Transcribed from the 1849 Lavis edition by David Price.  Many thanks to the British Library for making their copy available.

A LETTER
TO THE
PARISHIONERS OF FULHAM.

BY THE
REV. R. G. BAKER, M.A.
VICAR.

SOLD BY LAVIS, FULHAM; WILSON, WALHAM GREEN;
BARKER, NORTH END
1849.

Price Fourpence.

p. 2LONDON:
R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL.

p. 3A LETTER
TO THE
PARISHIONERS OF FULHAM.

Fulham Vicarage,
29th Oct. 1849.

My dear Parishioners,

The Cholera has visited Fulham the second time.  When it prevailed in 1832, it was always understood that two deaths only in this parish were to be traced to that fearful pestilence as their cause.  But in the nine weeks closing on the 8th instant, not only had the mortality exceeded fourfold the average of the same period for the five preceding years, but in this unusual number of 127 deaths, no fewer than 56 were certified to the registrar, by the medical practitioners who attended the cases, as having arisen from cholera.  In 35 instances, the previous illness did not exceed twenty-four hours; and in 18 of them, it was less than twelve hours.

There is another striking circumstance which attended our recent visitation.  Of the deaths p. 4registered within this short and fatal period, it is recorded that

Thus it appears that 58 of these deaths, a number not far removed from one moiety of the whole, occurred within those ages which are commonly considered the least susceptible of the influences which shorten life.  The year was passed below which the highest range of infantine mortality prevails: for it is well known that in England at large, one quarter of the children born, and in some of the larger towns one half of them, die before they attain their fifth year.  Nor had the period of life arrived when the growing infirmities, or the confirmed chronic diseases of extreme old age bring so many to the grave.  Fifty-eight of our fellow-parishioners were carried off in nine weeks, between five years old and fifty-five; and in some of the most distressing instances, those constitutions gave way the most rapidly which appeared the healthiest and the hardiest of the neighbourhood.

But there is one more remarkable fact to be noticed in reviewing, as we are now mercifully permitted to do, the results of this dispensation, that in all the p. 5cases of cholera which ended fatally, the sufferers, with three only exceptions, belonged to the class of our poorest neighbours.  They are recorded as either labourers, or the wives, widows, or children of labourers.  They were, therefore, living in those parts of the parish where the dwellings are the most easily to be procured, which fall within reach of the means possessed by persons of this description.  And I grieve to say that they are for the most part overcrowded with inmates, badly ventilated, badly drained, and commanding a very scanty supply of good water, whether adapted for drinking or for household purposes.

It is not my object in this letter to dwell upon the painful reflections which are suggested by the fact of so many of our immediate neighbours having been summoned thus rapidly into eternity in the very midst of life; nor upon the profitable, and, indeed, most awakening lessons, of spiritual and eternal import, which their removal has left to be treasured up by us, who have been spared in mercy to survive them.

Still less do I feel myself called upon to inquire how far the facts to which I have above referred, in showing the mortality of our own parish, are confirmed by the experience of others more or less similarly circumstanced, whether in respect to their level, their population, their sewerage, or their supply of water.

It would seem to be a main practical advantage to be gained from the national judgment from which we p. 6are now recovering, if the inhabitants of each district, bound together by many common ties and responsibilities, would apply their minds diligently to consider by what preventable causes the calamitous results of it have been aggravated in their own immediate localities, and by what attainable measures it may be hoped to avert or to mitigate the recurrence of them, before another such dispensation shall arise.  While the impressions are yet vivid and authentic of the trial through which we have passed, let us endeavour, as far as we can, in the faithful discharge of our duty towards God and our neighbour, to turn to account, at our own doors, the experience which it has left us.

The truth is, that I am the more anxious to submit to you the proposal contained in the present letter, and to solicit your intelligent and impartial examination of it, because it is nothing more now than a sequel to those measures which were brought under your notice at our meeting on the 17th instant, and which you unanimously sanctioned.

