128. Ill JUNE, 19K
NOTES AND QUERIES.
321
should be seen, when He gives me to understand.
that He has no particular Attachment to either
May not a l>tter to Him, from some proper
hand, have a good Effect ? I beg pardon, for I
am quite at a loss. & there is no time or oppor-
tunity to consult any Bodv before the Post will
go out. W. H.
Net long after this diplomatic mission to his old University, Hetherington was honoured by his old school. He was elected Fellow of Eton on Feb. 16, 1749.* Harwood adds a note of some interest here. He states that Hetheringtc.n resigned his Fellow- ship some time before his death, "it is supposed, upon conscientious scruples, that by the Statutes it was not allowed to Aliens to enjoy the Fellowship of this Foundation." One would like to know more of this matter. It is in any case a welcome testimony to Hetherington's independence and con- scientiousness. The letter just quoted might be thought to illustrate the subservience, and even the servility, of the clergy of the eighteenth century : the criticism would be, perhaps, unjust, but certainly the resigna- tion of his Fellowship, for any such reason as Harwood gives, lifts Hetherington abov the supposed level of his brother clergy in those days.
Before this resignation happened, th Provost and Fellows of Eton presentee Hetherington to the living of Farnham Royal, Bucks. He was inducted as recto on Feb. 2, 1753 ;t and he held the living for the rest of his life.
Hetherington
II.
did not
come into the
possession of the riches which he so gener-
ously expended in good works until he was
nearly seventy years of age. He inherited
the wealth of his brother Jeffrey, who died
unmarried June 17, 1767.
About the year 1739 Jeffrey Hetherington had bought from Sir N. D'Aeth, Bart., the manor of North Cray, Kent ; a few years later he acquired, from the same owner, the manor of Huxley. This large estate he bequeathed to his brother William. Both of them were buried in the same tomb at North Cray. The inscription says of Jeffrey that he died " Beloved, Honoured, and Lamented by all who knew him. He was an honest, good, moral Man, and a sincere, virtuous and pious Christian."
William Hetherington's wealth must now have become very considerable, especially
' Alumni Etonenses,' p. 93.
t G. Lipscomb, ' History and Antiquities of the County of Buckingham,' 1847, vol. iii.
on an eighteenth - century valuation. The
preacher at his funeral spoke of a " vast
inheritance."* A letter preserved by
Nichols speaks of him as " now probably
the richest clergyman in England."!
Hetherington does not appear to have ever married, and he looked upon his wealth as something to be used for the benefit of his poorer brethren. There is something pathetic in the remark attributed to him by his friend the Rector of North Cray, that " there was but little time and a great deal of money : he hoped God would enable him to make haste to enjoy it."J And enjoy it he did, by making more enjoyable, or less hard, the lot of his fellow-creatures. His interest in the blind was due to the fact, mentioned by Moore, that " some of his family had to suffer for a length of years from blindness." Moore makes the interesting suggestion that some words of Addison may have led Hetherington along the path he took.
His benevolence was diffuse and judicious. He enlarged North Cray Rectory, built a chapel-of-ease at Eton, re-endowed a charity at Bromley for the support of " twenty widows of loyal and orthodox clergymen," built several almshouses at Foots Cray, and was ever ready to help the needy. Most of the contemporary notices of him allude to his benevolent activities.||
In his declining years Hetherington may not have been much at Farnham Royal. We may suppose that he usually lived either at North Cray Place or at his town house in Queen Square, Ormond Street. The latter was also the residence of his sister Elizabeth, " that incomparable lady ... .a kindred spirit, with whom he lived in the most affectionate harmony," and who took a keen interest in her brother's charitable enterprises.^! His sister was about a year William's senior. She died Nov. 24, 1776, aged 79.
A kinsman of Hetherington, who inherited the estate at North Cray, is familiar to readers of Charles Lamb Thomas Coventry,
- Thos. Moore, ' Sermon on the Death of the
lev. W. Hetherington,' Rochester, 1770 (Br. Mus., 695 g. 1).
t J. Nichols, ' Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century,' iv. 294, note.
T. Moore, op. cit. It would be worth while to estimate
the
fleet on charitable enterprise of the eighteenth-
- entury essayists. Cf. the writer's ' Magdalen
lospital,' chap. i.
!l T. Moore, op. cit., and General Evening Post or Dec. 8, 1778, &c.
" T. Moore, op. cit.
