Chelsea Old Church

Captain Archer was so enthusiastic a searcher after the truth about the Lawrences in America, that I am glad to quote one of his results, at all events. A large volume of his papers has lately been acquired by the British Museum.

Thomas Lawrence styles himself in the preamble Gentleman, His Majesty's Secretary of the Province of Maryland.' He leaves his funeral arrangements to his friend Major William Dent as a last act of friendship in a country where I am a stranger, he having been a just and kind friend to my father and self-appoints him sole administrator' to render an account of all my estate as well as of my father's' and to return the residue of both estates unto Sir Thos. Lawrence, Bart., excepting such legacies as are left by me in this country.' 'I give unto my beloved father all the money and tobacco that shall be found due to me, except ten thousand pounds of tobacco that will be found due to me, and a ring of five pounds which I bequeath to Major William Dent' . . . 'After my assets are returned to England, my father to give to my honoured mother £50 sterling and a ring'. 'to my brothers and sisters* each a mourning ring' . . . 'to Mrs. Crawford Simpson my watch'. . . dated 9th March 1699-1700. Signature and seal of arms.

'The Deposition of His Excellency Nathaniel Blakiston Esq., taken 19 April 1701. That on Tuesday morning being the 15th inst, some few hours before the Honourable Thomas Lawrence Esquire Secretary of this Province died . . . the said Mr. Lawrence acquainted his Excellency that he had made his will' and that he had done an unadvised thing therein, which was, bequeathing his watch to Mrs. Crawford Simpson, which he then desired might be given to his sister Mrs. Margaret Lawrence.'

The reasonable supposition that none of the three sons of Sir Thomas Lawrence left any issue is confirmed by the fact that the Chelsea property passed to its present owners through Sir Thomas' only surviving daughter, Margaret (see p. 181, infra).

In Nicol's "Leicestershire "(vol. iv. pp. 311-12) is an abstract of some deeds relating to the Manor of Misterton in that county, the

* Sic.

first of which dated 5 May 1710, is a settlement of property made in consideration of a marriage intended between Crew Offley, of the Parish of S. Giles'-in-the-Fields, and Margaret, spinster, only daughter of Sir Thomas Lawrence of Chelsea and Dame Anne his wife.

This Crew Offley (whom I am unable to identify with "Rinaldo ") was the younger son of John Offley, of Madeley, in the county of Stafford, and his wife Anne, daughter and heiress of John Crew of Crew in the county of Chester. His elder brother, John Crew Offley, dropped his surname of Offley, and from him is descended the present Lord Crewe.

In the Chelsea Registers are these entries relating to the Offleys:

Burials. 1711. July 27. Mrs. Ann Crew, daughter of Crew

1712. Aug. 20.

Offley Esq.

John Crew, son of Crew Offley Esq.
Crew, son of Crew Offley Esq.

Margaret, daughter of Crew Offley
Esq.

Feb. 12. Mrs. Margaret Offley, wife of Crew

1716. May 4.

1717. May 10.

1724

-25.

Offley Esq.

Lawrence Offley Esq.

John Offley Esq.

Crew Offley, described in his will as of Whichnor, county Stafford (an estate which was devised to him by his mother), devised his property at Chelsea (specific mention being made of the "chappell and the profits thereof") to his elder son, John, with certain reservations in favour of his younger son, Lawrence.

John, dying unmarried, devised all his property to his first cousin Francis Needham, the younger son of Mary Offley, who had married Robert, seventh Viscount Kilmorey.

The old Manor House was pulled down a little before 1704, in which year Dr. King mentions that "Sir Thomas Lawrence his house before [it was] pulled down paid one pound, as appears from

Dr. Littleton's book. Now it is built into many tenements, the offerings come to much more yearly."

