CHAPTER II
The Parish and Vestry of St. Paul
The History of the establishment of
Covent Garden as a parish is made obscure by the lack of many of its early
records. Most of the church- or chapelwardens'
accounts are missing before 1663 and, more
seriously, all the vestry minutes before 1681.
Much of the early history has, therefore, to be
deduced from the records of the sometimes
jealous mother parish of St. Martin in the Fields.
When the church of St. Paul was being built
the fourth Earl of Bedford probably hoped that it
would immediately become parochial. His first
arrangements included the provision of a vestry
room, and of a house and stipend for the minister,
who was to be of his own choosing. The Attorney
General spoke in 1633 of an expectation that the
living would be a vicarage of £100 per annum.
(ref. 1)
The vicar of St. Martin in the Fields, however,
claimed that an Act of Parliament was needed
to make the precinct of Covent Garden independent of St. Martin's, and in April 1638, when
the dispute came before the Privy Council, the
vicar's argument was upheld. The Privy Council
ordered that the church should be made parochial, with the patronage vested in the Earl,
when a Parliament was next held, but that in the
meantime the church should be consecrated as a
chapel of ease to St. Martin's, whose vicar was to
nominate and pay the curate. The Earl's £100
per annum and minister's house, although not yet
attached to the living as an endowment, were
recognized as yearly benefactions giving him a
right to nominate a preacher (presumably additional to the curate), subject to the approval of the
Bishop of London. (ref. 2) The church was consecrated on 27 September 1638. (ref. 3)
On the previous day the Earl and the inhabitants of Covent Garden on the one hand and the
vicar, churchwardens and parishioners of St.
Martin's on the other came to an agreement, by
which the boundary of the chapelry was delimited.
It formed an enclave almost entirely surrounded
by St. Martin's parish. In the version by which
the agreement is known, the boundary was to
'extend 40 foote without the new [now?] or late
bricke wall of the said Covent garden and shall
also include Bedford house'. (ref. 4) This description
of the boundary was, as will be seen, retained in
later enactments of 1646 and 1660, although its
rationale is not very apparent. The line of the
former wall, which had been built in c. 1610 (see
page 24) enclosed the fine, newly built central
area of the Bedford estate: there were, however,
new buildings outside the wall, as well as a rather
older fringe of houses and gardens. Probably the
40-foot-deep extramural perimeter represents a
compromise by which St. Martin's lost not only
the new, wealthy streets but also some of the
poorer parts outside the wall. In any event, the
chapelry and parish boundary seems never in fact
to have observed the prescribed line exactly.
The administrative arrangements in the agreement do not seem very explicit. The management
of the affairs of the chapelry was given to chapelwardens and overseers of the poor, who were to be
chosen by the vicar of St. Martin's and the inhabitants of the chapelry from among themselves. The chapelwardens and a 'competent
number' of inhabitants were to participate with
St. Martin's in the levying of any rate to which
the chapelry was subject: disputes over what was a
'competent number' were to be referred to the
Bishop of London. All tithes due to the vicar of
St. Martin's remained payable as before. On the
three Sundays after Easter the inhabitants of the
chapelry and of the mother parish were to worship in each other's church. (ref. 4)
The chapelry was provided with a 'parish
clerk' within a week or two of the consecration, (ref. 5)
and is known to have kept its own 'accounts' in
some form from at least 1641. (ref. 6)
The next few years after the consecration were
marked by disputes between the officers of the
mother parish and of the chapelry, chiefly concerning the right of the latter to dispose of money
collected by them. (ref. 7) Law was invoked (chiefly
against the chapelwarden, Richard Harris), and
at one period the St. Martin's overseers took their
stand at the chapel doors to collect their alleged
dues themselves. (ref. 8) The Covent Garden men
in turn seem to have appropriated some of the
revenue arising out of the chapelry for the use of
its own poor, by pretending that it was raised for
the repair of the chapel, confessedly 'to prevent
the Collectors of Saint Martins parish from
having the same'. (ref. 9)
In 1640–1 some inhabitants of Covent Garden
(mostly, it would seem, tradesmen) tried to obtain
the necessary Act of Parliament to make the
chapelry a parish, (ref. 10) and (on the evidence of a
draft Bill of 1640 in the Bedford Office) the Earl
also had the same intention. (ref. 11) A first reading was
given to a Bill in the House of Commons in
February 1640/1. But there was a counterpetition, the turn of national events did not favour
the progress of private Bills, and it did not get
beyond the committee stage in August 1642. (ref. 12)
Finally, in September 1645, an ordinance to
make Covent Garden a parish passed quickly
through the Commons and was sent to the Lords.
They made alterations, and after two conferences (at which the Commons were represented
by Zouch Tate and Denzil Holles, both residents
in Covent Garden) the amended ordinance was
approved on 7 January 1645/6. (ref. 13) An explanatory
ordinance was approved on 31 January. (ref. 14)
In 1643 the Commons had appointed sequestrators of the vicarage of St. Martin's, who had
been empowered to maintain a minister at Covent
Garden chapel, chosen by them and such Members of Parliament as lived in the chapelry. (ref. 15)
When the Lords appointed a committee to consider the ordinance in September 1645, however,
they required 'the Patron of the said Living to
have Notice of it', (ref. 16) by which they presumably
meant the fifth Earl of Bedford, then living in
retirement from public affairs at Woburn.
