The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ealing and its Vicinity, by Daniel Frederick
Edward Sykes

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Title: Ealing and its Vicinity

Author: Daniel Frederick Edward Sykes

Release Date: December 13, 2021 [eBook #66937]

Language: English

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Produced by: John Parkinson with the kind assistance of Jacqueline Jeremy.

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Ealing and its Vicinity




D F E Sykes, LL. B.

THE purpose of this brochure is not an ambitious one. It does not
aspire to rank in antiquarian or topographical interest with the work
of Mr. Falkener; its modest claim is to tell briefly and in simple
words such facts connected with the parish of Ealing and its
neighbourhood as may be reasonably supposed to possess an interest for
the ordinary resident and for the stranger whom he invites within his
gates. It is intended to be a great deal less than an erudite tome of
ancient lore, and a little more than the descriptive prefix usually
contained in a local Guide or Handbook.

The village of Ealing lies on the northern and southern sides of the
Uxbridge Road, and is distant about seven miles west from where once
stood Tyburn Turnpike. The Parish of Ealing is not mentioned in
Domesday Book but was probably then comprised within the manor of
Fulham. It is within the Hundred of Ossulstone and the County of
Middlesex and in the Diocese of London. Its eastern boundaries are,
Chiswick, Acton and Twyford; its western, New Brentford, Hanwell, and
Greenford; its northern the river Brent, Harrow and Perivale; its
southern, the Thames.

Ancient records present many different modes of spelling the name;
Yelling, Yealinge, Zellin and the one now in vogue. The significance
of the word does not appear, but it may be connected with Zea-ling
Bea-meadow. The parish reaches three and a half miles from north to
south, and two miles one furlong from east to west, and has an acreage
of about 3,800 acres. It is divided for parochial purposes into the
Upper or Ealing side, and the Lower or Brentford side, but the
ratepayers constitute at present one vestry.

The manor of Ealing has belonged from time immemorial to the See of
London, and the custom of copyhold prevails therein, the tenants’
holding being evidenced by copy of the Court rolls. The origin of this
tenure is very obscure, but it would seem to have originated with the
villeins or tenants in villeinage, who composed most of the
agricultural population of England for some centuries after the Norman
Conquest, through the commutation of base services into specific
rents in money or money’s worth. The predecessors of our copyholders
were mere tenants at the will of the Lord of the manor, but the
practice of the Lord’s recognising the claims of the near kindred of
a deceased tenant to succeed him in his holding gradually ripened
into a custom which was ultimately established by a decision of the
Judges in Edward IV’s time, who held that a tenant by copyhold might
have an action of trespass against the Lord for dispossession. From
this time copyholders have been in effect freeholders, the difference
consisting in the method of alienation, and in some instances in the
obligation to sundry fines, and in the method of descent on
intestacy.

In the Manor of Ealing the custom of Borough English prevails by
virtue of which lands descend to the youngest and not, as generally,
to the eldest son, and if the tenant have no issue to the younger
brother. The reason of this custom is, says Littleton, that the
youngest son is presumed in law to be least able to shift for himself.
This is a curious and interesting mark of the difference between
feudal or military tenures and copyhold, which were originally
agricultural. Tenancies in tail or fee simple fell on intestacy to the
eldest son, because the eldest son was presumably best able to render
to the feudal lord the military services which were an incident and
condition of his tenure. In the Manor of Ealing lands descend on
intestacy to the youngest son, and in default of male issue are
divisible among the daughters equally. The widow of a copyholder, if a
spinster at the time of her marriage, is entitled to dower and the
correlative right of tenancy by the curtesy is recognised. One year’s
quit rent is payable to the Lord on alienation and on heriotable land,
three shillings and fourpence in the name of a heriot. The
heriot--Dano-Saxon “heregeat,” was originally a gift made by a tenant
to his Lord of his horse and armour. This gift became first usual then
compulsory, and was subsequently commuted for a money charge. In
Ealing as in other Manors there are two general courts, held on Easter
Monday and in the middle or end of November in each year. The Courts
Leet and Court Baron are held at Hammersmith, and the following is
the proclamation summoning to the Court:--“All manner of persons that
owe suit and service to our Sovereign Lady the Queen, or the Court
Leet and Court Baron of Frederick Temple, Lord Bishop of London Lord
of the Manor of Ealing, held this day for the said Manor, may give
attendance here, and come into court and take their admission.” On a
conveyance of lands a surrender is made in form following:--


 “You do by me, and by this rod, surrender into the hands of the Lord
  of the Manor of Ealing, all that copyhold messuage, and this
  surrender you make to the use and behalf of A. B. according to the
  custom of the Manor.”


The history of most manors up to the time at all events of the great
development of England as a mercantile power is the history of the
lord of the manor. If one turns to almost any of the many histories of
particular towns, it will be found that such accounts are in the main
those of the fortunes of some noble family. It is inevitable that it
should be so. During the early times after the complete introduction
of the feudal system into this country, a town or village was a mere
appanage of a Lordship. During the wars of Stephen, and in the more
disastrous wars of the Roses, Manors were in the hands now of this,
now of that, potent Prince or Lord.