There are numerous entries in the Middlesex Register of deeds relating to the various houses in and about Lawrence Street which were built on the site. The following notes of two of these deeds establish some of the data given above :

1712. Sept. 20. Indenture between Crew Offley and his wife Margaret concerning "All those several new erected messuages being about 33 in number situate and built upon the Toft or soil whereon an antient messuage heretofore belonging to Dame Grissel Lawrence great grandmother to the said Margaret Offley and on the yards and gardens thereto and upon a little close adjoining the said messuage and all the rest and residue of the said yards close and gardens not yet built on And of all that little Chapell and building situate in the north aisle of the parish Church of Chelsea aforesaid commonly called the Lord's Chapel . . .'

1750. March 22 & 23. Lease and Release between "John Offley of Whichnor in the county of Stafford Esq (the eldest son and heir of Crew Offley late of the same place Esq. deceased and of Margaret his late wife also deceased heretofore Margaret Lawrence the sister and heir at law of John Lawrence her brother deceased who was the eldest son and heir at law of Sir Thomas Lawrence heretofore of Chelsea in the County of Middlesex Baronet deceased who was the grandson and heir at law of Dame Grissel Lawrence late of Chelsea aforesaid widow deceased and the said John Offley is brother and heir at law of Lawrence Offley Esq. deceased who was the younger son of the said Crew Offley by the said Margaret his wife) of the one part and William Grimley of Pall Mall in the parish of St. James' Westminster in the said County of Middlesex Linen Draper and Jane his wife of the other part. Purporting to be a conveyance of all that messuage or tenement with the garden and appurtenances thereto belonging situate in Lawrence Street in the Town of Chelsea aforesaid now in the tenure or occupation of Washburn and which said messuage or tenement garden and premises is one of the 33 messuages or tenements heretofore erected and built on a toft or the ground whereon an ancient messuage stood heretofore belonging to the said Dame Grissel Lawrence and upon the yards and gardens thereto belonging and upon a little croft to the said ancient messuage adjoining."

Such are the records of the Lawrences of Chelsea, a family remarkable for neither wealth, nor descent, nor any exceptional merit : yet of more than common interest in connection with Chelsea and its Parish Church in which five generations of them are buried.

CHAPTER XI

THE PARSONAGE

"THE ancient Parsonage House," says Dr. King, "with fourteen acres and twenty-two perches of land, stood where Mr. Priest's or Mr. Dowell's stands, west of the Duke of Beaufort's, then the Marquis of Winchester's, whence Mr. Priest's Close is called Parsonage Close to this day. In lieu of which upon an exchange the present house and land about it was given to the Rectory for ever by the consent of the Queen the then patron, Dr. Edmund Grindall, Bishop of London, and Robert Richardson, Rector of Chelsea, who conveyed the old house and land to the Marquis by writing bearing date 3rd May, 1566" (see Add. MS. 15609).

The description of the old glebe in the Royal Charter quoted by Faulkner clearly identifies it as the land now bounded by the King's Road on the north, Milman's Row on the east, the Thames on the south, and Dartrey Street on the west. Of the old house, however, I can find no certain trace: though I am satisfied that it was neither Priest's, which was not built till the beginning of the seventeenth century, nor Lindsey House, which was the "Farm," nor Mr. Dowell's, which is shown on the plan in Dr. King's MS. as a small building at the south-east corner of "Milman's Row," of which I can find no earlier mention than 1714.* The probability is that it stood on the glebe itself, fronting the river: but the earliest conveyance of this parcel at the Middlesex Registry affords no clue to its identity.

* A conveyance by John Baker Dowell of Over (sic) co. Gloucester to Walsingham Heathfield citizen and distiller of London. (Midx. Reg. 1714, Bk. 5, No. 38.)

Of the advowson I have already spoken above (p. 1) as belonging to the Abbey of Westminster, as Lords of the Manor. It did not pass under Gervas' grant; for when the king purchased the beneficial interest in the Manor from Lord Sandes, he had still to reckon with the Abbey, and compounded with them, in a subsequent exchange, for the fee farm rent of £4, and the advowson (Pat. 28 Hen. VIII. pt. 2, m. 5).

The list of Rectors given by Newcourt is far from complete, and Faulkner's reprint of it is by no means accurate. The list here printed is taken from the Rev. George Henessy's "Novum Repertorium Ecclesiasticum Londinense" (Lond. 1898).