Seed sown upon the waters, we are told, may bring forth fruit after many days. This chapter tells the story of seed sown on very stony soil, which brought forth fruit twenty-five years later. In 1878, Mr. George Anderson, an eminent consulting gas engineer, in whom business had not abated human sympathy, passed every morning on his way to his chambers in Westminster, by the Lambeth Palace grounds. He was struck by the contrast of the spacious and idle acres adjoining the Palace and the narrow, dismal streets where poor children peered in corners and alleys. The sheep in the Palace grounds were fat and florid, and the children in the street were lean and pallid. The smoke from works around dyed dark the fleece of the sheep.
Mr. Anderson thought how much happier a sight it would be to see the children take the place of the sheep, and asked me if something could not be done.
The difficulty of rescuing or of alienating nine acres of land from the Church, so skilled in holding, did not seem a hopeful undertaking, while the resentment of good vicars and expectant curates might surely be counted upon. Nevertheless the attempt was worth making.
Before long I spent portions of some days in exploring the Palace grounds, and interviewing persons who had evidence to give, or interest to use, on behalf of a change which seemed so desirable.
Eventually I brought the matter before a meeting I knew to be interested in ethical improvement, and read to them the draft of a memorial that I thought ought to be sent to the Archbishop at Lambeth Palace. Persons in stations low and high alike, often suffer wrong to exist which they might arrest, because they have not seen it to be wrong or have not been told that it is so. Blame of any one could not be justly expressed who had not personal knowledge of an evil complained of. Therefore I urged that we should give the Archbishop information which we thought justified his action, and I was authorised to send to him the memorial I had read.
I wrote myself to his Grace, stating that I could testify as to the social facts detailed in the memorial I enclosed, which was as follows:—
"May it please your Grace,—We, the evening congregation assembled in South Place Chapel, Finsbury—some assenting and some dissenting from the tenets represented by your Grace—represented as worthily as by any one who has occupied your high station, and with greater fairness to those who stand outside the Church than is shown by many prelates—we pray your Grace to give heed to a secular plea on behalf of certain little neighbours of yours whom, amid the pressure of spiritual duties, your Grace may have overlooked.
"Crouching under the very walls of Lambeth Palace, where your Grace has the pleasant responsibility of illustrating the opulence and paternal sympathy of the legal Church of the land, lie streets as dismal, cheerless, and discreditable as any that God in His wrath ever permitted to remain unconsumed. In the houses are polluted air, squalor, dirt and pale-faced children. The only green thing upon which their feverish eyes could look is enclosed in your Grace's Palace Park, and shut out from their sight by dead walls. What we pray is that your Grace, in mercy and humanity, will substitute for those penal walls some pervious palisades through which children may behold the refreshing paradise of Nature, though they may never enter therein. In this ever-crowding metropolis, where field and tree belong to the extinct sights of a happier age, children are born and die without ever knowing their soothing charm, and hunger and thirst for a green thing to look upon—as sojourners in a desert do for the sight of shrub or water. No prayer your Grace could offer to heaven would be so welcome in its kindly courts, as the prayer of gladness and gratitude which would go up with the screams of change and joy from the pallid little ones, breathing the fresh air from the green meadows, which only a few more fortunate sheep now enjoy.
"Might we pray that the gates should be open, and that the children themselves should be free to enter the meadows? Even the Temple Gardens of the City are open to little friendless people. They who give this gracious permission are hard-souled lawyers, usually regarded as representing the rigid, exacting, and unsympathetic side of human life—yet they show such noble tenderness to the little miserables who crawl round the Temple pavement, that they grant entrance to their splendid gardens; and half-clad cellar urchins from the purlieus of Drury Lane and Clare Market romp with their ragged sisters on the glorious grass, in the sight and scent of beauteous flowers. If lawyers do this, may we not ask it of one who is appointed to represent what we are told is the kindliness and tenderness of Christianity, and whose Master said, 'Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven'? We ask not that they should personally approach your Grace, but that the children of your desolate neighbourhood should be allowed to disport in the vacant meadows of the Palace—that their souls may acquire some scent of Nature which their lives may never know.
"Let your Grace take a walk down 'Royal Street,' which flanks your Palace grounds, and see whether houses so pestilential ever stood in a street of so dainty a name? Go into the houses (as the writer of this memorial has) and see how a blank wall has been kept up so that no occupant of the rooms may look on grass or tree, and the window which admits light and air has been turned, by order of a former archbishop, the opposite way upon an outlook as wretched as the lot of the inhabitants. For forty years many inmates have lived and slept by the side of your Grace's park, without ever being allowed a glimpse of it. You may have no power to cancel such social outrage—but your Grace may. condone it by kindly and considerately according the use of the meadows to the poor children—doomed to burrow in these close, unwholesome tenements at your doors.