In the ordinance the Earl was declared to be
patron of the living, the chapelry was made
parochial within the same boundary as in September 1638, and freed from all tithes to St. Martin's.
The rector was given a stipend of £100 per annum
charged on the rents of three houses in the Piazza
(Sir Edmund Verney's two houses, and Edward
Sydenham's): additionally a parochial rate was to
raise £400 per annum for salaries, of which the
rector and assistant minister were to receive £150
each. The assistant minister was to be chosen by
the 'governors' of the parish. These were named,
and numbered thirty-four: the list was headed by
the Earl, but did not include the rector or any
ex officio member. The provision for the replenishment of this close vestry was imprecise. Vacancies were to be filled by a majority of the resident
householders or 'in default thereof' by a majority
of the governors. The new parish was not to be
completely dissociated from St. Martin's. It was
charged with a perpetual annual payment to the
poor of the mother parish, and also (in an obscurely worded clause) with one fifth of the
'public debts' and one fifth of the highwaymaintenance charges of that parish. In return, it
was entitled to one fifth of the St. Martin's poor
rate. (ref. 17) The levying of a poor rate within the
parish for its own purposes was not specifically
authorized, but in fact a rate was thenceforward
made by the Covent Garden overseers. Until
1653 the poor rate seems to have been audited by
the governors, and thereafter by the justices of
the peace for Westminster. (ref. 18)
Not very surprisingly, St. Martin's had to go
to law to obtain its dues. (ref. 19) Perhaps to clarify the
mutual obligations another ordinance 'for making
Covent Garden a Parish' was read in the Commons
in March 1647/8, but no more is heard of it. (ref. 20)
In May 1654 Covent Garden's obligation in
respect of one fifth of St. Martin's highway
charges was settled as a duty to repair a specified
part of the roadway (from Tyburn Fort to the
Mews), (ref. 21) but disputes continued and on at least
one occasion, in 1658, the fifth Earl himself
presided over a meeting of the Covent Garden
governors to consider the business. (ref. 22)
The ordinance of 1646 had, of course, never
received the royal assent, and at the Restoration
it was necessary for Covent Garden to obtain an
Act of Parliament to confirm its parochial status. (fn. a)
St. Martin's offered no complete opposition:
experience no doubt had made it seem desirable
that Covent Garden should 'have nothing to doe
with our Revennew'. (ref. 25) Some inhabitants of
Covent Garden, on the other hand, feared the
financial burdens of parochial independence. (ref. 26)
In August 1660 a Bill was introduced in the
Commons, but its progress was slow and it did not
receive the royal assent until 29 December. (ref. 27)
The delay had arisen chiefly out of the adjustment of the poor rate between Covent Garden
and St. Martin's. In the end the Act did not
effect a complete separation of the parishes in all
respects. It gave the precinct parochial status,
within the same boundary as before, discharged
it from all tithes due to St. Martin's, confirmed
the Earl as patron of the living, and gave the
nomination of a curate to the rector of St. Paul's
subject to the Earl's consent. (fn. b) The provision of
the rector's stipend of £100 per annum by a
rent-charge on the three Piazza houses was
renewed, and the churchwardens were authorized
to raise a rate of £250 per annum out of which
the rector was, as before, to receive an additional
£150. (The curate's stipend was, however, to be
much less than that of the 'assistant minister'
under the 1646 ordinance, at only £50 per
annum.) There were to be three churchwardens,
chosen respectively by the Earl of Bedford, the
rector, and the majority of resident householders. (fn. c)
They were authorized to make, in addition to the
rector's rate, a scavengers' and church rate.
The poor rate and highways rate, however, were
to be made not by the officers of Covent Garden
alone but by the Covent Garden churchwardens
acting with the overseers of the poor and surveyors of St. Martin's. (ref. 30)
The poor-ratebooks for Covent Garden subsequent to this Act, which form part of the annual
accounts of the Covent Garden overseers of the
poor, give no indication of the participation of
St. Martin's in making the rate, (ref. 31) although in
1662 one item of disbursement by the Covent
Garden overseers is said to have been occasioned
by an arrest made 'as Joynt overseers with St.
Martins'. (ref. 32) The St. Martin's vestry minutes,
however, testify that until 1662 St. Martin's
regarded Covent Garden as a 'precinct' rather
than a parish. (ref. 33) In 1661–3, no doubt to clarify
the matter, Bills were introduced in Parliament
to confirm Covent Garden's parochial status. (ref. 34)
No Act was passed, but lawsuits between St.
Martin's and Covent Garden demonstrated the
need for a clearer understanding. (ref. 35) In 1662 the
Earl of Bedford was concerning himself in procuring an agreement. (ref. 36) A final accommodation
was probably reached in 1666, between the
churchwardens of the two parishes. (ref. 37) Covent
Garden continued to be responsible for the maintenance of a section of St. Martin's highways, but
thenceforward the poor rates seem to have been
unequivocally separate.