It was agreed by us on that occasion to address a memorial to the Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers, calling their attention to the utterly defective state of the drainage of the parish, and requesting them to effect an uniform and complete provision for it in all the inhabited districts.  This memorial has since been forwarded to the Commissioners, with 160 signatures affixed to it, representing a proportion of p. 7the property assessed to the parochial rates equal to 15,000l. [7a]

Another resolution, for promoting the immediate erection of public wells and pumps for the use of the poor, was also adopted at the meeting in question.  A subscription of above 250l., since increased to 293l., was raised to defray the expenses of them; and there is every reason to believe, that through the exertions of the Committee who have undertaken to administer this fund, several of these wells will forthwith be completed in different parts of the parish, in situations most easily accessible to the larger populations of the poor, and the least likely to be affected by the cesspools and other collections of impurities, which in most instances make their present pumps perfectly useless.  They will thus enjoy near their own doors a constant supply of that pure drinking water, which, it is well known, may easily be obtained within a few feet of the surface, in almost every locality of this neighbourhood; and of which the want has been most confidently declared, by the medical inspectors of the Board of Health, to have been one of the chief aggravations of our late unhealthiness. [7b]

There were several persons, indeed, present on the 17th inst., who were prepared and even desirous to hear another proposition brought forward, connected with the domiciliary condition of the poor, and tending p. 8to correct an evil in their present dwellings, confessedly far more difficult to reach than either their defective sewerage, or their scanty provision of water.  And it is one which not only affects most seriously their sanitary state, but impairs all the decency of their daily habits of life, and nearly defeats whatever means can be attempted for the improvement of their spiritual and moral character.  I allude to the crowded manner in which they live together; the landlord of the house too often entirely regardless of any rule for restricting the number of its inmates; and his tenants sometimes deriving a large profit, beyond the amount of their own rent, from the numerous under-tenants whom they admit, without scruple or restraint, to share in the occupation of them.  Thus it happens not unfrequently, that into a cottage with two small bed-rooms, built and adapted only for a single family, two or even three other families, besides individual lodgers, are admitted.  And from that hour must the inmates of it be compelled to abandon all the happy arrangements of household cleanliness, decency, and order.  Mr. Rouse, in his faithful and elaborate MS. Report on the sanitary condition of a large part of this parish, states, that he has known in the summer twenty-six persons living in such an house: and from fifteen to twenty is the frequent number of their inmates.  But while it ought to be stated that the worst cases of this kind occur among the Irish p. 9labourers, they prevail to a greater or a less extent in all the following districts, viz.: Parson’s Green Lane, Peterborough Row, Sand End, Garden Row, Carpenter’s Row, Dawe’s Lane, Wheat-Sheaf Alley, Gain’s Buildings, Bedford Place, Stanley Place, the cottages near Normand House, Orchard Place, Buckler’s Alley, the Old Greyhound Cottages, Marsh Croft, Sun Street, Star Lane, and Willow Place.

And it is a melancholy fact, that while in some other parts of Fulham a considerable number of small houses have been built within the last few years, of a more substantial and commodious style, in order to meet the increasing wants of this portion of the inhabitants, better drained, better ventilated, and in some more healthy localities, they are gradually lapsing into the same state.  A very few of them once becoming occupied in this comfortless manner lower the credit of those contiguous to them.  One tenant sets a bad example to the rest: and thus in the very districts where some hope had been encouraged for a time of better things, the same baneful system of crowding the houses with lodgers is spreading.

The history of these masses of ill-regulated dwellings is, alas! uniform and instructive.  Some speculating builder or other, oftentimes unknown in the neighbourhood, and having no sympathy with the miseries which he inflicts upon it, becomes possessed of a narrow slip of land, the mere frontage of a road or p. 10a footpath, and erects upon it a collection of low, slightly built cottages, with windows wholly unsuited to them, with no drainage but that of cesspools, confined in their dimensions, rarely emptied, and saturating with their noxious contents not only the adjacent soil, but even the walls of the houses close to which they are often placed; with no pumps for drinking-water but such as soon become tainted by the contiguity of these very cesspools; and with no provision of other water, but that which an occasional cart, drawn by a miserable donkey, brings dear-bought to the door.  High rents, far beyond the means of the tenants, but sternly collected as each week comes round, can only be met by the vicious practice of subletting each room or fraction of a room which can by any sacrifice be dispensed with.  Even the essential whitewashing of the walls within is sometimes imposed as a burden upon the occupier, who of course does it in the most careless way, instead of its being undertaken by the landlord.  And whenever the work of dilapidation begins in one of these tenements, each successive tenant, flying from his hard bargain, leaves it of course more dismantled than he found it; until they become utterly unfit for the occupation of human beings, whether under the summer sun, striking upon their slight and exposed roofs, or the winter wind, penetrating the settlements of their walls and the cracks of their windows.