Manors changed their lords with the political seasons. Attainders for
high treason were of the commonest occurrence, and the Crown seized on
forfeited lands and transferred them to new favourites. The caprices
of a Court favourite, the humours of a royal mistress, the rivalries
of contending houses no less than reasons of State affected the
ownership of broad domains, and the faithful recorder of the growth of
towns that are now great hives of industry had little to enrich his
volumes save the vicissitudes of courts and the fortunes of barons of
high degree. But such stories are not to be looked for in the history
of Ealing. As we have said the Lordship of Ealing has reposed from
time immemorial, such that the memory of man runneth not to the
contrary, in the curious terminology of the law, in the Church. When
all around was in seething turmoil the Church changed not. But once,
in that great upheaval we call the Reformation, were the lands of
mother Church much affected by imperial changes. Whether the Normans,
Plantagenets, Tudors or Stuarts ruled, the Manors of the Church were,
in the main, secure from the hands of sacrilege. When fierce barons
were fiercest, when intestine troubles were most rife, lands in the
Dead Hand were, as a rule, unmolested. And it is to this continuity of
possession, this holding by a Corporation sole that never dies, this
sacerdotal character of its Lordship, that Ealing owes its immunity
from those storms that have raged round other and less happy fiefs.
And its inland position has been again a security. It has not been
exposed, as border towns have been exposed, to the raids of restless
tribes or hostile neighbours. It is too far removed from the mouth of
the river to make it a place of strategic importance, and though it
has not escaped the tramp of armed men, it has been the scene of no
memorable siege or bloody fray.

~Murder Of Edmund Ironside At Brentford.~

The neighbouring town of Brentford has a less happy fate, and Ealing
doubtless shared to some extent in the events at Brentford. In the
year 1016, Ethelred, the King, dying, the country was torn by the
rival claims of Edmund Ironside and Canute. London and the parts about
it declared for Edmund, the remoter counties ranging themselves with
the Danish King. A sharp engagement between the hostile forces gave a
temporary victory to Edmund, and the Danes fled across the Thames,
many of the Saxons being, in the ardour of the pursuit, drowned in the
river near where Kew Bridge now stands. Edmund did not live to reap
substantial advantages from this triumph, for not long afterwards he
was assassinated at Brentford. The murderer was the son of Edric
Strone who had allied himself with Canute. The event is narrated by
Henry de Huntingdon: “King Edmund some days after this was killed
treacherously at Brentford. Thus he fell while he flourished in his
Kingdom, feared and dreaded by his enemies. In the night he went in
some house, where the son of Edric the leader, hid in a secret cave by
the advice of his father, stabbed the King twice in the belly, and
taking flight, left the knife in the viscera. Then Edric came to King
Canute and saluted him, saying, ‘Hail to thee, sole King’ and made the
circumstances known to him. The King answered, ‘I am so much beholden
to thee for this service, I will set thee higher than any of the
English nobility’ Therefore he caused him to be beheaded, and his head
to be placed on the highest tower in London.”

