EALING, a parish in the Kensington division of
the hundred of OSSULSTONE, county of MIDDLESEX, 6
miles (W.) from London, containing, with Old Brentford,
6608 inhabitants. This village, from its situation near
the western parts of the metropolis, has become a favourite
residence, and contains several handsome villas
and pleasant seats. A pleasure fair is annually held on
the 24th of June, and the two following days. The
living is a vicarage, in the archdeaconry of Middlesex,
and diocese of London, rated in the king's books at
£ 13. 6. 8., and in the patronage of the Bishop of London.
The church, dedicated to St. Mary, was erected in
1735; it is a brick building, with a square tower an
cupola. A lectureship was founded here in 1629, and
endowed with £40 per annum, by the Rev. John Bowman,
Chancellor of St. Paul's Cathedral, who also left.
£20 per annum to the poor. A chapel of ease was'
built at Old Brentford in 1770, by subscription.
There is a place of worship for Independents. A charity
school for boys, for which a new school-room
was built in 1817, is endowed with the twelfth part of
an estate in Kent, given by Lady Gapel, with £500 by
Jonathan Gurnell, Esq., and with other benefactions
more than one hundred and twenty boys, of whom
twenty are clothed, are .instructed on the National system
in this establishment. A charity school for girls
was founded in 1712, by Lady Jane Rawlinson, who
bequeathed £500 for that purpose: PeterFrancis le
Courayer left £-200 for the purchase of land, to which
£50 was added by Mrs. Frances Cole, besides several
similar benefactions; seventy girls, of whom twenty-five
are clothed, are taught on the National system: the
school-room was built in 1819. In a stratum of gravel,
near Old Brentford, have been found bones and teeth of
the hippopotamus, the elephant, and the bullock; and in
the sub-stratum, which is of calcareous earth, are found
the bones and horns of deer: below this is a bed of blue
clay, abounding with shells of the nautilus and other
marine animals. Among the distinguished persons that
have been inhabitants of Baling may be enumerated,
Dr. John Owen, a learned non-conformist divine, and
a very voluminous writer, who died in 1683; Serjeant
Maynard, an eminent lawyer, who died here in 1690,
and was buriedin the church; Sir Frederick Morton
Eden, Bart., authar of an elaborate history of th
labouring class in England; and Robert Orme,
author of Historical Fragments cf the Mogul Empire,
who died in 1801. John Home Tooke, author of the
Diversions of Purleyj and the celebrated Mrs. Trimmer;
were interred in the church-yard.