p. 11This account may, I believe, be taken as an accurate description of the average character of these dwellings which are now provided, without the option or alternative of any others, for the large and rapidly increasing poor populations of the suburbs of London.  Such, I am confident, is the character of those at Fulham.  Let it be remembered that every improvement of the worst built streets of London has a direct tendency to swell the number of these inhabitants of its suburbs.  And if it be true that they enjoy, some from the very nature of their occupations, and all from the position of their houses, a more free ventilation during the day than is attainable by the pent-up inhabitants of the narrow alleys and courts of the metropolis itself, yet is there not one among them who can have access to the improved dwellings, or to the baths and wash-houses, now in successful operation for the health and comfort even of the poorest classes, (though still upon a scale too limited to be extensively useful,) in the parishes of Whitechapel, St. Pancras, St. Martin, and Marylebone.  Within the last ten days the boon of these last-named valuable institutions has been promised to the densely peopled district of Lambeth.

There is one fact connected with the late epidemic to which I cannot forbear requesting your serious attention, and which, I have little doubt, would be abundantly confirmed, if requisite, by a reference to p. 12the experience of other places.  Whenever the disorder affected the inmates of some of the less crowded and better regulated houses, its progress was comparatively slow; the symptoms were accessible to those medicines or palliatives, of which the gracious Providence of God has taught us the value; and by these means the last fatal issue was sometimes averted.  But whenever it assailed even the healthiest inmate of one of those wretched abodes which I have described, the subtle poison took its course at once; no remedies availed to reach it, and the only symptom was Death.

Does not this fact speak volumes as to what we ought to do in endeavouring to improve these dwellings of our poorer brethren, before the Cholera comes again to visit us?

Of the extreme difficulty of the question, indeed, no one who has ever considered it can deem lightly.  Nor is it likely that this difficulty will be effectually removed until the country has the wisdom to bear, and the legislature the firmness to enact some new statute that can reach it.  Hitherto, unhappily, our legislation, with the best purpose, has only aggravated the evil which it sought to correct, and has thus been moving in the wrong direction.  The Building Act made it penal for any person to lodge in a cellar, of which the height came below a certain standard, or its window within a certain width; and the only effect of this p. 13prohibition has been to drive the cellar lodgers into the attics, where they are stowed more closely than before.  The claims of reason, and morality, and common decency have been urged in vain against this fearful state of things.  But since it has been proved, by the history of such a season as that through which we have been lately carried, to involve the actual considerations of life and death, some power will surely, ere long, be called forth to correct it.  If the cupidity of the proprietors of a steam-boat or an omnibus can be restrained, in order that the capacity of those vehicles may be defined, and that we may travel uncrowded in our journeys to and from the metropolis, has it not become at length necessary that some attempt should be made to regulate the stowage of a bed-room, and to rescue civilized and immortal beings from the ruinous consequences of their present mode of living?

If ever such a measure is passed, it will afford a better scope than now exists for the operations of those useful schemes with which we have become familiar under the title of the “Labourers’ Friend Societies,” the “Societies for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes,” and the “Associations for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes.”  Whenever any considerable number of the inmates of the present houses of the poor are compelled to quit them, there will then be a demand created, and at length, it may be hoped, a taste formed for others more conducive to their health, p. 14and better adapted to their social improvement than those to which they are now doomed. [14]

Meanwhile these Societies have solved one most important problem, which cannot too forcibly be urged upon us.  They have shown, that without any appeals to the benevolence of the public, healthy and comfortable dwellings can be provided for the working classes of the community, upon reasonable rents, with a remuneration of higher interest for the investment than can be obtained in the Public Securities to those who may be induced to embark their money in such undertakings.

My wish is to propose to you a plan for securing to the poor of our own parish the benefits of one of these institutions, and for gaining the sanction of our own Vestry to the first measure required for the adoption of it.