~Battle Of Brentford.~

The vicinity of Ealing appears to have known little of the horrors of
war, from the time of Canute to that of the Civil war when, on
November 12th, 1642, an engagement took place at Brentford between the
Royalist and Parliament forces, which though of no great magnitude was
the occasion of much recrimination between the King and his
disaffected subjects, as it occurred at a time when efforts, more or
less sincere, were being made to accommodate the differences between
the Throne and the people. Lord Clarendon in his history thus narrates
the battle: “So the King marched with his whole army towards
Brentford, where were two regiments of their best foot, for so they
were accounted, being those who had eminently behaved themselves at
Edge-Hill, having barricaded the narrow avenues of the town, and cast
up some little breastworks at the most convenient places. Here a
Welsh regiment of the King’s, which had been faulty at Edge-Hill
recovered its honour, and assaulted the works and forced the
barricades, well defended by the enemy. Then the King’s forces entered
the town, after a very warm service; the chief officers, and many
soldiers of the other side being killed; and they took there about
five hundred prisoners, eleven colours, and fifteen pieces of cannon
and good store of ammunition. But this victory, for considering the
place, it might well be called so, proved not at all fortunate to his
Majesty.” An officer of the King’s says of his colonel in this battle
(Sir Edward Tritton,) that “it was his happy honour (assisted by God
and a new piece of cannon newly come up) to drive the Roundheads from
their works, where it was an heart breaking object to hear and see the
miserable deaths of many goodly men; we slew a Lieutenant Colonel,
two Sergeant Majors, some Captains, and other officers and soldiers
there, about thirty or forty of them, and took four hundred
prisoners. But what was most pitiful was, to see how many poor men
ended and lost their lives, striving to save them, for they run into
the Thames, and about two hundred of them, as we might judge, were
there drowned by themselves, and so were guilty of their own deaths;
for had they stayed and yielded up themselves, the King’s mercy is so
gracious that he had spared them all.” The first blood was shed in
the civil war at Edgehill, on Sunday, October 23rd, 1642, so that
when the encounter took place at Brentford the young officer whose
letter survives him, was fresh to the gruesome attendants of war,
and it may be presumed that if he had the good luck to see its end,
he was less appalled by the sights he witnessed than he seems to
have been, after what was probably his baptism of fire at Brentford.
However, that affair, trivial as in some aspects it appears, served
unhappily to fan the flame, and of course each side was anxious to
throw the responsibility for the bloodshed upon the other. Each side
was anxious to say “You began it.” The Parliamentarians, as we have
said, were defeated at Brentford, but they made their defeat a sort
of object lesson, as we should call it nowadays, to serve to
stimulate their adherents throughout the Kingdom. A commission was
appointed to enquire into the alleged barbarities of the King’s
forces, and their report is so amusing a specimen of special pleading
that it deserves to be reproduced. It is noteworthy also that the
House of Commons ordered that “The Minister of Middlesex and parts
of London, do the next fast-day read in their several parish-churches
the account of the sufferings of the inhabitants of Old Brentford,
on the 12th and 13th of the month by his Majesties forces; and that
they do exhort the people to a compassionate consideration of them.”
“Compassionate consideration” is good and we may surmise that
“Remember Brentford” was used in those days much as the historic
phrase “Remember Mitchels-town” was used in our own. The report was
as follows: “A true and perfect relation of the barbarous and cruel
passages of the King’s army at Old Brainford, near London, being
presented to the House of Commons by a Committee of the same house,
who was sent thither on purpose to examine the bulk of the
particular actions of the said Army.” “The King’s army upon Saturday,
the 12th of November instant, (after his Majesty’s assent to the
Treaty of Accommodation,) surprised Colonel Holles, his regiment, at
Old Brainford, and after they had possessed themselves of the town,
they plundered it without any respect of persons, except the home of
one Brent, a Church papist (whose wife was a known popish accusant,
and he suspected to give intelligence, to the King’s Army.) First
they drank and wasted the beer and wines at the several inns, and
other places in the towns, and such beer and wine as they could not
drink, they let it down out in some cellars as deep as the middle.
They also took from the inhabitants their money, linen, woollen,
bedding, wearing apparel, horses, cows, wine, hens, &c., and all
manner of victuals; also pewter, brass, iron pots, and kettles, and
all manner of grocery, chandlery and apothecary ware, nay, such was
their barbarous carriage, that many of the feather beds which they
could not bear away they did cut the tales of them in pieces, and
scattered the feathers about in the fields and streets; they did also
cut the cords of the beds, and broke down the bedsteads; they did
cut to pieces and burn the poor fishermens’ boats and nets by which
they got their living, having pillaged them besides of all they ever
had; they did cast beef into the dirt, which they carried not away
with them; they littered their horses with wheat-sheaves; they
spoiled nurseries of fruit trees of good value, and near upon three
bushels of apples from one man they took away, spoiled and trampled
to dirt with their horses’ feet, besides fifteen pair of sheets, his
bedding, &c. They also took candles to the value of twenty pounds
and upwards from one man, and burnt them all night through the army,
and such as they carried not away, either they broke in pieces, or
threw into the fire, or trod in the mire. Had they rested with
robbing of the richer sort it had been some degree of mercy, but they
left not unplundered the blind beggar at Old Brainford, taking from
him and his wife their wearing apparel, linen, woollen and bedding;
and the like they did to the poor almswomen in the Spittle there,
and cook from them their wheel or rocks by which they got something
towards a livelihood; and when they had thus plundered and taken away
all the goods, except here and there a bed, they defaced some houses
and set one of them on fire on purpose, as is conceived, to fire the
town, which was afterwards quenched by an inhabitant. Had their
wicked carriages here ended in the loss of the inhabitants’ goods
without hazard of their persons, they had undergone it with more
patience, but such was their inhuman behaviour, that they did set
drawn swords and pistols cocked to men’s and women’s breasts,
threatening them with death if they brought not out all their money,
and threatening others to cut off their noses and pull out their
eyes, calling them Parliament dogs, round-headed rogues, beating
and wounding some of them, (one of them being a lame cripple,)
taking of the inhabitants prisoners, and putting irons upon them,
others they tied with ropes, and stripped some to their shirts, and
as one of them who was led next day in irons towards Oatlands,
stopped to take a little water in his hat to drink, they beat him
and bruised him for offering to do it. Their hearts were so scared
they would not extend compassion to the aged and greyheaded; for
they took one grave old gentleman, above four score years of age,
and put him with other of the inhabitants of the town, into the
pound, where they were divers hours, and afterwards were removed
into a slaughter-house, where they lay all night, it being a most
nasty and noisome place; and the old gentleman being bound hand and
foot together all night. They also plundered an ancient gentlewoman
of about three score and ten years of age, whose age and weakness
would not permit her to go to Church for these seven years last past,
they took from her all her bedding, linen, pewter, &c., and even her
mantle from her back, leaving her in a poor and miserable condition.
Their plundering was so universal, that even divers of the richer as
well as the mean sort were, and to this day are, inforced to live on
the charity of the Earl of Essex and his soldiers, the Cavaliers
leaving scarce a piece of bread or meat in all the town. It would
pierce a heart of flint to see the tears dropping from the old men’s
eyes, in expressing their sad condition; and a great addition to
these cruelties was the barbarous, merciless, and unheard of usage
of the Parliament soldiers by the Cavaliers; for they did put them
into a pound and there tied and pinioned them together, where they
so stood for many hours, some of them stripped to their shirts,
others to their breeches, most without stockings or shoes, and
in that condition removed to the slaughter-house, where they lay
all night, and next day were dragged away over Houndslow Heath
towards Oatlands, divers of them bare foot and bare leg over fur and
thistles till their feet and legs did bleed, and were sorely galled.
But these may be accounted acts of grace and favor in comparison to
what they did to others of them; for when divers of Master Holles,
his soldiers, fled into the Thames for safeguard of their lives, they
shot at them as they were swimming, and divers of them were drowned.”

