CHARITIES FOR THE POOR.
Burwell's
substantial Church and Town lands charity,
recorded by 1595 as St. Mary's or the Town
lands, (fn. 4) comprised principally c. 99 a., believed
in 1603 to have been bequeathed or given (fn. 5) by or
for Thomas Catelyn (d. 1445), William Sygar
(d. 1477), both apparently childless, and
'Foster', perhaps Thomas Forster (d. 1496),
whose rents had been used to pay tenths and
fifteenths, when levied, for the inhabitants and
parishioners of the town, any surplus going to
repair St. Mary's church. Sygar's devise of his
lands was specifically for those purposes;
Catelyn and Forster had left the residue of their
property for charity. (fn. 6) The Town land feoffees,
who held those lands and who were expected by
John Ellis in 1600 to distribute the £10 that he
left for a stock for the poor, (fn. 7) took charge of other
charitable bequests, described below.
Lee Cotton by will proved 1613 left a 'little
mansion' in his yard with a barn to the feoffees
of his proposed school endowment as almshouses for four men to occupy for life, rent free.
They and succeeding inmates were also entitled
yearly, presumably through common rights, to
half a stone of sedge and to keep two bullocks. (fn. 8)
William Thompson by will proved 1627, besides
leaving to St. Mary's parish the income from
£40 for apprenticing poor fatherless children,
ordered his executors to build within a year
three almshouses for three poor widows or three
other poor parishioners. (fn. 9) William Mounford left
a house and a rood for two poor men to inhabit
similarly, while John Wosson or Watson by will
of 1642 left to support church repairs a house,
also later let as an almshouse. Thomas Frierston
by will of 1650 charged a close and dovehouse
with paying £1 yearly for the poor on St.
Thomas's day. (fn. 10) In 1711 Jacob Webb gave a
dovehouse yielding 10s. a year to support
apprenticeships. (fn. 11)
When Burwell fen was divided in 1678-9 the
parish was allotted for its poor, for the common
rights of its town houses, lots of 10½ a., three for
Thompson's and possibly one for Cotton's. (fn. 12)
Accordingly the feoffees possessed c. 1700-30 c.
100 a. of arable with four fen lots and two Town
closes. Besides the guildhall, their holdings
included in the 1710s sixteen 'almshouses',
among them four cottages by the churchyard
occupied by widows. That property yielded altogether into the mid 18th century c. £55 in rent,
besides a stock lent out, reduced from £145 in
1709 to £75 by 1730, including Thompson's
bequest. (fn. 13)
Although the original uses of the Church lands
were still formally in force in the 1690s, until
1716 the income was used for many charitable
and parish purposes, including apprenticeships. (fn. 14)
When the vicar, supported by the archdeacon,
induced new feoffees to resolve in 1727 that the
100-a. endowment was solely for church repairs, (fn. 15)
protests led to an inquiry in 1730. The resulting
decree, which displaced the vicar's allies as trustees, assigned to relieve the poor the residue, after
maintaining the church, of the income from the
100 a. and all that arising from the fen lots. It
formally devoted the other bequests to their original purposes. The £30 of the stock not lost to
its borrowers was to be invested in land. (fn. 16)
In the mid 18th century the trustees therefore
maintained town houses, numbering ten in
1790, fifteen by 1805. They gave from the
income, without distinction of origin, £15-20 a
year by the 1740s, £10 from the 1750s, to the
'worthy poor', partly in cash doles. They also
paid occasionally for apprenticeships, frequently
arranged by the parish between 1739 and 1800.
Even after the vicars recovered control of the
charity after 1770, up to £6 yearly, a tenth of
the increased income, went until the late 1780s
directly to the poor, for whose benefit subscriptions were paid from 1788 to Addenbrooke's
hospital, Cambridge. (fn. 17) Cash doles, sometimes
£10 yearly, out of c. £150 of rent, were again
occasionally given in the 1820s. (fn. 18) About 1830
money and bread were supposedly distributed
to the poor while fuel, coal and turf, was apparently sold cheaply to them. (fn. 19)
At inclosure in 1817 the Town lands feoffees
were allotted 56 a. for their arable (fn. 20) and owned
thereafter 92 a., including 28 a. of fen. (fn. 21)
Thompson's three cottages were pulled down c.
1835 and their sites added to the churchyard. (fn. 22)
Following fierce disputes in the 1830s over the
use of the charity, (fn. 23) a decree of 1855 assigned
half the net income to maintain the church, the
rest, together with the interest on a £360 fund,
increased in 1904 to £1,000, to be accumulated
to cover large church repairs, to benefit the poor
through education. (fn. 24) The charity's total income,
c. £165 in the 1860s, besides royalties from
coprolite diggings, (fn. 25) was halved after the 1880s
to £80 by 1900. (fn. 26) The charity still maintained
almshouses, thirteen in 1865, scattered along the
village streets, which were let to poor people at
nominal rents. From the 1930s those cottages
fell down or were condemned as insanitary, and
their sites, with some land let as allotments,
were sold. Two by the churchyard, supposed
Mounford's went in 1933-4, the last three in
1960-1. (fn. 27) In the late 20th century the charity
retained c. 91 a. of rented land and drew increasing sums from invested accumulations. Its
income, still officially shared equally between
church and education as ordered in 1855, grew
from c. £250 gross in the 1960s to over £4,500
of rent, besides up to £1,000 from investments,
by the early 1990s, when much capital was spent
on restoring the Victorian guildhall. (fn. 28)
About 1850 Chancery ordered Burwell's
worked out Poor fen, c. 169 a., to be cultivated
to produce income for the poor. After their
resistance had been overcome in 1851, (fn. 29) the land
was leased as Poor's Fen farm. However, compound interest on large mortgages raised to pay
for legal costs and agricultural improvements
absorbed and eventually exceeded the rent,
reduced from 1894 by two thirds to £84. Until
the 1960s the charity produced much vexation
for its trustees, but no money for distribution.
From 1899 to the 1930s its tenant farmer, having
acquired the mortgage cheaply, occupied it
effectively rent free. (fn. 30) Only after the whole farm
had been sold in 1964-5 for c. £23,000 and the
mortgage completely paid off, did the invested
price begin to yield an income, initially c. £800
yearly, by the 1990s over £3,000, mostly distributed, as prescribed in 1883, in coal to c. 300
people and by the 1990s to c. 450 yearly. (fn. 31)
Anne Turner, daughter of a former vicar, by
will proved 1844, left £500 for the poor of
Burwell, invested when it was received in 1858
to yield c. £15 a year, usually given thereafter
in cash to 30, 60, or 120 people, sometimes in
clothing. (fn. 32) Charles William Hunt by will proved
1927 left £500, invested to produce £18 yearly,
to buy coal for the elderly poor of Burwell, the
residue of his estate, worth £900, to the vicar
and churchwardens also for good causes. (fn. 33)