William Robins

“ For a sketch of a people, whether forming a parish or a nation, it is better to go to their laws, and observe the effects those laws have produced; than to rely on any description of individuals, dead or living. With the exception of the ancient customs of the place, the common law of the land was the light which guided the people of Paddington, down to the middle of the last century. ”

“ I have deemed it to be my duty to speak freely of the management of those lands in Paddington, which were claimed for the performance of certain specific purposes; and the nature and the amount of that income from those lands, received by the present Bishop of London and his lay lessees, have been spoken of with a freedom, which some may not admire. But I need not fear condemnation, for a former occupant of the See of London, thus addressed the over-paid bishops of his day; “Come off, ye Bishops; away with your superfluities; yield up your thousands; be content with hundreds.” ”

“ At a distance, in Trinity, we see fair proportions and elegance of form, pleasing to the eye of all who admire the architectural art; on closer inspection, nuns and monks, and bishops, and kings, and monsters with faces which disgrace humanity; and beasts so detestably ugly, or so ridiculously grotesque, that young and old are arrested in their progress, and compelled to ask the meaning of it all. ”

“ And justice must not long be delayed, if harmony is to be restored. Upwards of 2,000 rate-payers have this year voted in favour of that Act, which gives a single vote, and but one vote in local elections; and it behoves all who pay towards the local expenses, all who are interested in the welfare of this parish, to think of this, and to co-operate by every means in their power, for the establishment of good government on the solid basis of just principles. When this is done, all discord may cease; for it will then be the fault of the majority if Paddington is badly governed. ”

“ A parson has, during his life, the freehold in himself of the parsonage-house, the glebe, the tithes, and other dues. But these are sometimes appropriated; that is to say, the benefice is perpetually annexed to some spiritual corporation, either sole or aggregate, being the patron of the living; which the law esteems equally capable of providing for the service of the church, as any single private clergyman. This contrivance seems to have sprung from the policy of the monastic orders, who have never been deficient in subtile inventions for the increase of their own power and emoluments. ”

“ But ecclesiastical commissioners are but men; the people, therefore, in every parish in England should themselves look into their own ecclesiastical affairs; and demand with one united voice the fulfilment of those religious duties to God and God’s poor, which devolve on those who claim the lands of the church. Sooner or later a demand so just must be fully recognised; and governors will assuredly arise, who will have both the power and the will to execute justice. ”

“ The builder may say that the legislature of a country has no right to interfere in an affair of so private a nature as the building of a house; that every man is able to judge for himself in what house he will live; and that it is his own fault if he take a bad one. So long as houses were built to last more than ninety-nine years, and were nearly a mile apart, all this may have been true, but experience has taught us that this does not hold good when applied to towns ”

“ The glory of the first public Company which shed its influence over Paddington, has in a great measure departed; the shares of the Grand Junction Canal Company are below par, though the traffic on this silent highway to Paddington, is still considerable; and the cheap trips into the country offered by its means, during the summer months, are beginning to be highly appreciated by the people, who are pent in close lanes and alleys; and I have no doubt the shareholders’ dividends would not be diminished by a more liberal attention to this want. ”

“ Whether any one in the vestry remembered the words of the polished nobleman, who said, “Praise, when it is not deserved, is the severest satire and abuse,” I do not know; I am inclined to believe that the majority of those who tendered their thanks to the bishop, were sincere. But how oddly do those praises and thanks come upon the reader, who has studied the history of the Paddington Estate!
This new Paddington church was to be built by subscription on a site fixed by the owners of the Estate, at the western extremity of the Grand Junction-road. ”

“ That those dignitaries of the church, who have taken upon themselves the disposal of the church-lands in Paddington, should have made such sorry provisions for the promulgation and protection of their own creed in this place, is much more surprising, than that they should have looked with no favourable eye on the diffusion of doctrines which differed, in any respect, from their own. ”

“ To know what kingcraft can do for us, we may consult the history of our own James’s and Charles’s; to know what priestcraft has done for the world, we have only to read William Hewitt’s Popular History of it ”

“ Is it not of as much concern to the poor rate-payer, as to the rich, that the parish funds shall be well expended? And who can shew that the wisdom of a man can be measured by the size of his house; or by the amount he contributes to the poor-rate?
On the fourth of April, 1820, the Rev. Dr. Crane, the Lord p. 186Bishop of Exeter, and other influential inhabitants managed to establish “a select vestry” in Paddington; in which they and their friends had all the talk as well as all the work to themselves. But if this select body prevented the people talking, they prevented their eating also. ”

“ But although such attractions as these exist, the youths who live on the celebrated Paddington Estate, have not to thank the lords of the soil for setting apart any portion of it for their physical improvement; and yet for the efficient development both of mind and body, it is necessary that the physical condition of the young should be cared for. In Paddington, however, there is no public gymnasium; there is now no village-green, worthy of the name; [176] the young are not trained to use their motive powers to the best advantage; there are no public baths. ”