“They took, after the fight ended, five of the Earl of Essex his
soldiers, and tied by the hands with ropes, inforced them into the
river Thames, who standing in the water to their necks, casting their
eyes on their enemies in hopes of mercy; but, such was the merciless
condition of their adversaries, that a trooper ran in the water after
them, and forced them to fall into the depth of the water, crying to
them in a jeering manner, swim for your lives, when it was past all
possibility to escape. Here had their barbarous carriage begun and
ended in the heat of blood and revenge, had a little qualified their
offence; but so full of inhumanity was their hearts, even before the
fight at Old Brainford, with Colonel Holles, his regiment, that they
placed ten of the Earl of Essex his soldiers, whom they had formerly
taken prisoners at Kingston, pinioned in the front of their men to be
as a breastwork to receive the bullets that came from Colonel Holles,
his regiment, that the Cavaliers might escape them; but such was the
providence of God, that not one of them was hurt, though shot in the
clothes in many places, and one of the ten escaped, who was formerly a
sergeant to a company in Colonel Essex, his regiment, and in the
presence of divers witnesses averred the truth of this particular. And
now since it appears by the prodigious acts of rapine, devastation,
and tyranny, that these men delight in cruelty, and fight against
their own associates, and spoil those that favour their own cause with
those that oppose it, what remains but that they be taken not for such
as endeavour the defence of the King, but the ruin of the Kingdom, and
not as enemies of some kind of men, but as the common enemies of
mankind; and, therefore, mankind should join together against them, as
it was said of Ishmael, ‘His hand shall be against every man, and
every man’s hand against him.’”

To this precious and characteristic document which was ordered by
Parliament to be published, the King’s advisers thought it necessary
to reply at length, and to that reply Parliament replied, and so for a
time rebutter and surrebutter were shuttlecocked between the parties
in a dispute which must end in the awful issue of civil war.

Patrick Ruthen, Earl of Forth, in Scotland, was, for his services in
this action, created by Charles I, Earl of Brentford, a title which
became extinct with him in 1651. In 1689 the title was revived by King
William, who gave it to Duke Schomberg; Schomberg’s son, who died in
1719, was the last Earl of Brentford.

We have mentioned two events so far removed in time as the reigns of
Edmund and Charles I, and they are the only ones in which Ealing and
its vicinity seem to have been perturbed by armed forces, but it
should be added that when England was threatened with invasion by
Napoleon in 1797, the inhabitants of Ealing and Brentford formed a
volunteer corps of some two hundred strong, and at the close of the
war its colours were, happily unstained, deposited in the Parish
Church at Ealing.

~The Brentford Martyrs.~

But this locality is associated in history not only with war’s alarms,
but with religious and political divisions. From Falkener’s History of
Brentford, we learn that “Not long after the death of seven godly
martyrs that suffered in Smithfield were six other faithful witnesses
of the Lord’s true Testament, martyred at Brainford, the 14th day of
July, 1558, which said six were of that Company, that were apprehended
in a close, hard by Islington, and sent to prison. Whose names
hereafter follow: Robert Miles, Stephen Cotton, Robert Dynes, Stephen
Wright, John Slade, William Pikes. The six forenamed martyrs (gentle
reader) had their articles ministered to them by Thomas Darbyshire,
Bonner’s Chancellor, at sundry times, when though they were severally
examined, yet had they all one manner of articles ministered unto
them, and they had made answer unto the same, in the end the
Chancellor commanded them to appear before him again, the 11th day of
July, after in the said place at St. Paul’s. When they came he
required of them, whether they would turn their opinions to the mother
holy church, and, if not that, then whether there were any excuse to
the contrary, but that he might proceed with the sentence of
excommunication. Whereunto they all answered that they would not go
from the truth, nor retreat from the same while they lived. Then he
charged them to appear before him again the next day to hear the
definitive sentence read against them, according to the ecclesiastical
law then in force. At which time he, sitting in judgment, talking with
these godly and virtuous men, at last came unto the same place Sir
Edward Hastings, and Sir Thomas Cornwall, Knights, two of Queen Mary’s
officers of her house, and being there they sat down over against the
Chancellor, in whose presence the said Chancellor condemned these good
poor lambs, and delivered them over to the secular power, who received
and carried them to prison immediately, and there kept them in safety
to the day of their death. In the meantime, the naughty Chancellor
slept not, I warrant you, but that day in which they were condemned,
he made certificate into the Lord Chancellor’s offices, from whence
the next day after was sent a writ to burn them at Brentford
aforesaid, which accordingly was accomplished in the same place, the
said 12th day of July. Whereunto they being brought, made their
laudable prayers unto the Lord Jesus, undressed themselves, went
joyfully to the stake, whereunto they were bound, and the fire flaming
about them, they yielded their souls, bodies, and lives, into the
hands of the omnipotent Lord, for whose cause they did suffer, to
whose protection I recommend thee, gentle reader. Amen.” Why the
martyrdom was at Brentford does not appear, though presumably it owes
that unhappy distinction to its status as County town of Middlesex,
and there it was that in former days the poll was taken for the
election of Knight’s of the shire.