Thereafter the chief cause of friction between
the parishes (apart from the maintenance of the
highways, which involved Covent Garden in
disputes also with St. Marylebone and St.
George's, Hanover Square (ref. 38) ) was the boundary
dividing them. This ran mostly behind or through
the backs of houses, and the rating of properties
on the boundary was a constant source of disagreement until well into the nineteenth century.
One fundamental matter on which the Act of
1660 was silent was the constitution of the governing body of the parish. Directions were given
only for the election of churchwardens. No light
is thrown by the St. Martin's vestry minutes,
which refer merely to dealings with 'the gentlemen' of Covent Garden. In September 1662,
however, the Bishop of London issued a faculty
to the rector, churchwardens and parishioners of
Covent Garden. Its purpose (like that of other
London faculties of the time) was to eradicate the
alterations made to the fabric of the church during the Interregnum. For this purpose it established 'a select Vestrey … of honest able and
discreete Inhabitants' who were authorized, in
addition to restoring the church, to manage the
affairs of the parish. It was to consist of the
rector, churchwardens, the Earl of Bedford, and
thirty-one other named parishioners, all being
Anglicans 'of principall Rank and Reputacion
in the said parish'. Vacancies were to be filled
by co-option. (ref. 39) This bishop's faculty would thus
seem to be the authority for the select vestry which
ruled the parish until 1827. The vestry clerk's
words in 1732, however, not only indicate a
modification of the vestry's composition but perhaps suggest some vagueness about its authority:
'The Vestry in most cases is in the nature of a
select one, composed of the Church-Wardens, or
any two of them being present, and the Antients of
the Parish, who have served the Office of ChurchWardens.' (ref. 40) By 1821 the vestry was calling itself
a select body 'by usage', (ref. 41) and does not seem to
have had recourse to the faculty to justify its
existence against the attacks of the 'reformers' of
1827. (fn. d)
The vestry minute books contain references to
disagreements between some or all of the parochial
authorities and inhabitants in 1681, 1707, 1716,
1738, 1754 and 1757. The dispute of 1754
issued in print, but although the extravagance and
irresponsibility of select vestries was brought
into the debate, the validity of the vestry of
St. Paul's does not seem to have been directly
questioned. (ref. 42)
The vestry minutes survive from 1681. (fn. e) ; Until
the second quarter of the eighteenth century they
are mainly concerned with the sale of pews,
grants of dispensation from serving parish offices,
and the election of churchwardens. The first
minute, of 29 April 1681, records 'a Publick
meeteing in ye Vestry' (to enquire into complaints
against churchwardens) at which the fifth Earl of
Bedford and the rector were present. (ref. 45) Thereafter the rectors hardly ever attend, and the Earls
never.
Apart from this minute, the vestry books include those of some other meetings at which nonvestrymen were present (in 1720, to buy an organ;
1744, to suppress robberies; 1751, to discuss rating
the market; 1754, to hear complaints against
churchwardens; 1758, to elect an organist; 1775,
to discuss the workhouse Bill before Parliament;
1784, to poll for a lecturer; 1787, to suppress ginshops; and 1789, again to elect an organist). At
the poll for a lecturer in 1784, twenty-seven of
the 442 voters were women. (ref. 46) The vestry
minutes also sometimes record the summoning
of a public meeting of ratepayers, without
noticing the meeting itself.
Also included are some proceedings of other
bodies, particularly sittings of petty sessions from
c. 1711 to c. 1729, at which some parish officers
were appointed. The vestry room was also
utilized for some deliberative or juridical meetings
of Westminster magistrates in petty sessions which
were not recorded in the vestry minute books. (ref. 47)
From the 1730's onwards any church rate was
made by the vestry as a whole, which decided
about repairs or redecorations to the church. On
one occasion, however, in 1778 the vestry resolved (perhaps to annoy the rector) that 'as a
Vestry' it could not make a rate to remedy 'the
Cold and Dampness of the Church'. (ref. 48)
It appears that from the beginning the rector
paid no parochial rates (see page 127), a practice
formally authorized by the vestry in 1699 (ref. 49) and
which continued, despite questionings in 1748, (ref. 50)
until the late eighteenth century. (ref. 51) The early
ratebooks, in the 1650's and 1660's, show that it
was usual (though not invariable) for the overseers of the poor also to pay no poor rate in their
year of office. (ref. 52) This exemption reappears in the
poor-ratebooks from about 1702 onwards. (ref. 53) It
perhaps extended to the parish officers: in the
years c. 1711–39, at least, the vestry clerk was
exempted ex officio from the poor rate, (ref. 54) as was a
parish beadle in 1727. (ref. 55) In 1748 the vestry decided to enquire what the practice regarding ex
officio exemptions was in other Westminster
parishes, (ref. 56) and thereafter the ratebooks seem to
indicate that the vestry clerk paid his poor rates. (ref. 57)
In 1765 the vestry ruled that (with the evident
exception of the rector) only the churchwardens,
overseers of the poor and scavengers should be
exempt, and then only from the church rate, poor
rate and scavengers' rate respectively. (ref. 58) In 1772
the vestry clerk was excused all parish rates, like
the other Westminster vestry clerks, (ref. 59) but so far as
the poor-ratebooks indicate, the vestry clerks in
fact continued to pay their assessments. (ref. 60) After
about 1778 the overseers seem to have paid their
poor rates, (ref. 53) as did the rector from about 1783. (ref. 51)
By that date, therefore, the practice of exemption
from rates would seem to have been very limited
if not extinct.
