In spite of this widespread feeling, it proved no easy task, nor one capable of rapid fulfilment, to consecrate in permanence to public uses the extant memorials of Shakespeare at Stratford-on-Avon. Stratford was a place of pilgrimage for admirers of Shakespeare from early days in the seventeenth century--soon, in fact, after Shakespeare's death in 1616. But local veneration did not prevent the demolition in 1759, by a private owner, of New Place, Shakespeare's last residence. That act of vandalism was long in provoking any effective resentment. Garrick, by means of his Jubilee Festival of 1769, effectively, if somewhat theatrically, called the attention of the English public to the claims of the town to the affectionate regard of lovers of the great dramatist. Nevertheless, it was left to the nineteenth century to dedicate in perpetuity to the public service the places which were the scenes of Shakespeare's private life in his native town. Charles Mathews's effort of 1821 took its rise in an endeavour to purchase in behalf of the nation the vacant site of Shakespeare's demolished residence of New Place, with the great garden attached to it. But that scheme was overweighted by the incorporation with it of the plan for a London monument, and both collapsed ignominiously. In 1835 a strong committee was formed at Stratford to commemorate the poet's connection with the town. It was called "the Monumental Committee," and had for its object, firstly, the repair of Shakespeare's tomb in the Parish Church; and secondly, the preservation and restoration of all the Shakespearean buildings in the town. Subscriptions were limited to L1, and all the members of the royal family, including the Princess Victoria, who two years later came to the throne, figured, with other leading personages in the nation's life, in the list of subscribers. But the subscriptions only produced a sum sufficient to carry out the first purpose of the Monumental Committee--the repair of the tomb.