Transcribed from the S. Mary Abbots Parish Magazine (reprint), . Many thanks to theRoyal Borough of Chelsea and Kensington Libraries for allowingtheir copy to be used for this transcription.
BY WHOM BEQUEATHED,
AND
HOW ADMINISTERED.
BY
EDWARD MORTON DANIEL,Esq.
Reprinted from the “S.Mary Abbots ParishMagazine.”
Printed for PrivateCirculation
ByEDWARD MORTON DANIEL, Esq.
A Paper read at a Meeting of the Kensington RatepayersAssociation, held at S. Mark’s Parish Rooms,Notting Hill, on Tuesday, 21st April,1891.
[Reprinted from the “S. Mary Abbots Parish Magazine.”]
As everyone has need of charity,everyone exercises charity, and most of us receive charity, thesubject is of personal application and importance to usall. This is the case when charity is abstractly regarded;but when we approach the consideration of the charities of ourown parish, those which we are bound to support and upon which wehave individually a claim, our subject must excite the keenestinterest. Too much cannot be known about them in order thattheir benefits may be distributed amongst the fittest subjectsand most deserving persons that can be found; and in order thatthose of us who are blessed with means may learn how carefullyand fruitfully any benefaction we may make in the future will beutilised and bestowed, if placed in the hands of thoseadministering the charities already established in ourparish.
Perhaps the point which will strike you most, when you havelearned what I have to tell you this evening of the charities ofKensington, is the circumstance that, from small sums of moneyleft for purposes of charity, great and ever growing results mayspring, fulfilling purposes of good far beyond the most sanguineanticipations in which the original donors could have everindulged.
Old Faulkner, to whose quaint and interesting history ofKensington I would refer all lovers of antiquity and curiousanecdote, writing in 1820, says: “The amount ofbenefactions to this parish is highly creditable to the humanityof the original founders, and it is a pleasing as well as animportant part of the duty of the historian to record these;perhaps in few parishes in the kingdom have they been morescrupulously observed, or more faithfullyadministered.” Pleasing as it was to Faulkner seventyyears ago to remark upon the then condition of the parishcharities, it will be yet more gratifying to us to observe at thepresent time how greatly they have developed, and how admirablythey have been fostered, improved, and administered. Seventy years ago Kensington was really rural, containing onlythree or four hamlets, or assemblages of dwellings, a few largehouses with grounds, some celebrated nursery and market gardens,and a few distinguished inhabitants. This is what Tickell,the poet, says about it:—
“Here, while the town in damp and darknesslies,
They (at Kensington he means) breathe in sunshine and see azureskies.”
What Kensingto