The vestry was concerned intermittently with
the question whether to rate the buildings in the
market. From 1679 to c. 1698 rates were collected
from the individual shop- or stall-keepers,
although often only by recourse to the magistrates. (ref. 61) In one year, 1705, the parish tried to
charge rates on 'the proprietors for the Rents of
the Market', but the assessment was not paid, (ref. 62)
and until 1768 the market and its occupants disappear from the ratebooks. In 1728 and 1735 the
question was discussed in the vestry (ref. 63) and in 1751
an annual payment of 50 guineas was accepted
from the fourth Duke of Bedford in lieu of rates. (ref. 64)
In 1767–9 the vestry again agitated the question
but again accepted a payment in lieu, in the form
of an additional 20 guineas from the market
lessee. (ref. 65) Thereafter the market lessee alone was
rated for the market, until 1811. From 1813 to
1826 the individual tenants were assessed as well
as the market lessee. In 1827 and 1828 the
lessee alone paid, and from 1829 onwards, with
the reorganization and rebuilding of the market,
the sixth Duke paid a lump sum for the market
land and tolls. (ref. 66) Five or six years later the vestry
agreed to accept payment on a sliding scale related
to the market revenue. (ref. 67)
By the mid eighteenth century the market had
become a nuisance against which the vestry had to
petition the fourth Duke (see page 132). Increasingly it became concerned by the encroachment of market carts into surrounding streets and
the necessity for constant cleansing of the roadway,
'particularly in the Colliflower season of the
Year'. (ref. 68) The parish administration was also
burdened to an unusual extent by the need to
control the many taverns, gin-shops, coffee-houses
and brothels for which Covent Garden was
notorious.
By the 1760's the post of vestry clerk was
sufficiently important for his salary to be settled
at £100 per annum compared with £4 plus expenses in 1740. (ref. 69) In 1778 a vestry office was
made in the south-west wing of the church. (ref. 70)
By the late eighteenth century it was usual for the
vestry clerk to be a solicitor and to be clerk also
of the boards of trustees set up by local Acts since
1736. The administration of the workhouse
required particular attention (as a retiring vestry
clerk said in 1806) 'to counter the various arts
which the profligate Paupers are constantly practising to deceive and to defraud'. (ref. 71)
The transformation of the parish from a wealthy
residential area to a dirty, crowded and disorderly
work-place imposed a burden on the parochial
machinery and on the ratepayers that was
aggravated by the inequitable incidence of the
county rate. This bore heavily on parishes which
had lost residential status since the early eighteenth century. Attempts to lighten this burden
in 1779 were unsuccessful, and it was not
alleviated until an equalization Act of 1797. (ref. 72)
In common with other select vestries in London, that of Covent Garden was assaulted in the
late 1820's by the party of 'reform'. (ref. 73) As elsewhere, the criticism was chiefly levelled against
the extravagance of the vestry and local boards.
The attack was led by James Corder, a grocer
in James Street. At a vestry meeting in February
1827 he claimed the right to attend as a ratepayer, and was ejected. (ref. 74) A committee was
formed, of which a lawyer in Bedford Street,
James Phillips, was the secretary, and a subscription raised. (ref. 75) By July an action in the Court
of King's Bench had been commenced by Corder
(whose counsel was the Attorney General)
against the vestry chairman (represented by the
Solicitor General). In December the defendant,
on legal advice, conceded Corder's case on the
eve of the trial. (ref. 76) Thus the select vestry came to
an end.
In default of other legal enactment, the parish
for the time being became subject to the provisions
of Sturges Bourne's Act of 1818, with an open
vestry of ratepayers, but with plural voting
according to the amount of rate paid. (ref. 77) Neither
the friends of the old vestry nor its opponents
liked this arrangement, and a year or more of
bitter struggle followed.
