emigration.

(e) Maintenance of any reading-room, library, or working man’s club for the benefit of the parish.

3.  The temporary relief in money by way of loan or otherwise to an amount not exceeding £200 in one year in case of unexpected loss, temporary illness, or sudden destitution.  The pensions above mentioned are not to be less than £10 and not more than £26 a-year.

The other half of the income of the charities is to be applied to educational purposes:—

(a) In payments for the education of the children of poor inhabitants of the parish who are deaf and dumb or blind, or suffering from physical or mental infirmity, and who thereby aggravate the difficulties of their parents or guardians; and

(b) To the advancement of children who are bonâ fide residents in Kensington, who have been scholars in a public elementary school, and who have received certificates of good conduct from the managers, in the following ways:—

(1) In apprenticing children who have attended school for five years, and in providing a suitable outfit.

The apprenticeship premium is not to exceed £30.

(2) In payments not exceeding £10 a-year for the benefit of children who have attended school for not less than five years, and who have attained a standard which releases them from compulsory attendance.  Such payment to be made only while the child regularly attends a public elementary school.

(3) Exhibitions for higher education of £30 a-year for five years.

(4) In providing lectures and classes for the benefit of scholars who are attending or have attended any public elementary school in Kensington.

The trustees have power to raise and expend £50,000 in a building for the purpose of such lectures or classes.

The trustees may give rewards of £5 to apprentices for distinguished merit.

The trustees are bound, in administering the funds, to have regard to the wants of the poor of every part of the parish of Kensington, and to satisfy themselves that in each case the beneficiaries are, in respect of poverty and character, deserving of help.  And no part of the income is ever to be applied, directly or indirectly, in aid of the poor rate of the parish.

I hope you notice the anxious and thoughtful care which has been taken to secure that the funds shall be properly administered in accordance with the true intention of the original donors, and with the needs and circumstances of the parish at the present time.

The gross annual income of the Campden Charity is now the magnificent sum of £4,382 19s., all derived from the original investment of £465 in land in the middle of the 17th century.

I have pursued the interesting subject of the Campden Charities as long as the time at our disposal will permit, and your patience can endure.  I only wish further to impress upon you that the charity has an office at the Vestry Hall, Kensington, and a clerk, Mr. R. C. Green, to whom all applications can be made, and who is ready at all times to give information to anyone properly applying to him for the same.

Those of you who care to go further into the subject, I recommend to obtain the last annual report of the trustees, and to carefully peruse the same.

Some of the most interesting work done under the auspices of the trustees is that of the handicraft classes, both for boys and girls, in which practical instruction and carpentering for the one, and cookery and dressmaking and mending for the other, has for some time been given at S. Clement’s Mission Room and All Saints’ School Room.

And I think that the powers lately given to the trustees to provide a building and equipment for technical education have already been exercised, and active steps are being taken for its establishment amongst us.

Before finally leaving the subject, I may mention that in the year 1889 there were paid £570 in old pensions; £1,566 on the first head of pensions and charitable aid; and £1,566 on the second head for education and apprenticeship.

II.—METHWOLD’S AND OTHER CHARITIES.

In 1652 Mr. William Methwold by will gave six cottages or almshouses, in the will called “an hospital,” to form residences for six poor women.

These almshouses were situated in what is now called Cromwell Lane, and adjoined a house and grounds called Hale House, which had been owned and occupied by Mr. Methwold; and this house was charged with the payment of £24 a year to give a pension or subsistence money of £4 a year each to six alms-women by quarterly payments of £1, at Hale House.

The will provided that the parish in Vestry were to appoint three alms women to the three western houses, and the owner or inhabitant of Hale House for the time being to appoint to the three eastern houses.

The alms women were to be single, aged 50, free from vice and of good report, were not to be allowed to receive lodgers, and were to visit and assist one another in sickness.

Difficulties occurred in executing the provisions of the will, necessitating an application to the Court of Chancery, and by a decree of the Court dated 17th July, 1758, the charity was established according to the will, except that the rent charge upon Hale House of £26 a year for pensions was reduced to £18.  The charity continued in this condition for a great number of years, and the rent charge duly paid by the proprietors of the Hale House Estate, who in 1810 were the Countess of Harrington and Lady Fleming, both descended from John Fleming, the purchaser of Hale House from the Methwold family.

The committee of 1810, in their report of which I have made so much use in preparing this paper, point out the necessity for a very careful and vigilant attention in the selection for the benefits of this charity, from that class of respectable poor “who may justly be entitled to accommodation of this kind,” and the report quaintly proceeds:—

“The committee do this the rather as the charity has been for many years past shamefully abused by a woman in one of the eastern houses, who has suffered a man to reside with her in direct violation of one of the express rules of the original foundation, and in defiance of repeated remonstrances to the contrary.”

Thomas Goodfellow, by his will dated 1597, gave a rent charge of 20s. a year out of the same property as that charged by Methwold to be paid annually to the Vicar and Churchwardens of Kensington, and this bequest was duly established of the same decree of the Court as established Methwold’s gift.

The Methwold’s almshouses continued to exist until about 1871, when both the almshouses and the Hale House Estate, out of which the rent charges were paid, were compulsorily acquired by the Metropolitan Railway Company, who paid a large sum to the vestry for the purchase thereof.  This put an end to the almshouses.  The money received from the purchase was invested in Government stock, and now consists of the sum of £4,922 11s. 10d. 2¾ per cent. consolidated stock, purchased for £4,563 4s. 9d. in cash.  Application was then made to the Charity Commissioners for an order establishing a scheme for the future regulation of the charity, which was accordingly adopted, viz.:—That the net income of the charity be applied in pensioning poor widows or single women of good character and reputation, and not less than 60 years of age, whose income from all sources does not exceed £30 a year, who have resided in the parish for not less than ten years, and have never received parochial relief.

These pensioners are appointed by the Vestry.  It appears from the Vestry report of 1888–9 that there were then seven women, whose ages varied from 78 to 84, in receipt of pensions from this fund,