Part 1

Transcribed from the 1846 Geo. Nichols edition by David Price, email [email protected]. Many thanks to the Royal Borough of Kensington Libraries for allowing their copy to be used for this transcription.

SECOND ANNUAL REPORT OF THE KENSINGTON CHURCH OF ENGLAND DISTRICT VISITING SOCIETY.

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LONDON: PRINTED BY GEO. NICHOLS, EARL’S COURT, LEICESTER SQUARE. FEBRUARY 3, 1846.

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*** _The Secretaries will be happy to give all the information in their power to any Subscriber or Parishioner who may wish for it upon any point not fully treated of in the Report of the Committee_.

KENSINGTON CHURCH OF ENGLAND DISTRICT VISITING SOCIETY.

PRESIDENT, THE VEN. ARCHDEACON SINCLAIR, VICAR.

VICE-PRESIDENTS, HON. W. S. S. LASCELLES, M.P. SIR J. CONROY, BART. K.C.H. SIR HENRY WILLOCK, K.L.S.

TREASURER, MR. SHEPHARD.

JOINT SECRETARIES, REV. C. A. STEVENS. MR. CLARKE. REV. T. R. BRANFOOT.

AUDITORS, MR. WARNER. DR. WADDILOVE.

COMMITTEE,

MR. F. PRATT BARLOW. MR. GLOYNE. MR. BELLWORTHY. REV. J. H. HOWLETT. MR. CHESTERTON. MR. MERRIMAN. MR. COOKE. MR. J. N. MERRIMAN. MR. COTTON. MR. MOSS. MR. GARRARD. MR. WEIGALL.

COLLECTOR, ALFRED ELLIS, 13, _Hornton Street_.

KENSINGTON CHURCH OF ENGLAND DISTRICT VISITING SOCIETY.

_At the Second Annual Meeting of the Members and Friends of the above Institution_, _held at the National School_, _on Tuesday the_ 3_rd of February_, 1846,

THE VENERABLE ARCHDEACON SINCLAIR, President, _In the Chair_,

A Report of the Society’s proceedings during the year 1845 having been read, it was proposed by SIR HENRY WILLOCK, seconded by the REV. J. H. HOWLETT, and

_Resolved unanimously_—

I. That the Report now read be approved by this Meeting, and that it be printed and circulated under the direction of the Board of Management; and that their recommendation respecting the Seventh General Rule be carried into effect.

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It was proposed by the REV. DR. HESSEY, seconded by MR. WEIGALL, and

_Resolved unanimously_—

II. That the System of District Visiting through the intervention of the Laity, based as it is upon the highest Christian principles, is a function of the Church, the due exercise of which is full of promise of the greatest advantage, both in things temporal and spiritual; and that the results of the operations of this Society afford a most satisfactory exemplification of the assertion.

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It was proposed by DR. WADDILOVE, seconded by the REV. H. W. JERMYN, and

_Resolved unanimously_—

III. That the establishment of Provident Funds, whose tendency is to give a powerful impulse to the promotion of habits of providence, frugality, and self-reliance, at the same time that they confer immediate benefit on the poor, is a most important auxiliary to the operations of this Society, and contributes in a high degree to the effecting of that moral and religious improvement which is the great end and object of all its endeavours.

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It was moved by MR. MERRIMAN, seconded by MR. WARNER, and

_Carried unanimously_—

IV. That the best thanks of the Society be given to the Treasurer, for his constant regard to the advancement of the Society and its objects, and for his valuable labours in the more immediate execution of the office he holds; and that he be requested to continue his kind services.

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It was moved by the REV. J. W. SHERINGHAM, seconded by MR. PICKERING, and

_Carried unanimously_—

V. That the thanks of the Meeting be given to the Board of Management, and the Auditors, for their careful attention to the objects of the Society, in endeavouring to provide for the welfare of the poor; and that they be respectively re-elected, with the substitution of the names of MR. COOKE and MR. JAMES N. MERRIMAN in the room of those of the REV. H. PENNY and MR. MURRAY, who have vacated the office of Members of the Board.

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It was moved by the REV. T. R. BRANFOOT, seconded by MR. MERRIMAN, and

_Carried unanimously_—

VI. That the most cordial thanks of the Society and of the Parishioners, are due to the Visitors for their valuable endeavours to ameliorate the temporal and spiritual condition of the poor.

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It was moved by the Rev. J. H. HOWLETT, seconded by Mr. HAY, and

_Carried unanimously_—

VII. That the cordial thanks of this Meeting be offered to the Secretaries, the REV. C. A. STEVENS and MR. CLARKE, for their most efficient discharge of the important and laborious duties of their office; and that they be re-elected; and that the REV. T. R. BRANFOOT be elected joint Clerical Secretary.

