Charity

The village charity is very old.It existed long before such things were legally regulated.


Charity 200693

This is the current Eversholt Charity. The Charity Commission gives up-to-date information here.


 

Charity 307487

The Charity Commission website provides this entry for a defunct version of the charity, which ran from 1961 to 1993. It would be nice to have an explanation of why this charity existed, or why it was wound up.


 

307487 – EVERSHOLT PAROCHIAL CHARITY REMOVED CHARITY
Other names None
Governing document NO INFORMATION RECORDED
Area of benefit NO INFORMATION RECORDED
Organisation type STANDARD REGISTRATION
Where it operated NO INFORMATION RECORDED
Charitable objects TO PROVIDE REWARDS, EXHIBITIONS AND PRIZES FOR SCHOOL CHILDREN.
Classification
What Not Classified
Who Not Classified
How Not Classified

 Registration history 

08 March 1993 Removed – CEASED TO EXIST
01 September 1961 Registered

Charity Commission Regulation

The Eversholt Charity was recognised formally by the Charity Commission in 1877. In 2015, James Nott (a trustee of the Eversholt Charity) provided copies of the legal documents issued by the Charity Commission then and since. Each of these documents has been photographed, assembled into a pdf, and transcribed into text. Each has its own page, linked below.

The 1878 initial document put the existing informal charity into defined legal form. It set out arrangements for administration, obtaining income from property, and distributing income to the Church, to the poor of the parish, and for education, one third of the income to each, every year.

The 1887 amendment changed the maximum term of any lease granted by the charity, to let out property owned by the charity, to 21 years, from the initial 8 years. It also changed the details of the distribution of the money for education.

A 1903 addition reiterates, for reasons that are not entirely clear, that one third of the annual income is to be spent on educational purposes.

A 1948 amendment increased the pay of the clerk, it having remained set at £10 per year since 1878! There is another obscure clause seeming to give the Charity Commission more power… it would help if a lawyer would explain what they mean, please! Leave comments below? The 1948 document mentions the 1878 and 1887 documents, but no others, implying that there was no other legal document of any significance up to then.

It is not yet known whether there have been any documents issued by the Charity Commission since 1948.


Eversholt Charity Before 1878


1829

 Name of Charity  Statement of Real and Personal Estate  Gross Annual income or Investment  Objects of the Charity  Names of Founders  Persons in whose hands wills, deeds etc are  Names of the Trustees
Eversholt Charity  Real Estate, consisting of houses and Land at Eversholt  Annual Income
£132 0s 0d
 For the reparation of the parish church of Eversholt, relief of poor people, and in aid and ease of the town charges  Unknown  Not any deeds Thomas Sandys, John Parker, Edward Tanqueray, Robert Pulton, John Daniel, John Daniel junior, Samuel Stevenson, Timothy Deacon, J. Welch