~Wilkes At Brentford.~

Readers of Constitutional history are familiar with the struggle
between the House of Commons and the people for the freedom of
election, contests identified curiously enough in the last century
with the names of Wilkes and in this of Mr. Charles Bradlaugh. In the
early part of the century Brentford was the scene of much rioting and
disorder and even bloodshed, and the route from Charing Cross to
Brentford was often lined with eager partisans cheering or hooting the
freeholders as they made their way to record their votes for or
against the man whom the irony of fate had made the champion of the
national liberties.

~The Plague.~

But if Ealing has seen but little of the horrors of war it has groaned
under a visitation more terrible still, the hideous hand of the Plague
of 1665 and 1666. It is said to have been brought to the neighbourhood
by two soldiers who were quartered at the Half-way House at Old
Brentford, and the Parish Register bears sad testimony to its ravages.
It raged for more than twelve months, and claimed for its own more
than two hundred and fifty victims.


 June 24.  --A souldier dyed at the Half-way House at Old Brentford,
             at
             Don’s.
 July 1.   --A souldier that dyed at James Garraway’s.
 July 10.  --John White and a son of Richard were buried of the
             plague,
             from Don’s.
 July 12.  --Richard Don the master of the house.
 July 13.  --Two children of Richard Don, a maid, and a maid of James
             Garraway’s,
             all buried in one grave, in Old Brentford field, of the
             plague.
   ,, 22.  --Sarah, a child of James Garraway’s, died of the plague.

   ,, 26.  --One that dyed in the Burrow at Old Brentford of the
             plague.
   ,,        One that wrought at Robert Monday’s of the plague.

   ,,        The wife of Joseph Grant of the plague.
   ,, 31.  --A child of Ben Watts of the plague.
 Aug. 23.  --Annie, wife of Robert Rendell, of the plague.
   ,, 24.  --A girl buried of the plague, from Walter’s House in the
             town.
   ,, 26.  --Three children from Brentford of the plague.
   ,, 27.  --Two from Mr. Walter’s house.
   ,, 28.  --Robert Randall.
   ,,        Francis Potter.
   ,, 29.  --A child named John Mason.
   ,,        Goodman Carter’s wife.
 Nov. 10.  --Robert Cromwell’s maid.
   ,,        Barbarietta, the daughter of John Welbro’ Gent.


In the months of November and December the plague increased in
violence, and as many as seven died in one day. Most of the dead were
interred in holes dug in the fields to the south of the village, which
to this day are called “Dead Men’s Graves.”

Ealing is rich in noble buildings dedicated to the service of God. The
parish church, St. Mary’s, stands on the site of a former structure,
which was built in 1729, under Act of Parliament and by the Authority
of a “brief,” replacing the original church that had begun to sink.
The present edifice is of brick, and consists of a nave and chancel,
organ chamber, ambulatories and a square tower, designed after the
Romanesque style, a corruption of the Doric and Ionic. It is basilican
in its internal and external appearance, and a baptisty stands in lieu
of the southern transept. The monuments from the walls of the former
structure are mostly collected in recesses at the west end. The Church
is subject to the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London, in whom is the
advowson. Robert De Balmers, Bishop of London, we learn from Falkner,
gave the tithes of Ealing, in the reign of Henry I, to augment the
salary of an officer in the Church of St. Paul’s, called the Master of
the Schools. But on the office of Mastership of the Schools merging in
that of Chancellor, it is probable that the tithes of Ealing reverted
to the Bishop of London, for in 1308 the Church of Ealing was
appropriated by Bishop Baldeck to the Chancellor, subject to the
payment of £10 per annum to the Vicar of Ealing, and to the reading of
lectures in divinity, either in his own person, or by a sufficient
deputy, on penalty of forfeiting the whole profits of the rectory, a
third of which in that case was allotted to a lecturer, a third to the
repairs of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and a third for the maintenance of
the Church. In the taxation of 1327, the Church of Ealing was rated at
25 marks. In the reign of Edward VI the vicarage was valued at £13 6s.
8d. The present value of the living, according to the Clergy List is
£800.