The reformers' hostility was mainly directed
against the vestry clerk, Garrard Roche, a solicitor in Charles Street, who was also clerk of the
various local boards. At a numerously attended
open vestry in the church in January 1828
Corder contested Roche's continuance as vestry
clerk. A conservative tradesman complained that
'the Church was a perfect Beargarden', but Roche
held his place by 486 votes to 301. (ref. 78)
The reformers then turned their attack on the
trustees of the parish workhouse in Cleveland
Street, St. Pancras, and a day in February found
Corder, Phillips and others concealed in a public
house opposite the gate, ready to storm the entrance when the trustees were admitted. The
conduct of business was prevented, and a similar
scene was repeated some months later. The same
conservative gloomily prophesied that they would
'have Law, Law to the end of it'. (ref. 79)
The sixth Duke of Bedford, despite his liberal
Whig professions, rather favoured the old vestry,
and disliked the attacks on him in the radical
press. A more ebullient conservative, the rector,
Doctor Randolph, tried hard to drum up his
patron's active support for a Bill to restore a select
vestry, and in February 1828 the Duke joined
with the rector and others in petitioning for leave
to introduce such a Bill. (ref. 80) The Duke, however,
refused to champion the cause quite openly, and
was angry when the conservatives made known
his support for the Bill. (ref. 81) The conservatives
had in fact avoided giving the formal public notice
of their petition which was necessary, under the
standing orders of the House of Commons, if the
Bill was held to relate to the management
of the parish poor relief. A committee of the
Commons (chaired by the Duke's brother)
reported favourably on this point, but the opposition was now alerted, and counter-petitioned. The
matter was referred back to another committee,
under Sir Francis Burdett, and it was then decided,
on 28 February, that the conservatives' petition
was inadmissible. (ref. 82)
The reformers had the support of the radical
newspapers, but the conservatives enjoyed that
of the chief Bow Street magistrate, Sir Richard
Birnie, who in March, at a stormy petty sessions,
appointed other overseers of the poor than those
recommended by the open vestry. The manner
and substance of his action were unfavourably
commented on. (ref. 83) Since the opening of the vestry
great publicity was also being directed against
apparent abuses found in the accounts of the old
vestrymen. (ref. 84) Perhaps opinion was tending towards the reformers, and in April Corder ousted
Roche from the vestry clerk's place, at a two-day
poll in the church, by 467 votes to 460. (ref. 85) The
rector, who could find nothing better to say of the
reformers than that 'Mr Phillips is—I won't say
what—Mr Croder [sic] a wet Quaker', was sure
that many of Corder's votes from market stallholders should have been disallowed. The Duke
thought the Doctor not conciliatory enough. (ref. 86)
His own steward preferred a representative
vestry to either an open or a closed self-perpetuating body, (ref. 87) and in March the reformers
addressed an open letter to the Duke's lawyer with
a suggestion for a vestry of £30 householders
elected by all ratepayers. (ref. 88)
The state of the parish was now worse than
before, as the new vestry clerk and Roche (who
was still clerk of the local boards) obstructed each
other's business. (ref. 89) In June the vestry decided to
prepare a Bill to regulate the management of the
parish. (ref. 90) The former members of the select
vestry held aloof, and Doctor Randolph denounced the Bill as a 'party job'. (ref. 91) By September
a draft was ready, on the lines suggested in
March. (ref. 92) The introduction of the Bill hung fire,
however, and the winter wore away in acrimonious
attempts to settle the parish accounts before the
magistrates. (ref. 93) At last, in February 1829, the
reformers petitioned for leave to introduce their
Bill. This would have set a £50 qualification for
vestrymen, but left their election to all the ratepayers. (ref. 94) In March, under the sponsorship of
John Cam Hobhouse and Sir Francis Burdett, it
was read for the first time. (ref. 95) The Duke remained
unfriendly to the vestry (appointing as his churchwarden a candidate not recommended by them),
but limited his opposition to the introduction of
amendments. (ref. 96) In May 1829 the Bill, amended
by both Houses, received the royal assent. (ref. 97)
The Act repealed all the enactments since 1736
by which local boards had been established. Their
functions were now vested in a committee of
twenty-seven elected members, plus the rector,
churchwardens and overseers of the poor. The
ratepaying qualification of the committeemen
was £50. The franchise was confined to £20
ratepayers, evidently by amendments made in the
Commons. (ref. 98)
(fn. f) The same voters were to elect
auditors of the parish accounts and overseers of the
poor. (ref. 100) The vestry marked the occasion by
recording in their minutes the anticipation of
'immense savings'. (ref. 101)
(fn. g)
In April 1830 Corder and the new ratecollector, John Callaghan, were able to report
gratifyingly on the working of the Act to the
sympathetic parliamentary enquiry on vestries
which was then being conducted by Hobhouse.
