The first census that I can recollect, if all the enumerators had the experience I had, must have been a very incomplete and misleading return. I was asked to take a section of four hundred forms to deliver, get filled up and return, for which I was to receive one guinea, and for every fifty beyond that number two shillings and sixpence, and as I was told it would only take a few hours on the Saturday afternoon to deliver, and the same on the Monday to collect, I thought it was pretty good pay. But never any more! for it took me nearly three weeks to complete, and at least two-thirds of the papers I had to worry out the particulars and fill them up myself as best I could, for the people were very suspicious and had a notion that the government had a sinister motive in getting these returns. One was supposed to be that there was a conscription for the army, and every able-bodied man was to serve, and another was that they were going to introduce passports as they did on the continent, and anything continental at that time was not at all popular.

I recollect the passing of the Reform Bill in ’32, when there was a great illumination, and gangs of men and boys went about breaking the windows of all the houses that were not lit up. Nearly all the windows on one side of Smith Street were broken. The illumination consisted of tallow candles stuck in square lumps of clay, about six in each window. Chelsea has always had a strong radical element, for during the agitation over the Reform Bill, the Unionists had one or two meeting houses. There was one in Leader Street, and another in Doyley Street, and in ’48, the time of the Chartists, one of the sections met on the Chelsea Common and marched with their portion of the partisans to the great meeting on Kennington Common, and returned in procession along the Kennington Road to the Westminster Bridge. Here they were broken up by the police and not allowed to proceed in procession, and the petition was sent on in two four-wheeled cabs. There was great excitement, and it was generally expected that there would be serious rioting. Great precautions were taken, the military were all confined to barracks, and a large number of artillery with their guns from Woolwich were drafted into London overnight, and all the body of local reserve men—old soldiers with pensions—were kept under arms, and 100,000 special constables were sworn in.

The recruiting sergeant in Chelsea on Whitsun and Easter Mondays and during the regatta was very active. There would be two or three smart fellows from the cavalry with one or two young fellows, posing as recruits, for decoys. The artillery sergeant would be in smart blue uniform, and then came the regiments of the line. The decoys for the latter were two or three smartly dressed girls of doubtful character. Then came the East India Company sergeant, and last but not least came the recruiting for the Spanish legion. They all had their gangs of harpies and hangers on, as the sergeant spent money freely, every recruit being worth five to six pounds to him. It was a common practice to get a lad half drunk over night, and in the morning to bounce him that he had enlisted, and there were always plenty to swear that he had done so. The recruits for the Spanish legion were a rare motley crew, and would go singing through the streets, half drunk, in gangs, that they were going fighting for the Queen of Spain, and collect drink and money. A good part of the crowd would be loafers and not recruits at all. The great recruiting ground was along the riverside, and at the public houses along the roads leading to the fair at Wandsworth, which was held on a piece of land in the York Road, just beyond where Wandsworth Station now stands. The recruits for the Spanish legion were a poor miserable lot, as they were the refuse from the others. They would take them at any age, from sixteen to fifty, and were not at all particular about size or health; in fact, there is little doubt that lads of fourteen were sent out. They used to assemble by Northumberland Passage, Charing Cross, and march in gangs to Tower Hill to pass the Board of Commissioners that sat in a room over a sailmaker’s, and having passed, would go by steamboat to Gravesend ready to embark; and it was generally asserted that they never shipped above two-thirds of the recruits they enlisted. The balance would desert and enlist again, and were assisted in so doing by the recruiting sergeant.