Ealing has numbered among its vicars many divines who have been
celebrated for their learning, their piety, and their zeal, and it is
the merest justice to say that in the attributes that adorned his
predecessors, in lofty and stately eloquence, in moving pathos, in
chastened declamation, and in all the graces of cultured speech
glowing in poetic imagery, Dr. Oliver, the present incumbent, has
amply sustained the traditions of his benefice. The following is the
list of the Vicars of Ealing:--


                 Roger de Thorlaston.
 1372, April 8.  Robert de Haytfield.   Resigned.
 1386, Nov.  12. William Semley.        Ob.
 1386, Feb. 11.  John Dames.            Ob.
 1390, Oct. 25.  David Bagator.         Resig.
 1398, Dec. 7.   Nic. Bowne.            ,,
 1399, Oct. 18.  Will. Wright.          ,,
 1400, Sep. 15.  John Duffield.         ,,
 1407, Dec. 21.  Baldwin Bagatour.
 1437, Aug. 2.   John Mallony.          ,,
 1443, July 18.  Joh. Smith.            ,,
                 Ric. Burton.
 1451, Nov. 26.  Thos. Curteys, LL.B.
 1478, May 28.   Will. Tournour, A.M.   Ob.
 1503, Sep. 15.  Thos. Everard.         ,,
 1513, Dec. 9.   Sim. King.             Resig.
 1537, Jan. 19.  Will. Havard.          Ob.
 1566, Feb. I.   Oliver Stoning, S.T.B. ,,
 1571, Nov. 26.  Thos. Rycroft.         ,,
 1582, April 7.  Thos. Knight, A.M.     ,,
 1591, Nov. 26.  Ric. Smart.            Resig.
 1602, October.  Joh. Bromfield, A.M.   Ob.
 1610, Jan. 29.  Edwd. Abbot, A.M.      ,,
 1615, Jan, 19.  Rec. Tavernor, A.M.    Resig.
 1638, Oct. 13.  Rob. Cooper, LL.B.     Ob.


Cooper’s lines did not lie in pleasant places. He was ejected by the
Puritans, and from this circumstance no less than from his position,
we may be sure he had not disguised his Royalist sympathies. It is not
known how the erstwhile vicar of Ealing spent his interregnum, whether
he had means apart from his calling, or lived on the goodwill of
friends, or flitted about as so many of the deprived clergy did from
the house of one cavalier to another’s, or followed the fallen
fortunes of the young king _de jure_ at the foreign courts that gave a
grudged shelter to the royal exile. During the period of his
suspension, marriages assumed the character of a civil contract, and
the Registrar acted much as a Registrar acts in our days in civil
marriages. Here is a copy of an entry of the publication of intent to
marry, 1653. “A publication of an intent of marriage betweene John
Holliday, the sonne of Jo. Holliday, waterman, and Sarah Walker,
spinster, and daughter of Richard Walker, of Old Brentford, mealman,
was published in Yling church three several days, viz., November 6,
13, &c., 1653. By me Joseph Walker Register.”

During Cooper’s deprivation the pulpit of the Church was occupied by
Daniel Carwarthen, and by Thomas Gilbert, the latter of whom was in
possession at the Restoration. Just as Cooper had clung to Church and
King, so did Gilbert refuse to recognize the new or restored polity.
So Gilbert was removed from the Church, and as it happened that
Gilbert was the first recusant, he desired to have it recorded on his
tomb that he was the proto-martyr to the cause of non-conformity.
Robert Cooper was reinstated in his old benefice, but died within a
few months thereafter.

1660, January 4. William Beveridge, A.M. of St. John’s College. An
excellent and a most learned divine. In his twentieth year he wrote a
treatise on the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, and Samarian tongues.
He resigned the Vicarage of Ealing for the rectory of St. Peter’s,
Cornhill. In 1681 he was made Archdeacon of Colchester with a stall as
Prebend in St. Paul’s. In 1691 he declined the see of Bath and Wells
from conscientious motives, but subsequently became Bishop of St.
Asaph. He died in 1708 and was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral.



 1673, April 29. Seth Lamb, A.M.             Resig.
 1702, Jan. 26.  William Hall, A.M.          Ob.
 1719, Feb. 9.   Thomas Mangey, LL.D. prom.

The author of many theological works that attained considerable
repute. Dr. Mangey was chaplain to Dr. Robinson, Bishop of London, and
prebendary of the Cathedral of Durham. He married the daughter of
Archbishop Sharp.


                William Hall          Resig.
 1754, Sep. 29. John Botham, M.A.     Resig.
 1773, Dec. 10. Chas. Sturges, M.A.   Ob.


The Rev. C. Sturges was Vicar of Ealing during the time Mrs. Trimmer
was resident in the Parish and in her Memoirs he is described as in
every part of his duty indefatigable, admonishing, persuading in
season and out of season, exhorting his flock to walk in the path of
duty, or to return to it if they had unhappily strayed. The sick were
visited, the ignorant instructed, the distressed relieved, and all
watched over with a regard almost paternal. It was in the time of Mr.
Sturges that Sunday Schools were introduced into Ealing. The credit of
establishing Sunday Schools is generally attributed to Robert Raikes
who advocated them in the Gloucester Journal of which he was
proprietor and Editor. The idea was communicated to Mr. Raikes by the
Rev. Mr. Stock, curate of St. John’s, Gloucester. Mr. Stock secured
the co-operation of Mr. Raikes and though the Schools inaugurated by
the coadjutors were not in fact the first Schools which might properly
be termed Sunday Schools, there is no doubt that to the publicity and
prominence given to the subject by Raikes, we are indebted for the
general and rapid adoption of the institution throughout the land, and
Mr. Sturges welcomed and encourage the first Sunday Schools opened in
Ealing.


