“There was no boarding of children in my time. There was free education, but leave was obtained to make a change subject to a small free list being maintained. As to clothing, there was a partial clothing of some children, but as the uniform of charity was distasteful it was dropped, and the saving thereof thrown into the educational fund of the school. “The question of new schools arose, and what we did was, first, to buy up the house in Church Court next to the police station, and on the site of it build the girls’ schools. {16} This done, it was after a time rumoured that the adjoining houses were likely to be sold for purposes which would destroy the quiet of the schools. We then, secondly, bought the houses adjoining. Accommodating ourselves to the times, we had to look out for better schools, and the thought struck us that as the wretched room in High Street was a very valuable site for almost any other purpose in the world than a school, we might sell it and with the proceeds build a boys’ and infants’ school on one of the best sites for such a thing, viz., Church Court and on the verge of the closed churchyard. Accordingly we sold the school site in High Street to the Vestry, and with the money so obtained built the boys’ and infants’ schools. “As to the funds of the school: they were drawn upon to effect the purchase of the close houses, and there were sums of ‘accumulated balances’ which were at the disposal of the trustees for such purpose. Of course when the schools were built the rents of the houses on its site were gone for ever. There were other sources from which help was obtained to aid the cause.” I am sure every one interested in Kensington will feel grateful to Mr. Wright for kindly giving us such full and accurate information, which probably no other man now living could have supplied. Exactly according to Mr. Wright’s recollection I find an order of the Charity Commissioners dated the 15th December, 1874, sanctioning the sale of the school site to the Vestry of Kensington for a sum of not less than £7,100. This sale was effected, and upon the site was erected the new Town Hall, which we of this generation admire as much as our forefathers did, Sir John Vanbrugh’s school, and we are conceited enough to believe with far more reason. The schools are now regulated, like most of the other charities, by an order of the Charity Commissioners, dated the 13th August, 1875. That order contains a schedule of the property possessed at the date by the Charity, and it then consisted of:— The sites of 3, 4, 5, and 6, Church Court, {17a} forming the site of the proposed new schools for boys and infants, and also the school buildings and site adjoining the girls’ schools. A sum of £7,543 consols standing in the names of the official trustees of charitable funds.