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It was moved by MR. SHEPHARD, seconded by the REV. DR. HESSEY, and

_Carried unanimously_—

VIII. That the thanks of the Meeting be given to the Venerable the President, for the interest he has evinced, and the superintendence he has exerted, in the management of the operations of the Society; and also for his kindness in presiding over the present Meeting, and his able and obliging conduct in the Chair.

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*** _Ladies or Gentlemen who may be desirous of taking charge of Districts as Visitors_, _are requested to communicate with the Secretaries_, _who_, _in the event of vacancies occurring_, _will inform them thereof_.

*** _Forms used by the Society_, _will be supplied on application by_ MR. BIRCH, _High Street_.

GENERAL RULES.

1. THIS Society shall be called the “KENSINGTON CHURCH OF ENGLAND DISTRICT VISITING SOCIETY.”

2. The object of the Society shall be to improve the temporal and spiritual condition of the Poor of Kensington.

3. A Fund for that purpose shall be raised by Subscriptions and Donations; Subscriptions to be due on the first of January in each year.

4. Annual Subscribers of not less than One Guinea shall be Members of the Society.

5. The business of the Society shall be conducted by a Board, consisting a President, Vice-Presidents, a Treasurer, Secretary, and Committee of Management. The Vicar to be President, ex-officio; the Curates, Members of the Committee; other twelve members to be elected at the yearly general meeting of the Society. A report of the proceedings of the Board shall be presented annually at the General Meeting, and published for the information of the Parishioners.

6. The Board shall meet on the first Tuesday in every Month to audit accounts submitted, and decide upon cases referred. Three Members to form a quorum.

7. That the operations of this Society shall be extended over that portion of Kensington which is in connection with the Clergy of St. Mary Abbot’s Church.

8. The Visitors shall all be Members of the Established Church; their business shall be, to keep a List of all the families in their several Districts, according to a prescribed form; to inquire into all cases recommended; to administer relief; and to circulate Books and Tracts upon the List of this Society.

9. Relief shall not be given in any case by the Visitor to a larger amount than 2s. a week for adults, and 1s. for each child, nor continued for a longer period than four weeks, without the sanction of the Board, at its monthly meeting. The Board, however, shall not be subject to the same restrictions.

10. Relief shall be administered by orders on Shopkeepers chosen by the Board, and not in money, except in extreme cases.

11. No applicant of notoriously immoral character shall be relieved; but relief shall not be refused to any person on account of his religious persuasion.

12. No person shall be relieved who has not resided three months in the Parish, and has not occupied the same house or lodging, unless good reason be assigned.

13. Subscribers to the Society may recommend cases for inquiry and relief. Recommendations may be sent to the National School House, from whence they will be forwarded daily to the Visitors. Money remitted to any of the Parochial Clergy for the relief of particular families shall be appropriated to that purpose, if they are found to be proper objects of charity; otherwise it shall be returned to the Donor, or, with his consent, added to the general fund.

14. Visitors will be expected to forward their Books for the consideration of the Board the day before the monthly meeting, or they may attend the meeting in person, or by substitute.

15. A Parochial Lending Library shall be provided by the Board, together with a supply of Books and Tracts, to be either given, lent, or sold, by the Visitors. No Book or Tract to be sold at a lower rate than half-price.

16. Cases of sickness shall always be reported by the Visitors to the Parochial Clergy.

17. The Board, at its monthly meeting, shall supply the Visitors with funds proportioned to the probable wants of their several Districts.

SECOND ANNUAL REPORT.

The Committee of the District Visiting Society, in presenting the SECOND ANNUAL REPORT of their proceedings, feel that they have every ground for renewing the congratulations which they were last year able to offer to the Society, on the advantages which have accrued to the parish through its instrumentality, and also, on the prospects of continually increasing benefits, as its plans become more fully matured, and its operations more clearly developed and in consequence more completely effective.

Since the last Annual Meeting changes have taken place in the ECCLESIASTICAL ARRANGEMENTS of the parish, which, having the effect of removing the Northern Districts from the superintendence of the Clergy of St. Mary Abbot’s, render necessary an alteration in the Seventh General Rule of the Society. The Committee accordingly recommend that the Rule be now modified, so as to confine the future operations of the Society to that portion of Kensington which is under the ecclesiastical charge of the Vicar. It is right to mention that arrangements made by the Clergy of St. John’s and St. James’s are expected to provide for the requisite attention being paid to the wants of the poor within their respective localities.