Callaghan, who had been one of the leading agitators for reform, remarked on the absence of
abuses under the new system. (ref. 103)
The sequel was rather unfortunate. The cost
of obtaining the Act was found to have been
nearly £1,200, and almost half of this was
Phillips's bill. The auditors were critical of his
charges, and in the ensuing dispute he had to be
summoned for withholding his rates. (ref. 104) A more
serious disappointment was in store. The old
select vestry had had some unhappy experiences
with its rate collectors. In the 1770's the rector's
rate had been embezzled, (ref. 105) and more recently
the collector of all the parish rates, a schoolmaster
in Hart Street, had died with some hundreds of
pounds of parish money unaccounted for and
irrecoverable. (ref. 106) Then, in November 1835, the
committee of management heard that Callaghan,
their reforming collector, had left home a fortnight earlier 'in a very ill state of health'. It was
soon known that he had taken some £1,500 of
parish money with him. For nearly two years
nothing was heard (it was rumoured he was in
America) and the parish had to content itself with
attempts to get some satisfaction from his
sureties. (ref. 107) Too typical of the others, however,
was the hotelier whose circumstances were
found to be 'very shattered'. (ref. 108) In the meantime Corder resigned as vestry clerk, in April
1836, when his reputation had won him the post
of clerk to the Board of Guardians of the Strand
Union, newly formed by the Poor Law Commissioners. (ref. 109) By early in 1837 his official dealings
with his old parish were evidently embittered, and
resolutions deploring his 'malignancy' and
'effrontery' were moved in the Covent Garden
vestry. (ref. 110) In August 1837 news came that
Callaghan had been arrested in Liverpool. He
was brought to London, and examined by the
magistrates. It then became apparent that for at
least a year his residence under an assumed name
at Parkstone in Dorset had been perfectly well
known to Corder, by whom he was owed money,
and with whom he maintained a correspondence. (ref. 111) The committee of management resolved
to investigate Corder's conduct, but it seems that
nothing positive was done. (ref. 112)
(fn. h) The relationship
of the parish to the Strand Union and the Poor
Law Commissioners was in any event difficult,
and in 1839 it was necessary for the parish
publicly to refute charges in the newspapers that
it was obstructing the workings of the Poor Law
Amendment Act. (ref. 115) Within the parish, the
animosities engendered by the events of 1827–9
were still alive in 1845–6. (ref. 116)
In 1855 the Metropolis Management Act
united the parish with others in eastern Westminster to form the Board of Works for the
Strand District. (ref. 117) The vestry was finally
abolished by the Local Government Act of 1899
which created the Westminster City Council. (ref. 118)
The Watch
The history of the watch-house or round-house
is described on page 126. It existed by 1655. (ref. 119)
In the late seventeenth century its repair was the
responsibility of the churchwardens, (ref. 120) and until
the 1730's the maintenance of order was the
responsibility of the parish beadles and constables.
Like most of the other Westminster parishes, St.
Paul's then obtained an Act to make the parish
watch more effective. Being examined before a
committee of the House of Commons in March
1735 6 a parishioner said 'That he, often suspecting the Watchman near his House to be
asleep, ordered his Servant, one Night, to take
away his Lantern; which he did, without the
Watchman's Knowledge; and that he has often
met the said Watchman crying the Hour, without either Lantern or Staff, only a Walkingstick.' (ref. 121) The Bill received the royal assent in
May 1736. (ref. 122)
It empowered the vestry with the rector and
nineteen other named inhabitants to appoint twice
yearly as many watchmen as they thought fit.
The watch committee, which was to fill vacancies
by co-option, was empowered to levy a rate not
exceeding 6d. in the £, subject to the approval
of two magistrates. (ref. 123) In 1739 twenty watchmen
were employed. (ref. 124) As the vestry acknowledged
in 1802, the parish was 'peculiarly obnoxious
to scenes of Profligacy', (ref. 125) and it is not inappropriate that Bow Street is so closely associated
with the history of attempts to suppress crime
and disorder.
In 1829 the Act of 1736 was annulled and the
functions of the watch committee vested in the
general committee of management. In the same
year, however, the Metropolitan Police Act
supplanted the parish watch by the new police
force. (ref. 126)
Paving, Cleansing and Lighting
There are few references to the upkeep of the
streets within the parish in its surviving records
before the second half of the eighteenth century,
although the churchwardens were authorized to
make a scavengers' rate by the Act of 1660.
From the 1670's until at least 1703 the churchwardens repaired the railings round the Piazza,
and in the early eighteenth century made 'fire
plugs' in the streets. (ref. 127) In 1729 the churchwardens, overseers of the poor, scavengers and
surveyors of streets agreed to set the recipients of
outdoor relief to road-sweeping. (ref. 128) By 1756 the
parish scavengers were paying the 'raker' £200
per annum to clean the streets. (ref. 129)
An Act of 1762 established commissioners for
paving, cleansing and lighting the streets of Westminster (and some adjacent parishes). (ref. 130) An
amending Act of 1771 transferred most of their
powers to parochial committees, except for
'optional' streets where the inhabitants had, by an
earlier amending Act of 1765, been empowered
to do their own paving under the supervision of
the commissioners. (ref. 131) By 1783 the residents in
the better streets of the parish had exercised this
option, but in that year joined with the rest of the
parish in obtaining an Act which vested the
powers of paving, cleansing and lighting the whole
parish in a committee of inhabitants. (ref. 132) It consisted of the rector, the Duke of Bedford's steward
and twenty-one other named inhabitants. There
was a property qualification of £2,000, and
vacancies were filled by the vote of all ratepayers. (ref. 133)
The other Westminster parishes obtained similar
Acts at this period.
