CHELSEA, formerly a village about two miles west of London, on the left bank of the Thames, but now an integral part of the great metropolis. It gives its name to a parish and a parliamentary borough, the former with 71,089 inhabitants, and the latter, which includes Fulham, Hammersmith, Kensington, and part of Willesden, with 258,050, at the census of 1871. It is connected with the district of Battersea on the other side of the river by three bridges, known respectively as Battersea, Albert, and Chelsea suspension bridges. Like many of the suburban villages of London, it has an interesting history of its own. In 785 it is mentioned by the name of Cealscythe as the seat of an ecclesiastical synod; and in Domesday Book it appears as Cercehede or Chelched. The name was still written Chelchith in the time of Sir Thomas More, who had a house in the village, but it began to assume the form of Chelsey in the 16th century. The manor was bestowed by Henry VIII. on Catharine Parr, and it afterwards passed successively into the possession of the duke of Northumberland, Lord Cheyne, and Sir Hans Sloane. It was at Chelsea that Sir John Danvers introduced the Italian style of gardening, which was so greatly admired by Bacon and soon after became prevalent in England; and here in our own day were the gardens of the English botanist William Curtis, arranged according to the Linnean system. During the 18th century the village was the residence of many of the most famous men of the period. Atterbury, Swift, and Arbuthnot lived in Churchlane; Guy, Smollett, and Steele were for a time inmates of Monmouth House; and Count Zinzendorf established a Moravian society at Lindsay House. Sir Robert Walpole’s residence was extant till 1810; and till 1824 the bishops of Winchester had a palace at ...