 1797, Sep. 21. Colston Carr, LL.B.    Resig.
 1822, June 1.  Herbert Oakeley.       ,,
 1834, Mar. 19. John Smith, B.D.
                Edwd. Wm. Relton, M.A.
                W. E. Oliver, LL.D.    Floreat.


Within the Church are many monuments and mural inscriptions, but not
all of them are of so general interest as to call for record here.
There are however exceptions. On the east end of the north aisle is
placed an ancient plate to the memory of Richard Amondesham, merchant
of the staple of Calais, with brass figures in the dresses of the
fifteenth century. There is an oval tablet to the memory of some
members of the family of John Oldmixon, a party writer in the days of
Pope and Addison, and who secured the questionable honour of a niche
in the Dunciad. A black marble table with gilt letters contains some
particulars of the family of Sir Frederick Morton Eden, Bart; a
pyramid with arms recalls the memory of Joseph Gulston, of Ealing
Grove, five times M.P. for Poole, and one of the South Sea Directors,
who died in 1766. A monument of white marble is sacred to the names of
John Loving, of Little Ealing, one of the Tellers of the Exchequer in
the reign of King Charles the Second, King James the Second, and King
William the third. Other monuments there are to Major-General Sir
James Lomond, C.B. and to Sir Frederick Wettherall, G.C.H., and a
noble piece of ornamental statuary bears an eloquent inscription to
the virtues of Dame Jane Rawlinson, who died in 1713, leaving £500 for
teaching twenty poor girls of the parish of Ealing. A slab on the
floor informs us that Elizabeth wife of John Maynard, Sergeant at Law,
was buried here ye 4th day of January, 1664. Sir John Maynard’s
remains are in the Churchyard. He died at Gunnersbury not long after
the Restoration. His name will ever be associated with the prosecution
of Strafford and Laud and other State Trials of the period. It is said
that when he paid his duties at the Court of William of Orange, the
King observed on his great age and asked if he had not survived all
the lawyers of his youth? “Yes, sir; and if your highness had not come
over here, I should have survived even the law itself,” was the
diplomatic and perhaps the true reply. A character of very different
type found, in the Churchyard of Ealing, rest. His vault bears the
epitaph, “John Horne Tooke, late of Wimbledon, author of the
Diversions of Purley, was born June, 1736, and died March 18th, 1812,
contented and grateful.” Happy the demagogue and agitator who can
close his life with such a message to posterity! John Horne Tooke, was
born at Westminister, the son of John Horne, a poulterer, the surname
Tooke being assumed in regard for a friend, William Tooke, on whose
behalf he had resisted an inclosure bill for lands in Purley, near
Goistone, in Surrey. Tooke was educated at Westminster and Eton
Schools, and St. John’s College, Cambridge. He entered the Church in
compliance with the wishes of his father, but against his own. That
the duties of his sacred office were irksome and uncongenial he has
left on record in a letter, in execrable taste, to his friend Wilkes.
It was largely owing to the exertions of Tooke that Wilkes was elected
for Middlesex in 1768, and he was closely allied with that agitator in
the foundation of the society for supporting the Bill of Rights, and
in the contests in which that politician engaged with Parliament.
Tooke obtained his degree of M.A. though not without opposition, many
members of the University resisting the conferment, Dr. Paley among
others, and in his political strife Tooke drew upon him the bitter
invective of Junius. On the breaking out of the American War of
Independence, Tooke sympathized with the revolted colonists, and
assualted the ministry so unguardedly that he was tried for libel,
fined and imprisoned. On his release he sought to be called to the
bar, but the Benchers rejected him as a clergyman. He unsuccessfully
contested Westminster on more than one occasion, but in 1801 he was
returned by Lord Camelford for the rotten borough of Old Sarum, an
anomalous position for an advanced reformer. Tooke was the last
clergyman to sit in the Commons, an act being passed in 1802 to
disqualify clergymen in holy orders. Tooke’s chief claim to fame rests
however on his “Diversions of Purley,” a sort of Grammatical and
Philological Treatise couched in Dialogue. Tooke’s was a troubled
life. What was the secret of the epitaph?

There are many charities, more noble monuments of the dead then ought
ever graved by the sculptor’s art. The chief of these are John
Bowman’s Charity (1612) for such goodly and charitable uses as the
officers thereof for the time being shall deem meet and convenient;
Richard and Mary Need’s, a Brentford Charity; Richard Taylor’s and
Lady Capell’s Bequest, by which one-twelfth part of the income of an
estate in Kent, called Perry-court Farm was given in 1721 by the will
of the Rt. Hon. Dorothy Dowager Lady Capell, for the support of the
Charity School of Ealing, and Dame Jane Rawlinson’s Bequest, by her
will of October 7th, 1712, which has been already mentioned.
Particulars of these and many others may be found in Falkner’s History
of Ealing.