By the 1820's, if not before, the committee
was evidently exercising a close and systematized
control over encroachments and the alterations
of street frontages. (ref. 134) In 1829 it was replaced
by the general committee of management. This,
through its paving sub-committee, continued the
minute regulation of hoardings, railings, areas and
projecting shop fronts. (fn. i) The cleansing of the
vegetable-littered streets was by this time very
onerous. Contractors were employed by the
committee's surveyor of pavements but their work
gave perennial dissatisfaction. The collection of
house-garbage had also been put out to contract
by the early nineteenth century. (fn. j)
In 1855 the paving, cleansing and lighting
responsibilities of the committee were taken over
by the Board of Works for the Strand District.
The Workhouse
The parish seems to have had no workhouse of
its own before the eighteenth century, and use was
made of the Westminster bridewells in Tothill
Fields and at Clerkenwell. (ref. 137) In 1703 the churchwardens were authorized to take a house in Hart
Street for the use of poor and sick pensioners, (ref. 138)
and in the 1720's and 1730's maintained a parish
nurse in a house in Bow Street, near the corner of
Hart Street, 'for keeping the Casuall poor'. (ref. 139)
By 1734 the parish had a workhouse, held on
lease from the Earl of Exeter's lessee, in that part
of Exeter Street also known as Denmark Court, (ref. 140)
where it is shown on Rocque's map of 1746
(Plate 7). In 1763 the keeper was being paid 2s.
a day for the maintenance of each able-bodied
pauper or child, and 2s. 6d. for each old or infirm
pauper. (ref. 141)
By 1774 the Exeter Street premises were too
small, and dilapidated. (fn. k) The vestry, conscious of
the rapidly increasing cost of maintaining its
out-door poor, decided to build a new and bigger
workhouse. Through Robert Palmer, the Duke
of Bedford's steward, the parish obtained the lease
of a site in Cleveland Street, St. Pancras, on the
Bedford estate. Plans were prepared by an
Edward Palmer of St. Clement Danes, surveyor,
to accommodate 200 paupers, at an estimated cost
of £3,000, but it was decided to build a larger
workhouse to take all the poor. (ref. 143) The necessary
Act of Parliament was obtained in May 1775. (ref. 144)
It constituted the rector, churchwardens, overseers of the poor and vestrymen trustees to borrow
£5,000 for the purpose, charged on a rate to be
levied at not more than 4d. in the £. (ref. 145) The
workhouse actually built (presumably to Palmer's
design) cost, however, nearer £7,000. (ref. 146) It was
finished in or before 1778, by which time the
parish charity schools for boys and girls were
installed in it (see below).
The Act had authorized the trustees to make
an additional burial ground for the parish on the
workhouse site. To allow its consecration, the
freehold of the site was obtained from the fifth
Duke in 1788, for £750, (ref. 147) and the burial ground
was consecrated in 1790. (ref. 148)
Miscellaneous work was done by the paupers
in the house. In 1792 the vestry declined a
request from Messrs. Grimshaw and Sons of
Manchester for twelve pauper boys to be apprenticed in a cotton mill, 'as the principal object
of the present Application may probably tend to a
numerous succession of Apprentices only, and not
to retain them as Journeymen afterwards'. (ref. 149)
In 1796 the Act authorizing the rebuilding of
the church gave the trustees thereby appointed
the power of managing the workhouse also. (ref. 150)
In 1802 and 1819 tenders were obtained for
building an infectious ward and an infirmary
respectively, each being to the design of Thomas
Hardwick. (ref. 151) By the parish Act of 1829 the
administration of the workhouse was given to the
general committee of management, but in 1836 it
was taken over by the Board of Guardians of the
Strand Union. (ref. 152) The building survives as the
Out-Patients Department of the Middlesex
Hospital, and is described on page 40 of volume
XXI of the Survey of London (1949). (fn. l)
Parish Schools (after 1775)
Until the construction of the parish workhouse
in St. Pancras the boys' and girls' charity schools
were located in St. Paul's parish (see page 127),
but by 1778 had been removed to the workhouse. (ref. 153) The numbers were evidently reduced,
from thirty boys and twenty girls to fifteen boys
and fifteen girls. (ref. 154) In the 1790's the charity
children continued to have their own teachers, (ref. 155)
but there seems to have been a tendency towards
the assimilation of the workhouse and schools: in
1792 the school trustees accepted a suggestion
from the vestry that 'as a spur to Industry' the
charity children should be set to 'useful labour', (ref. 156)
and by 1822 the posts of workhouse master and
schoolmaster had been united and the charity
children and pauper children were taught
together, on the Madras system. (ref. 157) The posts
of workhouse master and schoolmaster were
separated again in 1833. (ref. 158) In 1836, however,
the workhouse was taken over by the Strand Union
and the charity children dispersed. (ref. 159)
An attempt was made to raise funds for the
continuance of a parish boarding school for the
charity boys, but this proved impossible, and
henceforward they were educated at the National
School of the parish of St. Martin in the Fields,
which was already educating some boys from St.
Paul's parish. (ref. 160)
The removal of the girls' school to another site
had been in contemplation since at least 1822, (ref. 161)
and its continuance after 1836 was assured by
hiring premises in Hand Court, Maiden Lane.
