Old Faulkner, to whose quaint and interesting history of Kensington I would refer all lovers of antiquity and curious anecdote, writing in 1820, says: “The amount of benefactions to this parish is highly creditable to the humanity of the original founders, and it is a pleasing as well as an important part of the duty of the historian to record these; perhaps in few parishes in the kingdom have they been more scrupulously observed, or more faithfully administered.” Pleasing as it was to Faulkner seventy years ago to remark upon the then condition of the parish charities, it will be yet more gratifying to us to observe at the present time how greatly they have developed, and how admirably they have been fostered, improved, and administered. Seventy years ago Kensington was really rural, containing only three or four hamlets, or assemblages of dwellings, a few large houses with grounds, some celebrated nursery and market gardens, and a few distinguished inhabitants. This is what Tickell, the poet, says about it:— “Here, while the town in damp and darkness lies, They (at Kensington he means) breathe in sunshine and see azure skies.” What Kensington is now we all know; would that its charities had grown in proportion to its population. Perhaps if through your kind exertions more attention can be drawn to the subject they may enlarge, and the history of the future charities of Kensington prove as creditable as the past. In the year 1807 a joint committee of the trustees of the poor, and of the vestry, was appointed to consider and report, amongst other subjects, upon the charities of the parish; and that committee undertook a most careful and exhaustive inquiry into the matter, the results of which were recorded in “The Report of the Kensington Committee of the 30th October, 1810.” It is needless to say that this report has now become a very rare document. Fortunately a copy has been preserved in the archives of the vestry, and to that copy—through the kindness of the vestry clerk, although with all due precautions to its safe preservation—I have had access; and thus we are enabled to make an interesting comparison between the condition of the parish and its charities then and now. It appears from this report (which is as able a document as I ever read) that the parish in 1810 contained about 1,500 rateable houses, and an estimated population of 10,000 souls. It appears from the report to the vestry of the Medical Officer of Health to the parish for the year 1888, dated July, 1889, that at the middle of 1888 the inhabited houses in the parish numbered 21,566, with an estimated population of 177,000 persons. In 1810 the main charity of the parish was then, as now, the Campden Bequests. There were also the Methwold Almshouses, the Parish Free School, and some various other bequests of comparatively small amount for specific objects, or for the purposes of the poor of the parish generally.