Having now had two years’ EXPERIENCE of the DIFFICULTIES which must beset every endeavour to produce a substantial and permanent improvement in the condition of so extensive a mass of population, whose individual elements are so unsettled and fugitive;—the Committee have had a fair opportunity of judging of the practical working of the Rules that were originally adopted, and of the plan and operations which has from the first outset been acted upon. The result, they are prepared to say, amply justifies the discretion by which those Rules and that plan were dictated. It is a sufficient confirmation of the opinion they hold, that throughout the whole of the Metropolitan portion of the Diocese the same general system of District Visiting, the same active co-operation of Laity with Clergy in the work of charity, and the same general course of action, have been acknowledged as the only effectual means of coping successfully with the pressing evils arising from an overflowing population, from ignorance, improvidence, and vice; and that, under the sanction and direction of the Bishop, they have been almost universally brought into action. {10}

There is one point bearing strongly upon the difficulties the Committee have had to encounter, to which they are desirous of directing especial attention; namely, how much the endeavours of the Society to ameliorate the condition of the poor would be facilitated, if greater care were taken by the donors of charity to make full inquiry into the CHARACTER and CIRCUMSTANCES of APPLICANTS, before administering relief.

It is found that applicants at the doors of residents belong in general to one of three classes:—

The first class consists of PERMANENT MENDICANTS; who have a more or less constant residence in this or other parishes, and are supported exclusively by the donations of charitably disposed, but undiscriminating, individuals. Instances can be pointed out, of persons who it is believed have lived in Kensington for years, professing for the most part to have some nominal occupation, yet in fact subsisting entirely upon means obtained by such systematic mendicancy. As they readily state their trade and abode when interrogated, their tale—which is but too commonly a tissue of mere invention, or at best only partially correct—is at once assumed to be true. In the event of further inquiry being instituted at their abode, the same story of course is told; and probably supported by the interested evidence of the other dwellers in the same house, who generally derive their subsistence by similar means. Relief is given; the idle and the impostor encouraged; and by so much the industrious and respectable labourer discouraged and injured, the suffering and the unfortunate deprived of their due.

The second class is that of VAGRANTS, or TRAMPERS. These have no settled home, {11a} but sleeping at the nightly lodging houses, at some of the various Refuges in London or elsewhere, or in the vagrant-ward at the workhouses, wander about from parish to parish and from town to town continually; frequenting the various watering-places in their respective seasons, and succeeding ordinarily in reaping a rich harvest from the ready liberality of visitants. The tale that is now most commonly and most effectually pleaded by them is that of distress from want of work. But though unquestionably there are cases of this description, it is yet certain that whatever their assertions, a small proportion only of such applicants are willing to work, even if the opportunity be offered them. {11b}

To those wanderers, whose cases are really those of sickness or urgent destitution, the humane consideration of the Board of Guardians of this parish has provided that every care and attention shall be paid immediately upon proper application being made to the Master of the work-house.

The third class, which may be designated as that of OCCASIONAL MENDICANTS, is composed of persons included in the permanent population of the parish; who, having always been accustomed to rely for their chief or sole support during the winter upon the bounty they can obtain by begging at the houses of benevolent individuals, are not, while still encouraged to do so, to be diverted by any exertions of the Society from a course which experience has proved to be so profitable. They feel, for the most part, a very natural aversion from any system of discriminating charity. They have, they appear to think, a kind of prescriptive right to an equal portion with their neighbours of all relief administered, irrespectively of their own moral or social character, and of their circumstances and wants as compared with those of others. They are urgent in their importunity to the Visitor, and instead of being thankful for what assistance he has it in his power to afford them with justice to more deserving and pressing cases, become loud in their murmurings and expressions of anger; and in some instances have gone so far, after insulting conduct to the Visitor, as to carry their complaints to various residents, who, unaware of the true facts, have perhaps been led by their statement to form very erroneous and unjust opinions of the working of the Society. {12} The Committee, with accounts of the whole expenditure of the Visitors, and the particular circumstances of the various cases before them, together with many independent sources of information respecting the character and habits of such applicants, have it in their power to bear most ample testimony to the discretion and discrimination with which the funds at their disposal have been administered. And they confidently call upon the subscribers and the parishioners generally, to support the Visitors in their arduous, and too often thankless, labours; and to second them in their endeavours to bring about a permanent amelioration in the condition of the deserving poor.

That a great and remarkable diminution has taken place in the number of applicants of this class at the houses of the residents since the institution of this Society, is felt and confessed in almost all quarters. And if in any instances it has appeared, or has been thought, that no such diminution has occurred, the Committee, from documents before them, cannot help being satisfied that the cause and the remedy of the evil lie equally in the hands of those who suffer from such applications. So long as relief is given at the doors without full inquiry, so long will persons of this class be found to ask for it: so long as bounties are conferred without respect to character and circumstances, so long will mendicants be encouraged to exist in the same state of debased and dependent pauperism. {13}

