KEW, a parish in the second division of the hundred of KINGSTON, county of SURREY, 6 miles (W. by S.) from London, containing 683 inhabitants. The village is pleasantly situated on the southern bank of the Thames, over which a handsome stone bridge of seven arches, replacing a former structure of wood, was erected in 1789, connecting it with Brentford. George III., who resided for1 a considerable length of time in a mansion since called the Nursery, in which most of the royal family were brought up, and in which his consort Queen Charlotte died, greatly improved and extended the gardens, which he united to those of Richmond, and began to erect a royal palace in the ancient style of English architecture, which, after remaining for several years in an unfinished state, was taken down in 1828. The royal gardens, which are supposed to contain one of the most extensive and complete collections of exotic plants in Europe, are tastefully laid out, and embellished with temples of the various orders of Grecian architecture, a Turkish mosque, and a Chinese pagoda of considerable elevation, from the summit of which a most extensive prospect is obtained of the scenery on the banks of the Thames, and of the surrounding country. The Dukes of Cumberland and Cambridge have residences on the south side of the green, and in the environs are several handsome villas. Kew, formerly a chapelry to Kingston, was constituted a separate parish by act of parliament in 1770. The living is a vicarage, with the perpetual curacy of Petersham, in the archdeaconry of Surrey, and diocese of Winchester, endowed with £600 private benefaction, and £600 royal bounty, and in the patronage of the Provost and Fellows of King's College, Cambridge. The church, dedicated to St. Anne, was built by subscription among the inhabitants, in 1714, on a site given by Queen Anne, as a chapel of ease to the vicarage of Kingston, and made parochial in 1770; it was enlarged by George III., who built the side aisles and the portico; and his late Majesty, George IV., erected the organ gallery, and presented to the parish the organ on which his royal father had been accustomed to play. The free school was founded, in 1721, by Dorothy, Lady Capel, who endowed it with one-twelfth part of an estate at Faversham, at present producing about £450 per annum, which sum is divided by her trustees in the church at Kew among twelve parishes, of which Kew is one: the sum arising to each is £3710., which, augmented by annual subscriptions, is appropriated to the instruction of nineteen boys, of whom two are apprenticed yearly: the school-house was erected in 1824, to which his late Majesty munificently contributed, and granted it the appellation of " The King's Free School."