It must be well known to many of those whom I am now addressing, and ought to be known to all, that in the year 1837, with the joint consent of the copyholders of the two parishes of Fulham and Hammersmith, nine acres of the waste land known by the name of Wormholt p. 15Scrubs, were taken by the Directors of the Great Western Railway Company, at 150l. per acre, for the prosecution of their works.  The sum paid for this purchase was invested in 1487l. 12s. 1d., 3 per cent. consols, in the names of G. Carr Glyn, Esq., Mr. John Knight, and Mr. George Bird, the first of these gentlemen being selected to represent the interest of the Directors, and the other two those of the parishes which have a common interest in the land in question.  The stock still remains in the names of the same individuals, and the dividends having been regularly invested as they accrued, although in a different account, the whole amount now exceeds 2,200l.  There is a prevalent, and, I believe, a well-grounded opinion, that under the terms of the agreement made between the Copyholders and the Company, the period has expired, within which the latter had the option of giving land instead of money in exchange for the waste of which they had thus become possessed; and that consequently the whole amount of the stock thus described, the original investment, as well as the accumulated dividends, will fall, under the provisions of the Railway Act, in equal moieties, to the disposal of the Vestries of the two parishes.

I am well aware that other schemes have been devised for the appropriation of this fund, which, I apprehend, the Vestry will in that case deem it their duty to devote to some object of permanent p. 16utility and benevolence.  A disposition exists in favour of alms-houses, either the erection of new ones, or the better endowment of those already existing.  But I may surely remind you, that within the last year the intention has been announced of a most munificent, though unknown benefactor, to found twelve new and amply-endowed alms-houses at Fulham, and thus to meet the additional demand, which, I admit, always exists in such districts for these valuable institutions.  And I would submit to you, whether a wiser, or more seasonable mode can be found for applying the fund in question, than to devote it to the purchase of a piece of ground, centrally and conveniently accessible to our poor, in the several occupations which they follow, upon which either common dwelling-houses or separate cottages may be built, with airy and well-ventilated rooms, with moderate rents, to be collected weekly, and with an absolute exclusion of lodgers beyond the members of the family to which each house or apartment is separately let.

The land, thus purchased, might be conveyed to trustees named by the Vestry, for the express purpose of building upon it such dwellings as I have described, upon an uniform and well-considered plan, and with an efficient agency to ensure an adherence to it.  And if a suitable site could thus be attained for the object, there is reason to believe that persons might offer the capital requisite for the building, from the two-fold p. 17motive of the dividend which they would realize, and of the benefits which they would confer upon the poorer parishioners.  An improved sewerage, whenever it can be effected upon a proper scale, would provide a better scheme of drains than that to which they are now accustomed in their ill-placed and inadequate cesspools.  And since the proprietors of the West-Middlesex Water-works have already carried their supply into the northern and western extremities of the parish, the further demand that would be created for their water would induce them to bring it to the buildings in question; and would not only enable the proprietors of them to lay on soft water to every room at a very moderate expense, for the convenience of the immediate occupiers, but also for a supply to baths and wash-houses to be erected on a portion of the site, for the equal use of other districts of the parish, if any sufficient encouragement can be given to such a scheme.  And such establishments, it has now been ascertained, can also be maintained upon the self-supporting principle, whenever an adequate quantity of water can be gained for their consumption, and a proper drainage for carrying it off.

It only remains for me to suggest, that if you should shrink from the adoption of a scheme at once so extensive and so responsible, from the obvious difficulty of creating an agency in this parish adequate to p. 18the proper superintendence of it, we might, having secured a site for the buildings, confide the erection and management of them to the Association incorporated by Royal Charter in 1845, and known as “The Metropolitan Association for improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes.”  The following sentence is quoted from its prospectus; and any person who may wish to make himself acquainted with its actual operations, has only to visit the houses erected by the Directors in the old Pancras-road, leading from King’s-Cross to Camden Town, or those now in progress near Spicer-street, Spitalfields.

“The terms of the Charter do not restrict the operations of the Association to the metropolis; and the Directors have made arrangements for imparting the benefits, privileges, and immunities, granted by the Charter under this Association to Branch Societies, in districts wherein a sufficient number of shareholders shall be desirous of erecting improved dwellings for the industrious classes.  The effect of these arrangements will be to ensure (as far as possible) the success of local undertakings, at the same time that those benevolent individuals who may be disposed to subscribe for the benefit of their respective neighbourhoods, will be made secure against all individual claim and liability whatsoever.  Application has already been received from the parish of Hampstead to be admitted as an Incorporated Branch p. 19Association, and similar applications are expected from other quarters.”