"No one accuses your Grace of being wanting in personal kindliness. It must be that no one has called your attention to the unregarded misery under the shadow of your Palace. Should your Grace visit the forlorn streets and sickly homes around you, and hear the despairing words of the mothers when asked 'whether they would not be grateful could their children have a daily run in the great Archbishop's meadows?' there would not be wanting a plea from the gentle heart of the Lady of the Palace on behalf of these hapless children of these poor mothers.
"Disregard not our appeal, we pray, because ours are unlicensed voices. Humanity is of every creed, and it will not detract from the glory of the Church that gratitude and praise should proceed from unaccustomed tongues.
"Signed on behalf of the Assembly, with deference and respect.
"George Jacob Holyoake.
"Newcastle Chambers, Temple Bar,
"November 21, 1878."
Within two days I had the pleasure to receive a reply from the Archbishop.
"Philpstoun House,
"November 23, 1878.
"Sir,—You may feel confident that the subject of the memorial which you have forwarded to me with your letter of the 21st will receive my attentive consideration. The condition of the inhabitants of the poor streets in Lambeth has often given me anxiety. My daughters and Mrs. Tait are well acquainted with many of the houses which you describe, and, so far as my other duties have allowed, I have taken opportunities of visiting some of the inmates of such houses personally. I should esteem it a great privilege if I were able to assist in maturing any scheme for improving the dwellings of the poor families to which your memorial alludes. Respecting the use of the open ground which surrounds Lambeth Palace, I have, in common with my predecessors, had the subject often under consideration. The plan which has been adopted and which has appeared on the whole the best for the interests of the neighbourhood, has been that now pursued for many years. The ground is freely given for cricket and football to as many schools and clubs as it is capable of containing, and, on application, liberty of entrance is accorded to children and others. Many school treats are also held in the grounds, and they are from time to time used for volunteer corps to exercise in. We have always been afraid that a more public opening of the grounds would interfere with the useful purposes to which they are at present turned for the benefit of the neighbourhood, and that, considering the somewhat limited extent of the space, no advantage could be secured by throwing it entirely open, which would at all compensate for the loss of the advantages at present enjoyed. I shall give the matter serious consideration, consulting with those best qualified from local experience to judge what is best for the neighbourhood, but my present impression is that more good is, on the whole, done by the arrangements now adopted, than by any other which I could devise.
"I have the honour to be, Sir,
"Your obedient humble servant,
"A. C. Cantuar.
"To Mr. George Jacob Holyoake."
This correspondence I sent to the Daily News, always open to questions of interest to the people, and it received notice in various papers. The Liverpool Daily Mail gave an effective summary of the memorial, saying:—
"Of all strange people in the world, Mr. G. J. Holyoake and the Archbishop of Canterbury have been in correspondence—and not in unfriendly correspondence either. Mr. Holyoake, on behalf of himself and some friends like-minded, ventured to draw the Archbishop's attention to the fact that just opposite Lambeth Palace was a nest of very poor and squalid dwellings, in which many families were crowded together, without any regard for either decency or sanitary law. The only chance of looking upon anything green that the children of these poor people could have would be in the grounds that surround the Primate's dwelling, and these were absolutely shut off from their view by a high dead wall. In some cases a former Archbishop had actually ordered the windows of these miserable houses to be blocked up, and opened in another direction, in order, we suppose, that the Archiepiscopal eyes might not be offended by the sight of such unpleasant neighbours." The writer ended by expressing the hope that if the Archbishop could not open the grounds he might substitute "pervious palisades" for the stone walls impervious to the curious and wistful eyes of children. For reasons which will appear, the subject slumbered for four years, when I addressed the following letter to the editors of the Telegraph and the Times, which appeared December 20, 1882:—
"Sir,—On returning to England I read an announcement that the Lambeth Vestry had resolved to send a memorial to the Queen praying that the nine acres of field, now devoted to sheep, adjoining the Archbishop of Canterbury's Palace garden, may be appropriated to public recreation in that crowded and verdureless parish. Four years ago I sent a memorial upon this subject to the late Archbishop. It set forth that the parish was so densely populated that it would be an act of mercy to throw open the sheep fields to the poor children of the neighbourhood. It expressed the hope that Mrs. Tait, whose compassionate nature was known to the people, would plead for these little ones, who lived and died at her very door, as it were, seeing no green thing during all their wretched days. I visited poor women in the street next to the fields who brought fever-stricken children to the door wrapped in shawls. Their mothers told me how glad they should be were the gates open, that the little ones, whose only recreation ground was the gutter, could enter at will. The memorial—if I remember accurately, for I cannot refer to it as I write—stated that the houses which, as built, overlooked the fields, had had the windows bricked in by order of a former Archbishop, because they overlooked the garden. I was taken to the rooms and found that the view was closed up. The trees of the garden have well grown now, and a telescope could not reveal walkers therein. The late Archbishop sent me a kindly reply, but it did not answer my question, which was that, if his Grace could not consent to open the gates to his humble friends, we prayed that he, whose Master (in words of tenderness