1822

There’s a reference in “Further report of the commissioners appointed in pursuance of two several acts of Parliament; the one, made and passed in the 58th year of His Late Majesty, cap 91, intituled,”an act for appointing…,” 1825, which actually seems to present results up to 1822. Here it is, although this has been OCRd and guessed at, so go back to the original for the real thing:
The Town Estate. Charities. 19.
It appears, by recitals in the different deeds of conveyance, that the trusts of Eversholt, the charity are to apply the rents and profits of the estate to the reparation of the parish church of Eversholt, for the relief of the poor people of the said parish, and for the aid and ease of the said parish in their common town charges; the church and poor in the first place to be provided for, according to the true intent and meaning of a decree theretofore made concerning the premises, in His Majesty’s high court of Chancery. The estate consists of the following particulars:
1. A messuage, farm, barn and outbuildings, and 107 acres of inclosed land, arable and pasture, all lying together, except one close of four acres, which lies detached. The land was allotted on the inclosure of Eversholt, in 1808, in lieu of other lands, formerly belonging to the feoffees, and with the exception of the close of four acres, is let to John Daniell, on lease, for 11 years from Lady-day 1817, at the annual rent of £110. The lease was granted on tender, and the present rent is the full annual value. The Four Acre Close is let, together with a small cottage belonging to the trust, to Thomas Foxley, as yearly tenant, at £7 which is about the yearly value.
2. A house, called the Town-house, at present used for the reception of the parish poor, with a garden of one rood, or thereabouts, attached.
3.— A public house and garden at the Church end in Eversholt, let for £20. per annum to Thomas Reddall, as yearly tenant, being the full value.
4, Thirteen other cottages, let to poor persons, of whom such as can afford it pay rents at the rate of £1 5s a year for each cottage, of which description there are four at present; the rest hold rent free, and are put in by the feoffees.
The total income is at present £142 per annum.
 One of the feoffees is appointed, together with a substantial householder in the town, who is not a feoffee, once a year, on Whit-Monday, to superintend the application of the rents, and keep the accounts. The acting feoffee and townsman are chosen by the feoffees, at a yearly meeting. This mode of administration and management is agreeable to established usage. There are no specific proportions of the rents and profits appropriated to the different trusts mentioned in the trust deeds; but it has been the custom, for many years past, to give to each poor family belonging to the parish, one hundred weight of coals annually, together with 1s in money. The distribution is made by the trustees on St. Thomas’s-day. By the accounts of the charity it appears, that the sum thus expended, for the year 1822, amounted to £11 7s 6d and that 100 poor families partook of the distribution. It has also been customary to pay £10 a year to a schoolmaster in the place, appointed by the feoffees for the instruction of 12 poor children of Eversholt. Other part of this rent is applied towards the ordinary repairs of the church. The sum thus applied varies with the demand, but on an average of three years, ending with the year 1822, it appears to have amounted to £13 10s per annum. The residue of the rents, subject to a deduction of £2 2s a year for insuring the farm buildings, is applied in discharging the interest of a sum of £300 borrowed by the trustees at the time of the inclosure, and in liquidating the rest of the debt by instalments. The sum thus borrowed was laid out, part in new-roofing the church, and in repairing the several farm buildings on the estate, and the remainder was applied in defraying the expenses of the inclosure. It was stated, that the church still stands in need of considerable sums being laid out upon it, and that until the debt is wholly extinguished, the rents and profits of the estate, after allowing for the disbursements on the other charitable objects above mentioned, is inadequate to more than the ordinary annual repairs of the church.

It’s notable that “aid and ease” of the “town charges” are mentioned in these 1820s documents – that means, I guess, reducing the rates. That objective disappeared from the remit of the charity later on. This also states that the Eversholt poor-house was the property of the charity. The pub was presumably the Green Man which is still owned by the charity.

According to http://www.measuringworth.com/, £142 in 1822 is worth anything from £10,000 to £504,000 today, depending on how you work it out. The actual income of the charity in 2011 was (according to the Charity Commission) £59,000. So, not much has changed in nearly 200 years.

And this from the same source, of uncertain date:
EVERSHOLT, The Town Estate ‘It is not known how this property became settled upon charitable uses. The estate is under the management of feoffees, proprietors of estates in Eversholt. The trustees are 15 in number; when reduced to six, there is a new election and appointment by the survivors. The last conveyance is dated ?? March ?? – present trustees are the Rev. James Reed, the rector, and others.

This bizarre comment has nothing to do with Eversholt:
30. Report of the commissioners appointed in pursuance of an act of Parliament made and passed in the 5th and 6th years of King William the IVth, c. 71. intituled,”an act for appointing commissioners …, 1837
of parish relief. Stjrangways, jun.’s, Charity. Thomas’ Sirangtcays, esq., jun.,  in the preceding charity. The interest of this sum (2/.) is likewise paid by the Earl of Ilchester (who holds the 40/.) to the overseers of Eversholt, and by them applied as hereafter stated.
Aha. That’s Evershot. not Eversholt. The Strangways Estate, and Ilchester, are next to Evershot, Dorset, and Strangways is known to have donated to Evershot.

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