Little Wenlock: Charities for the poor

CHARITIES FOR THE POOR.

In the period 1667-76 an endowment left by George Baxter, rector (d. c. 1663), (fn. 1) yielded £1 a year, distributed in cash. (fn. 2) By the 1780s, however, the charity was forgotten. (fn. 3) By 1672 (fn. 4) Mrs. Alice Green had left 10s. a year out of land in Brierley (Staffs.) (fn. 5) to be distributed in cash. (fn. 6) The income was lost after 1897. (fn. 7) Maurice Hayward (d. 1760) left the interest on £10 for bread. (fn. 8) In the early 1870s the income, then 10s., ceased.

Mrs. Mary Tipton left £50 in 1844, most of the interest to be distributed to the poor. The income in 1897 was £1 7s. 8d. In 1845 Mrs. Hannah Shepherd left the interest on £100 to be distributed as clothing. In 1897 the income was £2 15s. 4d. Margaret Poole left the interest on £19 19s. in 1874, to be distributed in bread or flannel. The income was 12s. 9d. in 1875. In 1889 George Edmonds, rector, bequeathed the interest on £400, most of it to be given in cash to the poor within Little Wenlock ecclesiastical parish. (fn. 9) In 1897 the income was £11 6s. 4d. In 1914 George Thorneycroft gave £23 6s. 8d., the interest to be given in cash.

By 1925 the surviving charities were usually distributed in coal. In 1970 they were formally amalgamated as the Little Wenlock United Charities, and in 1975 the income was £17, from stock. (fn. 10)