The Rev. the Master of University. The Hon. and Rev. W. H. Fremantle, Balliol. A. Robinson, Esq., New College. A. H. D. Acland, Esq., Christ Church. A. Sidgwick, Esq., C.C.C. W. H. Forbes, Esq., Balliol. A. L. Smith, Esq., Balliol. T. H. Warren, Esq., Magdalen. S. Ball, Esq., St. John’s. C. E. Dawkins, Esq., Balliol. B. King, Esq., Balliol. M. E. Sadler, Esq., Trinity. H. D. Leigh, Esq., New College. G. C. Lang, Esq., Balliol. _Names should be sent in as soon as possible._ OXFORD, Feb., 1884. THE BEGINNINGS OF TOYNBEE HALL.[1] BY MRS. S. A. BARNETT. 1903. [1] From “Towards Social Reform”. By kind permission of Messrs. Fisher Unwin. “How did the idea of a University Settlement arise?” “What was the beginning?” are questions so often asked by Americans, Frenchmen, Belgians, or the younger generations of earnest English people, that it seems worth while to reply in print, and to trundle one’s mind back to those early days of effort and loneliness before so many bore the burden and shared the anxiety. The fear is that in putting pen to paper on matters which are so closely bound up with our own lives, the sin of egotism will be committed, or that a special plant, which is still growing, may be damaged, as even weeds are if their roots are looked at. And yet in the tale which has to be told there is so much that is gladdening and strengthening to those who are fighting apparently forlorn causes that I venture to tell it in the belief that to some our experiences will give hope. In the year 1869, Mr. Edward Denison took up his abode in East London. He did not stay long nor accomplish much, but as he breathed the air of the people he absorbed something of their sufferings, saw things from their standpoint, and, as his letters in his memoirs show, made frequent suggestions for social remedies. He was the first settler, and was followed by the late Mr. Edmund Hollond, to whom my husband and I owe our life in Whitechapel. He was ever on the outlook for men and women who cared for the people, and hearing that we wished to come Eastward, wrote to Dr. Jackson, then Bishop of London, when the living of St. Jude’s fell vacant in the autumn of 1872, and asked that it might be offered to Mr. Barnett, who was at that time working as Curate at St. Mary’s, Bryanston Square, with Mr. Fremantle, now the Dean of Ripon. I have the Bishop’s letter, wise, kind and fatherly, the letter of a general sending a young captain to a difficult outpost. “Do not hurry in your decision,” he wrote, “it is the worst parish in my diocese, inhabited mainly by a criminal population, and one which has I fear been much corrupted by doles”.