ame is
perpetuated by a handsome pile of buildings known as the Seckford
Almshouses and Schools, to which the property in Clerkenwell is devoted.
At the time of his decease that property produced about 112 pounds a
year; in 1768 it was said to be of the yearly value of 563 pounds. In
1826 an Act of Parliament was obtained to enable the governors of the
almshouses to grant building and other leases, to take down many of the
old buildings, to erect new premises, and repair and alter old ones, and
to lay out new streets on the charity estate in Clerkenwell, and, in
consequence, we find in 1830 the estate producing a rental of more than
3,000 pounds a year. In 1844 the yearly rental had risen to 4,000
pounds. Since then it has much increased, and all this is devoted to the
benefit of the Woodbridge poor.

In 1806 Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet, came to live at Woodbridge.
When fourteen years old he was apprenticed to Mr. Samuel Jessup, a
shopkeeper in Halstead, Essex. 'There I stood,' he writes, 'for eight
years behind the counter of the corner shop at the top of Halstead Hill,
kept to this day (November 9, 1828) by my old master and still worthy
uncle, S. Jessup.' In Woodbridge he married a niece of his old master,
and went into partnership with her brother as corn and coal merchant.
But she died in giving birth to the Lucy Barton whose name still, unless
I am mistaken, adorns our literature. Bernard gave up business and
retired into the bank of the Messrs. Alexander, where he continued for
forty years, working within two days of his death. He had always been
fond of books, and was one of the most active members of a Woodbridge
Book Club, and had been in the habit of writing and sending to his
friends occasional copies of verse. In 1812 he published his first
volume, called 'Metrical Effusions,' and began a correspondence with
Southey. A complimentary copy of verses which he had addressed to the
author of the 'Queen's Wake,' just then come into notice, brought him
long and vehement letters from the Ettrick--letters full of thanks to
Barton and praises of himself, and a tragedy 'that will astonish the
world ten times more than the "Queen's Wake,"' to which justice could not
be done in Edinburgh, and which Bernard Barton was to try to get
represented in London. In 1825 one of Bernard's volumes of poems had run
into a fifth edition, and of another George IV. had accepted the
dedication. Thus prompted to exertion,