STREATHAM, a parish in the eastern division of,
the hundred of BRIXTON, county of SURREY, 6 miles.
(S. by W.) from London, comprising the hamlets of
Upper Tooting and Balham Hill, and containing 3616'
inhabitants. This parish, which derives its name from,
its situation near the great Roman road from Arundel
to London, is almost connected with the metropolis:
by continuous ranges of building, and extends along
the principal road to Brighton for nearly three miles.
The houses, which are mostly modern, are well built,
and interspersed with several detached villas and stately
mansions, particularly in the neighbourhood of the common.
Streatham park was formerly the residence of
Mrs. Thrale, afterwards Madame Piozzi, where Dr. Johnson
spent much of his time. The neighbourhood is
richly wooded, and is diversified with hills and vallies,
and the surrounding scenery is finely varied; the air,
which is considered particularly salubrious and invi-.
gorating, combining with other local advantages, has
rendered this village, a favourite residence of many opu-.
lent families. Among the attractions is a mineral
spring, which was discovered in 1660, and is still held
in esteem, being highly efficacious in scorbutic eruptions,
and in many other cases. The only branch of ma-,
nufacture is that of silk, recently introduced. The parish
is within the jurisdiction of the court of requests
for the eastern division of the hundred of Brixton
held in the borough of Southwark, for the recovery of
debts under £5, and within the limits of the new police
establishment. The living is a rectory, in the archdeaconry
of Surrey, and diocese of Winchester, rated in the
king's books at £18. 13. 9., and in the patronage of
the Duke of Bedford. The ancient church, dedicated to
St. Leonard, with the exception of the tower, which is
of flint, and surmounted by a spire of shingles, forming
a picturesque object in the distant landscape, was taken
down in 1830, and is now being rebuilt upon an enlarged
scale. A chapel has been erected at Upper Tooting,
within the last few years, of which the living is a perpetual
curacy, in the patronage of the Rector. There
are places of worship for Independents and Wesleyan
Methodists, A National school is supported by subscription.
Mrs. Elizabeth Howland, in 1716, bequeathed £20
per annum for clothing and educating ten girls; and
Mrs. Dorothy Appleby, in 1681, left £5 per annum for
apprenticing a poor child annually. The St. Anne's
Society for the maintenance, clothing, and education of
poor children of both sexes was originally established
in 1709, and for nearly a century had only a day school
in London for clothing and instructing thirty children
of each sex from all parts of the kingdom. The first
asylum which this society established in the country
was at Lavenham, in Suffolk, in 1794, where twenty
boys were admitted on the foundation; this establishment
was subsequently removed to Peckham in Surrey,
where the number of boys increased to sixty-eight, but
the efforts of the committee to extend the benefit of the
institution, rendered it necessary to provide more ample
accommodation, and the present handsome building,
adapted to the reception of one hundred and fifty children,
was, in 1830, erected at Brixton Hill, in this
parish, at an expense of £ 8000. It is a handsome edifice
of brick, having a basement of stone, channelled in
horizontal lines, with a central piazza, from which rises
a portico of four Ionic columns, supporting a triangular
pediment with frieze and cornice continued round the
building, which is also decorated at. the angles with
anfcae of corresponding character: it occupies, with the
grounds attached, more than two acres of freehold land.
The internal arrangements are well adapted to the purposes
of the institution, and the management is under
the superintendence of a committee of governors, chosen
from the subscribers, by whom the institxition is supported.
The funds have been materially assisted by a
liberal contribution of £3000 by Mrs. Partis, of Bath,
towards the erection of the new asylum; in acknowledgment
of which benefit, Mrs. Partis has the right, in perpetuity,
of placing two boys and two girls in the institution,
which, after her decease, will devolve to the trustees
of Partis' College, near Bath, noticed in our account of
that city. There are at present seventy-eight boys and
twenty-eight girls, who are educated, clothed, and wholly
maintained, the boys till they are fourteen, and the girls
till they are fifteen, years of age, when they are apprenticed
and placed out at the expense of the society.
Thirty boys and thirty girls are still clothed and instructed
in the school in London, of whom ten boys,
and five girls, are annually admitted on the foundation
at Brixton, according to seniority and merit; the remainder
are elected by the governors at large, without
reference to any particular district, the asylum being
open to necessitous children from every part of the
kingdom 5 any person may place a child in the institution
by paying the sum of £105. The celebrated Dr.
B. Hoadley, Bishop of Bangor, was for several years
rector of this parish, previously to his promotion to
the see of Salisbury.