“ Experience has proved that no more healthful situation for a town can be chosen, than elevated ground above the banks of a pure stream; and those who fixed on the south portion of the Westbourn district, and on the site of the old village of Paddington, as spots for their dwellings, could not have been ignorant either of the material advantages such situations afforded, or of the effects produced both on the mind and body by the beauty and salubrity of these localities. ”

“ That the whole of the people of Paddington, Marylebone, and Pancras, (at the last census, upwards of 371,000 souls,) should have but two “places and voices,” in the Commons’ House of Parliament, while a few hundred in other districts, have the same direct power over the legislative and executive administration of this country, is so monstrous a wrong, that some may imagine the people, who quietly submit to such anomalies, have reached a point at which power may be safely centred in a few hands. ”

“ To judge of the facts of history, it is necessary to have the liberty to know them; but it has often happened that historical facts have been so discreditable to the actors of the history, that the facts have been hidden, and fiction put in their place ”

“ There is now a Shelden-street, to remind us of a bishop’s gift to his nephews; and a Porteus Road and Terrace, that we may not forget the good and generous Beilby who gave away, or sold, two-thirds of the proceeds of the Paddington estate. Pickering-place and Terrace preserve the memory of a former curate, and of a friendly Chancery suit relating to the property here; and while all sorts of changes are rung on the names of the living, it has been thought expedient to place Blomfield and Cromwell Terraces in a continuous line in the highway to a Public School. ”

“ The culture of the land, and its attendant duties, found occupation and a living for all. Alms-houses for the aged and infirm were built, as we have seen, in 1714; but no other sort of poor-house was required; for the only idle people in the parish were the few rich families, who were privileged to live on the industry of others.
By the middle of the last century, nearly the whole of this parish had become grazing-land. In 1795, according to Lysons, there were upwards of eleven hundred acres of grassland in Paddington; eighty four and a half acres only being arable, or garden-ground. ”

“ And it is not improbable that the lords of Chelsea, Kensington, and Tybourn, insisted upon maintaining, for themselves and their tenants, commonable rights over the Westbourn district.
How the monks of Westminster, in the course of time, became both spiritual and temporal masters of the Westbourn district, can be readily conceived by those who know anything of the power engendered by the concentration of all knowledge into a few bodies, especially if those bodies have a perpetual existence. ”

“ Woodfield road, and the neighbourhood, is another elevated spot in Paddington, but in the whole of that part of the parish, as well as in Maida Yale, the clay is immediately below the surface. In some places the surface has been raised by the earth dug out of the Canal, and in others, by deposits brought from other parts of London; indeed the alterations which have taken place, inconsequence of the removal of the natural soil, and the addition of “made ground,” make it difficult to tell what is the natural elevation of any particular spot in the parish. ”

“ On this building, both architect and mason appear to have exhausted all the skill of their craft, to produce an edifice, which shall transport the sense of sight, if not the mind it influences, to those glorious middle ages, for the revival of which some few enthusiastic ladies and gentlemen of the nineteenth century are working so desperately. To be obliged to work with the materials of the nineteenth, must be a sad drawback on their enthusiasm. ”

“ Whether these sprites were in league with, or in any way connected with, “Black Meggie,” who always lay in the cow-shed at the corner of Tybourn Field, when not on duty, I cannot pretend to say. I am informed by a gentleman who was born in this parish, and who is no longer young in years, that he has heard the Tripod, which is represented in Rocque’s maps, as standing at the junction of the Edgeware with the Uxbridge-road, was only placed there when the good old English oracle had to execute her judgments thereon. ”

“ Any thing resembling the tyranny of an absolute monarchy, or the despotism of a well-paid and idle oligarchy, is as detestable now, as ever it was to that people, who from their childhood are taught to adore liberty for its own sake, as well as for the fruits it brings forth. ”

“ A committee had been appointed early in 1822, to inquire into its expediency; spacious vestry premises and other offices had been built on a portion of the garden belonging to the alms-houses; and other preparations had been made to effectually take the management of the local affairs out of the hands of the people.
To find laws so comprehensive and wise, as not to require the tinker at every little exigency, which may arise in every little portion of the community, must surely be a proof of the wisdom of a people. To find it necessary, constantly to alter general laws ”

“ The statute passed in the eighteenth year of Edward’s reign, which put an end to the further increase of manors, must have been fresh in this Abbot’s memory; and it was this law, perhaps, which induced him to place Paddington and Westbourn under the maternal wing of Westminster.
[21b] Tenement is a word of still greater extent than land, for though in its vulgar acceptation it only applied to houses and other buildings, yet in its original, proper, and legal sense it signifies every thing that may be holden, provided it be of a permanent nature ”

“ Supposing the second to have any truth in it, the first will shew how the people may be kept in ignorance by the use of words which have a double meaning—how the ignorant may be kept in ignorance by telling them a story which they are to read one way, and that according to the common acceptation, while the knowing ones, the fraternity who have become philosophers, and have been admitted into the secret, may read, it in another. ”

“ Commons originally were those lands which had not been brought into cultivation by the spade and the plough, over which, all who used the spade and the plough had certain rights in common. When the rights of the people over the soil were more limited by the law, there was attached to every portion of arable land a certain portion of waste, over which these common rights extended ”