About the year 1687 between thirteen and fourteen thousand French Protestants, driven from home by the intolerance of Louis XIV., settled in London, some in Spitalfields, others in the district of St. Giles’ and Seven Dials, in Stepney, and in Wandsworth. There was a French church at Wandsworth, which subsequently fell into the hands of the Wesleyans, and the Huguenots who settled in this locality were chiefly engaged in trade as hatters. As a result of these settlements we find their graves in Bethnal Green Churchyard and other places, but especially in the East Hill burial-ground at Wandsworth, where many French Protestants of note were interred, and where there are some fine old headstones and altar tombs. It is a picturesque ground between the two roads, but, with the exception of a pathway through it, it is not open to the public. Foreigners now have to be buried in the cemeteries, and many a strange service or ceremony has been held at the graveside of those who belong to other climes, especially, perhaps, in Kensal Green Cemetery, Norwood Cemetery, and the others that are non-parochial. The Jews and the Greeks are, I believe, the only communities of strangers who still keep up separate burial-grounds of their own in London. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER IX HOSPITAL, ALMSHOUSE, AND WORKHOUSE GROUNDS. “Such ebb and flow must ever be, Then wherefore should we mourn?” WORDSWORTH.