CHARITIES FOR THE POOR.
Robert Hillson,
mercer of London, by will proved 1585, left a house
in Edgware to his widow. After her death the rent
was to be spent on the poor of Great Stanmore. (fn. 3)
John Burnell, by will proved 1605, left £100 to the
Clothworkers' Company of London, which was to
pay part of the annual interest, 26s., for 6 pennyworth of bread a week for the poor. His son John,
also a clothworker, by will proved 1623, left a rent-charge of 40s. a year to the poor. (fn. 4) The testator's
daughter, Anne Coo, was accused of withholding
payment in 1668 (fn. 5) and the vestry was persistent in
claiming arrears from the marquess of Buckingham,
as owner of Ward's farm, from 1815. (fn. 6) By 1823 stock
worth £50 had been bought, mainly out of 19 years'
arrears, and half a year's interest, with the rent-charge, had been spent on 3s. worth of coal for 20
poor people. (fn. 7) In 1964 each of the three charities had
an income of less than £5 a year. (fn. 8)
Barbara, widow of John Burnell the elder, by will
dated 1630, left £300 to the Clothworkers' Company,
which was to spend £7 a year on bread for 12 of the
poor and for the parish clerk, on a payment of 2s. to
the parish clerk, and on gowns for 6 poor women; all
six women were to come from Stanmore one year
and two were to come from Bushey (Herts.), two
from Harrow Weald, and two from Edgware in the
following year. Thomas Burnell, by deed of 1655,
augmented Barbara Burnell's gift by 30s. a year for
clothing and 18d. a week for cheese. In 1823
the Clothworkers' Company paid £15 0s. 8d. for the
gifts of Barbara and Thomas Burnell; although the
clerk no longer received 2s. the total amount spent
was £15 2s., the difference being paid out of the
church-rate. (fn. 9) In 1963 £7 4s. 10d. from the Barbara
Burnell trust was spent on bread and £5 3s. 4d. on
an exhibition at Oxford University, which the
Clothworkers' Company increased from its own
resources. The income from the charity of Thomas
Burnell, also paid by the company, was between £5
and £10 in 1966. (fn. 10)
Sir John Wolstenholme, by will dated 1639, gave
the income on £200 to the poor of Great Stanmore,
as well as whatever should be left from the income
on another £200 which was intended for repairs to
the church. His son John, by deed of 1655, accordingly settled land in Billiter Lane (London) on trustees. (fn. 11) In the 1720s two tenants there each paid £10
a year, although in 1740 the vestry, which often
discussed the affairs of the charity, had to be content
with rents of £8. (fn. 12) The annual rent amounted to £13
in 1823, when half was spent on the church and half,
supplemented by the parish, on beef for 60 poor
people at Christmas. In 1964 the income was between
£25 and £50.
Rose Archer (d. 1686) is said to have left the
income on £20 to six poor women. (fn. 13) In 1823 it was
reported that the capital had been spent nearly forty
years previously, on legal costs over the houses in
Billiter Lane, and the vestry agreed to reinstate the
charity with £20 from the church-rates. (fn. 14) By 1899
there was stock worth £77 6s. and in 1964 the income
amounted to less than £5 a year. (fn. 15)
John Pardoe, by deed of 1757, left his great tithes
on some 230 a. in Hendon to ten poor widows aged
40 or over on Stanmore. (fn. 16) A rent-charge payable in
lieu of great tithes was gradually redeemed for stock
between 1909 and 1943. Henry Hooper, by deed of
1850, left four cottages on Stanmore Hill to be used
as alms-houses for poor widows. The cottages were
not endowed and the rector reported that they were
very dilapidated in 1883, when the tenants were paying 6d. a week. The buildings, condemned by
1903, had been pulled down by 1915, when a Scheme
directed that their site should be let as a garden and
that the income should be used, after helping former
inmates to pay rent elsewhere, to augment Pardoe's
charity. The land, let for £10 in 1947, was sold for
£1,250 in 1967. Frances Wilson of Belmont Lodge
began to build four alms-houses for widows in Elm
Terrace, Old Church Lane, in 1922, and, by will
proved in the following year, left the income on £500
towards repairs. In 1963, when the annual income
was £26 6s. 2d., a Scheme empowered the trustees to
charge weekly contributions of 10s. or less towards the
cost of upkeep. The alms-houses, forming a single-storeyed red-brick building, survived in 1971. (fn. 17)