Fifty years ago there was but one Church in Ealing, there are now
eight, besides Chapels; _Christ Church_ which was built in 1852 at a
cost of £10,000. It is in the Geometrical Decorated style, was
designed by Sir Gilbert Scott and is of singular grace and beauty.
_St. John’s Church_ in Ealing Dean was built in 1876 of brick, with
stone and terra cotta facings in the Early English style of
architecture. _St. Stephen’s Church_, near Castle Hill, erected in
1875 is of Gothic Style. There are also the Churches of _St.
Matthew’s_ in the North Common Road, _St. Peter’s_ in the Mount Park
Road, _St. James’s_ in the Alexandria Road, Ealing Dean, and
_St. Saviour’s_ in Grove Place. There are moreover Presbyterian,
Congregational, Baptist and Primitive Methodist Chapels.

~Mansions.~

As might be expected, Ealing and its vicinity abound in noble
mansions, large and stately dwellings, standing in rich and ornate
grounds, surrounded by lofty walks, and sheltered by noble trees. Here
for generations the great and noble have sought repose from the
distractions of society, the studious have found quiet and serenity,
the statesman calm, the gallant soldier peace, the merchant prince
contentment, and all a sweet and healthful retirement. On Castlebar
Hill stood formerly Castle-hill Lodge, which up to the year 1812 was
the seat of the Duke of Kent, and at one time the residence of Mrs.
Fizherbert. The Duke of Kent married in 1818 a princess of the House
of Coburg, and our gracious Queen Victoria was issue of this alliance.
At the eastern extremity of Ealing is Fordhook, where Fielding dwelt
until he left England for Lisbon in the last desperate search for
health. It was at Fordhook that “Tom Jones” and “Amelia” were written.
His Journal under date Wednesday, June 16th, 1754, contains the
following touching passage. “On this day, the most melancholy sun I
ever beheld arose, and found me awake at my house at Fordhook. By the
light of the sun I was, in my own opinion, last to behold, and take
leave of some of those creatures on whom I doated with a mother-like
fondness, guided by nature and passion, and uncured and unhardened by
all the doctrine of that philosophical school, where I had learned to
bear pains and despise death. In this situation, as I could not
conquer nature, I submitted entirely to her, and she made as great a
fool of me as she had ever done of any woman whatsoever; under
pretence of giving me leave to enjoy, she drew me on to suffer the
company of my little ones during eight hours; and I doubt not, whether
in that time I did not undergo more than in all my distemper. At
twelve o’clock precisely my coach was at the door, which was no sooner
told me than I kissed my children round, and went into it with some
little resolution. My wife, who behaved more like a heroine and a
philosopher, though at the same time the tenderest mother in the
world, and my eldest daughter followed me; some friends went with us,
and others here took their leave; and I heard my behaviour applauded
with many murmurs and praises, to which I knew I had no title; as all
other such philosophers may, if they have any modesty, confess in the
like occasion.” Fielding died at Lisbon in the following October.
Fordhook was subsequently occupied by Lady Byron, the poet’s hapless
wife, and here, in 1853, their daughter “Ada, sole daughter of my
house and heart,” was married in the drawing room by special license
to the Earl of Lovelace.

But novelists as great if not greater than Fielding have sojourned in
Ealing. Thackeray was at school here, of which more anon. Dickens used
often to ride over to visit his sister, Mrs. Hogarth, at Ealing Dean.
Dibdin wrote many of his best songs at his house in Hanger Lane; and
Edward Bulwer Lytton was at school in a house that stood in what was
then called Love Lane. The school was kept by Mr. Wallington, and a
correspondent of Lytton’s biographer furnishes us with an interesting
sketch of school and pedagogue.

“We drew up in front of a massive old-fashioned arched door in a high
brick wall, above which nothing but the chimneys and projecting gables
of the attic windows of Mr. Wallington’s house were visible. It was a
large, ancient, time-worn edifice, in which the lord of the manor or
other great man of the parish, might be supposed to have lived in the
time of William and Mary or Queen Anne, but it had been disfigured by
a mean-looking brick building tacked to its northern side, possibly by
its present proprietor.”

“I was not long in discovering that Mr. Wallington was not the scholar
I had hoped to find him. Not only had he no objection to our preparing
our lesson by the help of English translations, but at lessons he used
a like ‘crib’ and, even with its assistance, failed as often as not,
to explain the grammatical structure, or throw light upon the meaning
of some passage in Sophodes or Thucydides, which had baffled Gore, by
far the most advanced student of our lot. Nevertheless, by being
always at his post, in cheerful readiness to take his share in our
tasks, he kept us up so well to our work that there was no falling off
in our previously acquired knowledge of Latin and Greek.”

“In Mr. Wallington, we had always before us the example of one who in
principles, as well as manners, was a gentleman in the best sense of
the word; courteous in bearing, pleasant in speech, with patience,
fine temper, and a tender regard for the feelings of others.”

“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.



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