It is evident that one of the first objects to be sought, both in respect of time and importance, is to FIX and SETTLE the population. {14} The means and measures which immediately present themselves are those whose tendency is, on the one hand, to encourage and assist the laborious, deserving, and permanent portion of it: and, on the other hand, to initiate, and stimulate the growth of providence and industry in those who have not yet learned the necessity and the duty of striving to help themselves and to improve their own condition; and at the same time to check the migratory and mendicant habits of that class of persons, the term of whose residence in any one place usually depends exclusively upon the limits of the indiscriminate benevolence of charitable individuals in the neighbourhood. Such measures are those which the Committee have taken; and in endeavouring by their means to attain the end desired, they trust they shall in future receive the full co-operation of those parishioners who, with every desire of doing good to the utmost of their power, yet may have sometimes been unawares throwing away valuable resources upon unworthy objects; upon persons, at all events, whose cases are not THE MOST deserving cases of industry, respectability, sickness, and distress.

These, then, are the classes of persons of whom it may be safely affirmed that a very large majority of the APPLICANTS FOR RELIEF AT THE HOUSES of the residents is composed. And this statement will, the Committee hope, exhibit the strong necessity of discriminating inquiry being made previously to relief being afforded, not only in order to avoid giving encouragement to such persons, but also in justice to the really deserving poor, in order that they (whose cases are for the most part known only to the District Visitors and the Clergy) may receive that assistance and relief which all will confess to be their due, and every one desire that they should obtain.

Most earnestly do the Committee appeal to the Members of this Society and the parishioners in general, to consider the importance—the Christian duty—of administering the proportion of their income which they set apart for charitable purposes, in such a manner as may produce THE GREATEST amount of good. That duty clearly is, not only to “distribute,” but to “distribute to the _necessity_” of their brethren. To perform this effectually, a knowledge of that necessity, as it really exists, must be acquired: which implies an intimate acquaintance with the habits and circumstances of families, and with their various grades of desert and of distress. This, again, can only be attained by a watchful superintendence, exercised for a length of time over them by the same persons—as by a permanent Visitor, or the Clergy. Of these, then, let inquiry be made respecting such applicants; they will be at once willing to state whether, in their opinion, they are or are not fit objects of relief and encouragement. To these, who possess the most certain means of information that are attainable, let any, {15} who are desirous of affording assistance beyond a mere annual subscription, apply. They will recommend to their notice, not the most importunate and clamorous, but the most necessitous and the most deserving. They will point out as fit recipients of encouragement not the professed beggar, nor the impostor, nor the vagrant, nor the idle, nor the improvident, nor the drunkard, nor the irreligious; but those, who are aged, or infirm, or sick, or “maimed, or halt, or blind;” those, who are honestly and diligently striving, with perhaps but a single downward step {16} between them and pauperism, to maintain their position as respectable and profitable members of society; those, who are anxiously endeavouring to avail themselves to the utmost of their spiritual privileges and advantages, in order to fulfil their duty in their several relations of life, to God, their neighbour, and themselves.

The Committee turn with pleasure to the notice of the BENEFITS which have been permitted to flow from the exertions of the Society. And here they naturally begin by adverting to that IMPROVEMENT in the TEMPORAL CONDITION of the poor, which all experience proves to be an indispensable preparation for the higher and more important advantages. For it is almost universally found that, below a certain point, the moral and intellectual are absolutely concurrent with, and vary as, the physical wants of a population. The miserable effects of too long continued toil and exertion without adequate repose and nutrition, with insufficient clothing, exposure to cold, damp, and deficient ventilation, and other privations to which the poor are too often subjected, invariably extend their influence over their social condition and habits, and affect materially their position as moral and intelligent beings; bearing powerfully upon matters with which at first sight they might appear to have little connexion. {17a}

The anticipation expressed last year of an increased appreciation of the PROVIDENT FUNDS by the poor, has been more than justified. The number of depositors to the COAL FUND, which in 1844 was 388, in 1845 has been 581. The sum deposited in 1844 was £160; in 1845 it amounted to not less than £263. In the St. Mary Abbot’s division the amount of deposits has actually been doubled. The total value of coals dispensed has been £320, instead of £200 as in 1844. The most remarkable increase is in the districts of Jennings’ Buildings, among the Irish; of whom, in 1844, 14 depositors laid by £6; in 1845, 68 have deposited £33. In another district, in Charles Place, the number of depositors has increased from 3 to 17. In Campden Place 73 out of 125 families, and in Southend 36 out of 50 received coals at Christmas, averaging in quantity from three to four sacks each:—the fruits of their own industry and providence. {17b}

CLOTHING FUNDS have been established in eleven districts. The number of depositors has been 100; and the amount distributed in articles of clothing to them, £33. It is confidently hoped that a considerable increase in the number of Subscribers and in the amount of Subscriptions to the District Visiting Society may enable the Committee to establish a general measure; which for want of sufficient funds has been hitherto of necessity postponed.