which had moved the hearts of men during nineteen centuries) had said, 'Suffer little children to come unto Me,' would at least substitute palisades for the dead walls which hid the green fields so that no little eyes could see the daisies in the spring. His Grace's reply was in substance the same as Dr. Randall Davidson's, which appeared in the Times on Monday, who tells the public that rifle corps and cricketers are admitted to the fields and that 'arrangements are made for "treats" for infant and other schools' (whether of all denominations is not stated). How can poor mothers and sickly children get within these 'arrangements'? Cricketers are not helpless, rifle corps do not die for want of drill-grounds, as children in fever-dens do for want of the refreshment of verdure and pure air. To open the gates is the only generous and fitting thing to do, as the lawyers have who admit the outcasts of Drury and the adjacent lanes to the flowers of the Temple Gardens. Dr. Davidson says that the advice of those 'best qualified from local experience to judge' is that 'no gain could be secured by throwing the fields entirely open.' Let the opinion be asked of workmen in the Lambeth factories and that of their wives. These are the 'best qualified local judges,' whose verdict would be instructive. Mrs. Tait's illness and death followed soon after the memorial in question was sent in, and I thought it not the time to press his Grace further when stricken with that calamity. All honour to the Lambeth Vestry, which proposes to pray Her Majesty to cause, if in her power, these vacant fields to be consigned to the Board of Works, who will give some gleam of a green paradise to the poor little ones of Lambeth. The vestry does well to appeal to the Queen, from whose kindly heart a thousand acts of sympathy have emanated. She has opened many portals, but none through which happier or more grateful groups will pass than through the garden gates of Lambeth Palace."
Immediately a letter appeared in the Times from the Rev. T. B. Robertson, expressed as follows:—
"Sir,—Mr. Holyoake may be glad to hear that 'Lambeth Green' is open to schools of all denominations to hold their festivals in. I should think that no school was ever refused the use unless the field was previously engaged. The present method of utilising the field—viz., opening it to a large but limited number of persons (by ticket) seems about the best that could be devised. Mr. Holyoake asks how poor mothers and sickly children are to gain entrance. It is well known in the neighbourhood that tickets of admission are issued annually. The days for distribution are advertised on the gates some time previous, when those desirous of using the grounds can attend, and the tickets are issued till exhausted. No sick person has any difficulty in getting admission. I do not know the number of tickets issued, but I have seen when cricket clubs were unable to find a place to pitch their stumps. If the grounds are open to the public without limitation, it seems that the only way it could be done would be by laying it out in gardens and gravelled walks, with the usual park seats; but there is hardly occasion for such a place since the formation of the Thames Embankment, a long strip of which runs immediately in front of the Palace well provided with seats. It is evident that if the grounds were open to the public in general, the space being small—about seven acres—the cricketers and other clubs would have to give up their sports, and Lambeth schools and societies would be deprived of their only meeting-place for summer gatherings.
"Yours obediently,
"T. B. Robertson,
"Curate of St. Mary, Lambeth.
"December 22."
The comment of the Times upon this letter made it necessary to address a further communication to the editor. This comment occurred in a leader which, referring to a letter of the Lambeth Curate, says: "Mr. Holyoake, in a letter which we published on Wednesday, asked with some vehemence, what was the value of permission accorded to cricketers and schools, to the poor children of Lambeth; but Mr. Robertson, the Curate of St. Mary's, Lambeth, answers this morning, that no poor or sick person has any difficulty in obtaining admission for purposes of recreation and health, and shows that 'Lambeth Green,' as it is called, is in fact available to a large class of the neighbouring inhabitants. There is certainly force in Mr. Robertson's argument, that an unlimited use would defeat its own object, which is presumably to preserve the grounds as a playground. The large surrounding population would soon destroy the sylvan and park-like character of the place, and necessitate its laying out in the style of an ornamental pleasure garden, with formal walks, and turf only to be kept green by fencing."
This is the old defence of exclusive enjoyment of parks and pleasure grounds, as the people, if admitted to them, would destroy them—which they do not. Why should they destroy what they value?
My reply to the Times appeared December 28, 1882:—
"Sir,—It is the weight that you attach to the letter of the Curate of St Mary, Lambeth, which appeared in the Times of Saturday, which makes it important. When I have viewed the Lambeth Palace from the railway which overlooks it and seen how completely the sheep fields are separate and apart from the Archbishop's garden, it has seemed a pity that the poor little children of Lambeth should not have the freedom and privilege of those sheep. No humane person could look into the houses of the crowded and cheerless streets which lie near the Palace walls without wishing to take the children by the hand into the Palace fields at once. Does the Rev. Mr. Robertson not understand the difference between a ticket gate and an open gate? How are poor, busy women to watch the gates to find out when the annual tickets of admission are given? And what is the chance of those families who arrive after 'the number issued is exhausted'? If all the persons who need admissions can have them, the gates might as well be thrown open. Of course, the nine acres would not hold all the parish; but all the parish would not go at once. No statement has been made which shows that the grounds have been occupied by tickets of admission more than forty days in the year, whereas there are............