This agreement was examined on Feb. 7th, 1888, in the Court of Justice, London, before Mr. Justice Chitty, on an enquiry being made as to the estate of William Thompson Whelpton, deceased, at the instance of the Rev. Henry Robert Whelpton, and Stephen Whelpton; when the Court declared that the direction in the will of the testator, as to the endowment of the charity, was a “valid charitable bequest of £1,000,” and the money “invested in three per cents. Consols, for the following purposes”: (1) for the repair of the alms-houses; (2) to pay each occupant 3s. 6d. per week; (3) in case of there being any surplus, to pay them so much more as the trustees should think fit. A clause was added, empowering the Charity Commissioners, from time to time, to order any part of the income to be applied to special purposes, as they might think desirable. We may add that while residing at Hastings, Mr. George Whelpton secured two acres of land, at Eastbourne, from the Duke of Devonshire, the owner of the whole town, as he is also of Buxton; and at a cost of about £20,000, erected and endowed the church and vicarage of St. Saviour’s, which was held by his youngest son, Henry Robert, who graduated at St. John’s College, Cambridge, and was afterwards made Canon of Chichester. This benefice is private property, and is now held by his son, Henry Urling Whelpton, of Pembroke College, Cambridge. The head of the Whelpton family may now be considered to be the Rev. George Whelpton, at one time residing in France, but now of Trinity House, Abington, Berks. The original George Whelpton died in 1903. For these details the present writer is indebted to several members of the Whelpton family, with some of whom he was a fellow pupil at the Horncastle Grammar School. THE DRILL HALL. The present building is not the first structure erected in connection with the Volunteers, any more than the present Volunteers themselves are the first institution of the kind formed in Horncastle. In the early years of the 19th century, when there was a general feeling abroad that one great project, nurtured in the ambitious mind of the first Napoleon, was an invasion of England, volunteers were organized throughout the country, with a view to self-defence. As an instance of this, in the town of Pontefract a corps was formed, of which the Earl of Mexborough was Colonel Commandant, and George Pyemont, Esq., of Tanshelf House, Pontefract (grandfather of the present writer), was Major; {145} the records of which are preserved, among other public documents, in Pontefract Castle. [Picture: Conging Street during the flood, Dec. 31, 1900]