Repository
  • Somerset Heritage Centre
Reference number
  • A/AMV
Description
  • By a deed dated 21 June 1709, William Westley the elder of Wells, Esq., and Richard Healy the elder of Wells, Doctor of Laws, assigned to Marshall Bridges and others the principal sum of £125 and interest secured by a mortgage on lands belonging to Jeremy Tucker. The money was assigned on trust to endow a charity 'for the relief, sustentation and maintenance of widows and children of such of the clergy of the Church of England...as should be residing at any time thereafter within the said county of Somerset, or be sent out from thence to school, or to either of the two universities, or to be apprentices...'. In 1716, the trustees lent their capital to the corporation of Wells on the security of premises in the city, and at a later date they invested in securities on the Shepton Mallet turnpike roads and the Wells turnpike. By a codicil to his will, dated 1776, Peter Davis, Esq., gave £100 to augment the charity, and a further sum of £100 was bequeathed by the will, dated 1797, of the Rev. John Golden of Wells.
Date
  • 1709-1971
Access status
  • Open
Level
  • Collection
Related material
  • See Reports of the Commissioners to Enquire Concerning Charities: Somerset, 1819-1837 (1894), pp 62-3. See D/P/w.st.c/17/7/1,2 for account books of the charity which list recipients of aid.