained the distinction of adding the letters R.A. to his name. Through this building he also obtained the commission to build Truro Cathedral. The church, as above stated, is of red brick, in the first Pointed style, with long lancet windows. At the four corners are four Pointed towers enriched with stonework. The centre steeple has never been added, for want of funds, though the foundations for it are deeply laid. The interior is very picturesque. There is a triforium formed by the bays of the arches carried up from the centre aisle. The roof is groined, and the chancel-screen, pulpit, walls of the chancel, and the reredos are all stonework, with niches fitted with stone figures. In the transeptal chapels are some fine oil paintings executed on brick; that in the south chapel is the work of a prize pupil of the Royal Academy. The church was built entirely owing to the exertions of the present vicar, Mr. Kirkpatrick, who himself contributed largely. An iron church on the same site was erected in 1870, and was so constructed that the present building could be built over and enclose it; therefore service was never interrupted for one day during the process. In 1871 the greater part of the church was built, and in 1877 the nave was opened. It was completed in 1880.