Page:EB1911 - Volume 16.djvu/130

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LAMBETH—LAMBETH CONFEERENCES

those of Aesculapius and Hygieia, taken from the temple of Aesculapius.

Lambaesa was a military foundation. The camp of the third legion (Legio III. Augusta), to which it owes its origin, appears to have been established between A.D. 123 and 129, in the time of Hadrian, whose address to his soldiers was found inscribed on a pillar in a second camp to the west of the great camp still extant. By 166 mention is made of the decurions of a vicus, 10 curiae of which are known by name; and the vicus became a municipium probably at the time when it was made the capital of the newly founded province of Numidia. The legion was removed by Gordianus, but restored by Valerianus and Gallienus; and its final departure did not take place till after 392. The town soon afterwards declined. It never became the seat of a bishop, and no Christian inscriptions have been found among the ruins.

About 2 m. S. of Lambessa are the ruins of Markuna, the ancient Verecunda, including two triumphal arches.

See S. Gsell, Les Monuments antiques de l’Algérie (Paris, 1901) and L’Algérie dans l’antiquité (Algiers, 1903); L. Renier, Inscriptions romaines de l’Algérie (Paris, 1855); Gustav Wilmann, “Die röm. Lagerstadt Afrikas,” in Commentationes phil. in honorem Th. Mommseni (Berlin, 1877); Sir L. Playfair, Travels in the Footsteps of Bruce (London, 1877); A. Graham, Roman Africa (London, 1902).


LAMBETH, a southern metropolitan borough of London, England, bounded N.W. by the river Thames, N.E. by Southwark, E. by Camberwell and W. by Wandsworth and Battersea, and extending S. to the boundary of the county of London. Pop. (1901) 301,895. The name is commonly confined to the northern part of the borough, bordering the river; but the principal districts included are Kennington and Vauxhall (north central), Brixton (central) and part of Norwood (south). Four road-bridges cross the Thames within the limits of the borough, namely Waterloo, Westminster, Lambeth and Vauxhall, of which the first, a fine stone structure, dates from 1817, and is the oldest Thames bridge standing within the county of London. The main thoroughfare runs S. from Westminster Bridge Road as Kennington Road, continuing as Brixton Road and Brixton Hill, Clapham Road branching S.W. from it at Kennington. Several thoroughfares also converge upon Vauxhall Bridge, and from a point near this down to Westminster Bridge the river is bordered by the fine Albert Embankment.

Early records present the name Lamb-hythe in various forms. The suffix is common along the river in the meaning of a haven, but the prefix is less clear; a Saxon word signifying mud is suggested. Brixton and Kennington are mentioned in Domesday; and in Vauxhall is concealed the name of Falkes de Breauté, an unscrupulous adventurer of the time of John and Henry III. exiled in 1225. The manor of North Lambeth was given to the bishopric of Rochester in the time of Edward the Confessor, and the bishops had a house here till the 16th century. They did not, however, retain the manor beyond the close of the 12th century, when it was acquired by the see of Canterbury. The palace of the archbishops is still here, and forms, with the parish church, a picturesque group of buildings, lying close to the river opposite the majestic Houses of Parliament, and to some extent joining with them to make of this reach of the Thames one of the finest prospects in London. The oldest part of the palace remaining is the Early English chapel. The so-called Lollard’s Tower, which retains evidence of its use as a prison, dates c. 1440. There is a fine Tudor gatehouse of brick, and the hall is dated 1663. The portion now inhabited by the archbishops was erected in 1834 and fronts a spacious quadrangle. Among the portraits of the archbishops here are examples by Holbein, Van Dyck, Hogarth and Reynolds. There is a valuable library. The church of St Mary was rebuilt c. 1850, though the ancient monuments preserved give it an appearance of antiquity. Here are tombs of some of the archbishops, including Bancroft (d. 1610), and of the two Tradescants, collectors, and a memorial to Elias Ashmole, whose name is preserved in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University, to which he presented the collections of his friend the younger Tradescant (d. 1662). In the present Westminster Bridge Road was a circus, well known in the later 18th and early 19th centuries as Astley’s, and near Vauxhall Bridge were the celebrated Vauxhall Gardens.

