| Share page |
|
THE PARISH CHURCH. |
67 |
||
|
the church to be re-built, and to raise a total sum not exceeding £4,000 for that purpose. The names of the first trustees were:—William Board, John Shelley, George Bankin, Charles Sawyer, William Isted, R. Hilton, Alexander Donald, John Batchelor, John Balcomb and Thomas Richardson. Meetings were to be held at the house known by the sign of the Swan, and a Treasurer, Clerk and Collector were to be appointed. The trustees were to allot pews, following old legal titles therein; to build the church by contract; and to make rates which should be paid half by the landlord and half by the tenant. The rates might be levied by distress, and persons quitting their house without paying the rates might be followed. The trustees might raise money by sale of annuities or mortgaging the rates, the annuities were to be exempt from taxes and might be assigned. The rates might also be assigned as security for money borrowed. Twenty-one years later a second Act was passed authorising the borrowing of a further £4,000. But it cost £30,000 to erect the building and pay the contingent charges. The architect was Mr. Wyatt and the stone came from Selsfield, Black well and Wych Cross.
Among the loans made was one of £1,000 by Mr. Gibbs Crawfurd. He afterwards disposed of his claim, five-ninths of the amount being acquired by William Boorman, who gave it to his daughter, Mary Nash Boorman, as a dowry, on the occasion of her marriage to Mr. John Jones Pierce, who still lives at Lamberhurst. The Boorman family was at one time in business in East Grinstead, J. H. Boorman issuing his own halfpenny in 1799. Mrs. Pierce's sum was paid off, capital and interest, £555. 10s. 10d., in January, 1858. Another loan was one of £2,000 by Sir Alexander Munro, one of the Commissioners of H.M. Customs, for which sum he purchased an annuity of £220 a year, which terminated at his death. Mr. James Evelyn, who then occupied Felbridge Place, advanced £1,000 on July 30th, 1791, at the low rate of 3 per cent., and on his death this became vested in the third Earl of Liverpool. In
F 2 |
|||