I am well aware, indeed, that objections are often raised to any scheme, either of public benefit or of private accommodation in this parish, which requires the command of ground, from the alleged difficulty of obtaining it; and no one can be ignorant how well founded these objections are, who has adverted to the tenures under which large portions of the land situate within the bounds of Fulham are held.  But, on the other hand, we cannot forget within what a comparatively recent period sites have been purchased for different purposes, all requiring, like that for which I am here pleading, open space, free ventilation, and ready means of access.  I need only enumerate the Roman Catholic church, schools, burial-ground, and residence for the priest; the new Union Workhouse; and the situation secured for the Alms-houses already referred to.  The successive fulfilment of these schemes serves to show what may be effected by influence and perseverance.  Nor can I allow myself to doubt, that, if it shall please God to excite among us a real feeling of interest and anxiety adequate to the object, we may, even before the present year has expired, see some plot of ground placed at the disposal of the Vestry, combining all the requisites which the project calls for.  And surely, if we may rejoice in the reflection that an improved Workhouse, with all the watchful and p. 20humane administration which, we may hope, will characterise it, will provide for our orphan, or deserted, or disabled poor, deserted in their infancy, or disabled through the infirmities of old age; and that our various Alms-houses will secure a comfortable maintenance to many respectable individuals who have known better days, and have been brought, without any fault of their own, to need the helping hand of others; we may value it as an equal, if not a paramount duty, to do at least what we can in improving the dwellings of some families among our hard-working and intelligent, and still independent poor; providing for their health, advancing their comforts, and rescuing their children from the demoralizing associations of their present homes.  I cannot believe that the difficulties, which confessedly surround the question, are insuperable.  Let us, at least, give our minds faithfully to the consideration of them.

Believe me,

My dear Parishioners,
Your sincere friend and well-wisher,

R. G. BAKER.

p. 21Memorial of the undersigned Owners and Occupiers of Land or Houses, situate within the Parish of Fulham, and assessed to the Poor-rate in the amount annexed to each of their Signatures.

This Memorial sheweth,—

That the Sewerage of the parish of Fulham, containing by admeasurement 1,648 acres, with a population, according to the census of 1841, of 9,319 persons, but since very considerably increased, with about 2,000 inhabited houses, and with a property assessed at 40,000l., is at this time in a most defective state;

That some portions of the parish are liable to a Sewers rate, without deriving any benefit from the application thereof;

That nearly the whole of the houses have no drainage whatever beyond that of cesspools, which in many of the districts occupied by the labouring classes, who are chiefly employed in the market gardens, are badly constructed, placed in situations closely contiguous to the dwellings, and wholly inadequate to provide for the large accumulation of dirt constantly formed and decomposing in such localities;

That during the prevalence of the recent epidemic, the mortality for nine successive weeks, ending on the 8th instant, exceeded fourfold the average mortality of the same season during the five preceding years, nearly one-half of the deaths being certified to the Registrar, by the p. 22medical practitioners who attended the cases, as having arisen from cholera, in many instances of the most malignant character, and nearly all in those districts where the drainage is most neglected, and among the poorest classes of the inhabitants;

And that, without insisting upon the personal privations and discomforts accruing at all times to the Parishioners at large, and especially to the poor, who are the worst provided with means to correct and palliate them, from such a state of things, the parish will be exposed, upon any recurrence of so fearful a visitation, to the same calamitous results, which the Memorialists believe might mainly be averted by an uniform and effectual Sewerage, extending throughout the inhabited portions thereof.

The Memorialists, therefore, desire to represent to the Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers their earnest desire that they will, as soon as may be compatible with the other demands upon them in the fulfilment of their arduous office, direct their special inquiries and care to the parish of Fulham, and provide it with a complete system of Sewers, adequate to the wants of its large and continually increasing population.

p. 23List of Subscriptions to the Fund for providing Public Pumps, for the use of the poor Inhabitants of Fulham.  (6th November, 1849.)

Any further Contributions to this Fund will be thankfully received by J. Horsley Palmer, Esq. the Treasurer; by the Parochial Clergy, or by Mr. Hackman, the Vestry Clerk.

R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL.

FOOTNOTES.

[7a]  See page 21.

[7b]  See page 23.

[14]  It is stated by Lord Ashley, in a Letter published by him on the 16th instant, that not a single case of Cholera, and two only of Diarrhœa, which yielded speedily to medical treatment, occurred in all the establishments of the Labourers’ Friend Society in London.  And this statement was confirmed by the experience of the Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Poor.