The principal modern pleasure grounds are Kennington Park (20 acres), and Brockwell Park (127 acres) south of Brixton, and near the southern end of Kennington Road is Kennington Oval, the ground of the Surrey County Cricket Club, the scene of its home matches and of other important fixtures. Among institutions the principal is St Thomas’ Hospital, the extensive buildings of which front the Albert Embankment. The original foundation dated from 1213, was situated in Southwark, and was connected with the priory of Bermondsey. The existing buildings, subsequently enlarged, were opened in 1871, are divided into a series of blocks, and include a medical school. Other hospitals are the Royal, for children and women, Waterloo Road, the Lying-in Hospital, York Road, and the South-western fever hospital in Stockwell. There are technical institutes in Brixton and Norwood; and on Brixton Hill is Brixton Prison. In the northern part of the borough are numerous factories, including the great Doulton pottery works. The parliamentary borough of Lambeth has four divisions, North, Kennington, Brixton and Norwood, each returning one member. The borough council consists of a mayor, 10 aldermen and 60 councillors. Area, 4080.4 acres.


LAMBETH CONFERENCES, the name given to the periodical assemblies of bishops of the Anglican Communion (Pan-Anglican synods), which since 1867 have met at Lambeth Palace, the London residence of the archbishop of Canterbury. The idea of these meetings was first suggested in a letter to the archbishop of Canterbury by Bishop Hopkins of Vermont in 1851, but the immediate impulse came from the colonial Church in Canada. In 1865 the synod of that province, in an urgent letter to the archbishop of Canterbury (Dr Longley), represented the unsettlement of members of the Canadian Church caused by recent legal decisions of the Privy Council, and their alarm lest the revived action of Convocation “should leave us governed by canons different from those in force in England and Ireland, and thus cause us to drift into the status of an independent branch of the Catholic Church.” They therefore requested him to call a “national synod of the bishops of the Anglican Church at home and abroad,” to meet under his leadership. After consulting both houses of the Convocation of Canterbury, Archbishop Longley assented, and convened all the bishops of the Anglican Communion (then 144 in number) to meet at Lambeth in 1867. Many Anglican bishops (amongst them the archbishop of York and most of his suffragans) felt so doubtful as to the wisdom of such an assembly that they refused to attend it, and Dean Stanley declined to allow Westminster Abbey to be used for the closing service, giving as his reasons the partial character of the assembly, uncertainty as to the effect of its measures and “the presence of prelates not belonging to our Church.” Archbishop Longley said in his opening address, however, that they had no desire to assume “the functions of a general synod of all the churches in full communion with the Church of England,” but merely to “discuss matters of practical interest, and pronounce what we deem expedient in resolutions which may serve as safe guides to future action.” Experience has shown how valuable and wise this course was. The resolutions of the Lambeth Conferences have never been regarded as synodical decrees, but their weight has increased with each conference. Apprehensions such as those which possessed the mind of Dean Stanley have long passed away.

Seventy-six bishops accepted the primate’s invitation to the first conference, which met at Lambeth on the 24th of September 1867, and sat for four days, the sessions being in private. The archbishop opened the conference with an address: deliberation followed; committees were appointed to report on special questions; resolutions were adopted, and an encyclical letter was addressed to the faithful of the Anglican Communion. Each of the subsequent conferences has been first received in Canterbury cathedral and addressed by the archbishop from the chair of St Augustine. It has then met at Lambeth, and after sitting for five days for deliberation upon the fixed subjects and appointment of committees, has adjourned, to meet again at the end of a fortnight and sit for five days more, to receive reports, adopt resolutions and to put forth the encyclical letter.

I. First Conference (September 24-28, 1867), convened and presided over by Archbishop Longley. The proposed order of subjects was entirely altered in view of the Colenso case, for which urgency was claimed; and most of the time was spent in discussing it. Of the thirteen resolutions adopted by the conference, two have direct