The girls' school remained here until its closure
in 1868. (ref. 162)
In 1845 there was also an infants' school in
Exeter Street, perhaps newly established there. (ref. 163)
In the meantime, in 1837, a committee of
parishioners headed by the rector had opened
negotiations for a building lease from the sixth
Duke of Bedford of a site in Hart Street, that of
the present No. 12 Floral Street. This had
probably been in the posssession of a schoolmaster
back to at least 1751, (ref. 164) and since 1828–30
had been occupied by the Adelphi schools for
infants, boys and girls. These schools were
affiliated to the non-denominational British and
Foreign School Society, a body supported from its
foundation by the Duke, its President. (ref. 165)
An obstacle to the granting of a building lease
was the intolerable din created by the pupils of the
Adelphi schools. Despite the Duke's own defence
of the schools against complaints, his steward,
Christopher Haedy (who had tested the uproar in
person), was determined that any lease should be
granted only with 'swingeing conditions', rigorously enforced, to protect the Duke's other
tenants. No openings were to be allowed in the
back or sides of the building and the children
were not to be allowed into the yard at the rear.
Haedy reserved the right to prohibit the use of the
building as a school at all if in his opinion annoyance was being caused. He himself evidently
considered that this insecurity of tenure and the
lack of facilities for ventilation would make his
conditions unacceptable. (ref. 166) The committee was
not deterred, however, and in 1838 agreed to the
terms of a lease that prohibited all annoyance
from any cause, 'be it teaching, singing, chanting,
playing or bawling'. (ref. 167)
The committee's architect was E. H. Browne
of Beaufort Buildings. His plans were contrived
to 'throw all the noise into Hart Street', with a
schoolroom on each of three floors. The builder
was Johnson Hawke of James Street. (ref. 168)
The 'commodious and substantial' schoolrooms
were opened in October 1838. The estimated
cost had been £1,500 of which the Government contributed £400 through the British and
Foreign School Society: the Duke gave £50.
Accommodation was provided for 800 day
scholars and a resident master. Some 474 pupils
attended in the first year, from various parishes, of
which Covent Garden contributed less than a
quarter. (ref. 169)
The infants' school on the ground floor was
Anglican, 'conducted on the plan adopted by the
Bishop of London', while the boys' and girls'
schools on the first and second floors respectively
were (by a trust deed of August 1839) (ref. 170) affiliated
to the British and Foreign School Society. Each
school had a separate entrance. (ref. 169) In contrast to
the factions which had divided the parish in respect of its secular administration, the Anglican
and dissenting interests co-operated harmoniously
here in the erection and management of the
schools, (ref. 169) a fact observed with pleasure by
Haedy in 1841. (ref. 171)
In view of his severe restrictions on the schools'
tenancy, the managers were doubtless the more
annoyed when the property next door at No. 11
became a brothel in 1842. (ref. 172) Its supersession by
a dairyman's cow-house in 1847 was little improvement, as the cows could be smelt as far away
as James Street. (ref. 173) Possibly for these reasons the
attendance at the boys' and girls' schools declined
from some 383 in 1840 to 200 in 1849. (ref. 174) This
trend may, however, have been reversed, or perhaps the infants' school flourished, as in 1860 the
seventh Duke, at the rector's suggestion, undertook the cost of altering the schools. The contract was agreed with the local builder, William
Howard, at £1,787, and the architect employed
was C. G. Searle. (ref. 175) The present building bears
the date 1860 and presumably owes its appearance
mainly to this alteration (Plate 62c). The
Italianate style approximates, however, to that
publicized and recommended for school buildings
in 1841 by Charles Parker, (ref. 176) who had subsequently become the Duke's surveyor, and is known
to have made suggestions for the 1860 alterations:
stylistically, therefore, his influence may have
been predominant.
The re-opened schools educated 340 boys,
girls and infants, and residential accommodation
was provided for a master and mistress and second
schoolmistress. Some adult institutions were also
housed here. The whole is said to have been
under the rector's supervision. (ref. 177)
In 1874 the management of the schools was
transferred to the London School Board. (ref. 178) The
lease of the site from the Duke expired in 1899,
and the Board did not renew it as the congestion of
the street on weekdays made it unsafe for children. (ref. 179)
From 1900 to 1918 the building was used by
the rector, by right of yearly tenancies from the
eleventh Duke, as a club for market workmen,
and other parochial purposes, under the name of
St. Paul's Institute. (ref. 180)
(fn. m) .
Architectural description of No. 12 Floral Street
Except for the staircase tower on the east side
of the front, the former schoolhouse is recessed
some 6 feet from the general building line of the
street. The front is an austere but striking essay
in the Italianate manner. The recessed face has
three lofty storeys, each with four closely spaced
windows, their tall round-arched openings framed
in wide moulded architraves broken only by
keystones. There is a panelled pedestal to the
second-storey windows, and a bracketed sillcourse to the third storey. The generally
attenuated effect of the design is heightened by
the treatment of the tower shaft, which has
quoined angles. The crowning cornice of the
recessed face is returned round the tower, below
a belvedere stage having two narrow roundarched openings in each face, and a bracketed
eaves-cornice beneath its pyramidal lead-covered
roof.