WESTBOURNE PLACE is a neat double row of houses (deriving its name from the stream) joining Eaton and Sloane Squares. No. 2 was the house taken in 1808 by Colonel Wardle for the notorious Mary Ann Clarke, as part recompense for the services she was to render in the prosecution of the inquiry into the conduct of the Duke of York. Into the history of this disgraceful connection I do not intend to enter, any more than to say, that afterwards an action was brought against Colonel Wardle for the value of the furniture supplied to this house, as was alleged, on the faith of his personal promise. William Thomas Lewis, for many years a popular comedian, and acting manager of Covent Garden Theatre, died at his residence in Westbourne Place on January 13th, 1811. No. 23 was once the residence of Miss Corbaux, celebrated as a painter, and for her knowledge in those most recondite of studies, the histories and languages of the ancient nations of the East. WESTBOURNE STREET branches off Westbourne Place. Mr. Smith, author of “A History of Marylebone,” once lived here. In this street is a Baptist Chapel. Formerly, on a part of this ground, was York Hospital, a depôt for invalid soldiers, and named after the Duke of York. Here for two years, _without pay_, Mr. Guthrie, the eminent surgeon, attended on the poor fellows maimed at Waterloo. The establishment, in 1819, was removed to Chatham. CHAPTER VI. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SUMMARY. “The more carefully we examine the history of the past, the more reason shall we find to dissent from those who imagine that our age has been fruitful of new social evils. The truth is that the evils are, with scarcely an exception, old. That which is new is the intelligence which discerns, and the humanity which remedies them.”—MACAULAY. HAVING with the previous chapter brought my account of Knightsbridge to a close, I cannot more appropriately conclude than by a few remarks on subjects coming within the scope of the heading of this chapter. But here again my notes must necessarily be meagre and brief, for Knightsbridge never having been of itself parochial, books, such as generally form the staple of such chapters as this, have never been kept to show, with the accuracy parish books do, the rise and progress of the place. The population of the parish of St. George, Hanover Square, was, according to the census of 1851, 73,230 persons, of whom 40,034 were within the two wards of Knightsbridge and Pimlico; and of this number, about 14,000 are resident in the district of St. Paul’s. The population of All Saints’ district cannot with accuracy be tested, a large part of it lying beyond our bounds; and building having made very extensive progress even since 1851, its population has increased in proportion.