CHARITIES FOR THE POOR. (fn. 93)
From 1562 the
same trustees managed all the charity estates originating in late-15th-and early-16th-century gifts and
later including the alms-houses. In 1892 the estates
were amalgamated with those distributive charities
not administered by the parish, to form the Finchley
Parochial Charities.
Charity estates.
In 1488 Robert Warren of Finchley was demised a house, garden, and croft called
Ryefield, held of Bibbesworth manor. He settled
Ryefield in 1488 (fn. 94) and the house and garden in
1489 (fn. 95) in trust to provide ornaments for Finchley
church and repair the church and highways, any
residual income to be distributed among the poor
on Mid Lent Sunday. (fn. 96) In 1547 6s. 8d. was given to
the poor and £1 remained for other purposes. (fn. 97)
Ryefield alias Barleyfield, known also as Warren's
first gift, was c. 11 a. at Church End between Dollis
brook and Nether Street. In 1757 it consisted of two
tenements and Homefield and Great and Little
John's fields. (fn. 98) It was let at £18 in 1682, £42 in 1794,
and £67 12s. from 1815. The tenements were
demolished before 1810 and replaced by Brent
Lodge (fn. 99) between 1817 and 1824. The whole, known
as the Brent Lodge estate, was alienated in 1854 for
a rent-charge of £60, (fn. 1) which was still paid in 1976.
Warren's second gift, the house and garden, became
three tenements, which had been reduced to two by
1803, when they yielded £9 rent. One building was
occupied from 1813 by St. Mary's National school,
which held it at the preferential rent of £12 in 1824.
The other was then a shoemaker's shop and was
later let to paupers. Both cottages were let in 1882
on an 80-year building lease to William Royal, on
whose bankruptcy nos. 1-3 Royal Terrace, later nos.
50-54 Hendon Lane, were incomplete. They were
let by the charity for 70 years from 1890 and at £600
rent from 1960.
In 1506 Thomas Sanny enfeoffed trustees with
property including a house and the crofts of Fore
Ryders and Stukefield held of Bibbesworth manor
for 1s. 3½d. rent. By will dated 1509 he left £2 a year
from the house and Stukefield for the good of his
soul and 6s. 8d. for the repair of his house and
the highways and other charitable purposes. (fn. 2) The
rent-charge, from which £1 18s. 8½d. remained
for charitable purposes in 1547, (fn. 3) was forfeited
under the Chantries Act and granted in 1549 to
John Hulson and William Pendered, respectively a
scrivener and a 'founder' of London, (fn. 4) who conveyed
it to Hugh Losse. (fn. 5) Hugh's infant son Robert was
found to be his heir in 1555, (fn. 6) but a second jury
traversed the inquisition (fn. 7) and in 1561 the Court of
Wards restored not merely the charge but the
estate from which it arose to the charity trustees.
Sanny's gift consisted of a tenement fronting East
End Road and fields behind stretching to the modern
Market Place, East Finchley. The house had become
the Five Bells inn by 1757, when the land formed
Homefield and Poor Toms field. (fn. 8) There were also
two cottages in 1803 when the inn was let as a workhouse to the parish, which sub-let it and in 1807
surrendered the lease. All the buildings were replaced
in 1812 with the three Homefield Cottages, paid for
largely by the sale of timber and let at £39 in 1824
and £59 in 1884. (fn. 9) The estate was divided by the
G.N.R. in 1864, adjacent land opening into Market
Place was bought in 1866, (fn. 10) and there were nine
gardens and fields by 1884. (fn. 11) In 1890 leases were
granted on the seven Stanley Villas facing East End
Road. East of Stanley Road eight terraced houses
were leased for 99 years in 1900; to the west lay
allotments by 1896 and Homefield Cottages, one of
which had become Homefield garage by 1951. The
land north of the railway was sold piecemeal from
1929, Finchley council buying the last 1½ a. of Poor
Toms field in 1964. Stanley Villas by 1977 had been
replaced by eighteen town houses off Stanley Road.
Homefield Cottages and garage had been demolished
by 1972 and, with help from the Housing Corporation, two three-storeyed blocks of 38 alms-houses
called Homefields were being built in 1977.
Sanny's feoffees also held four crofts and a
meadow called Pointalls of Finchley manor for 4s.
4d. rent in 1525, when they settled them in trust
with Sanny's gift. The terms of the trust were
unknown in 1547, when the income of 9s. was spent
on the poor. (fn. 12) The estate passed to the Crown with
the chantries and in 1551 was granted to Henry
Tanner and Thomas Butcher of London, (fn. 13) who
immediately conveyed it to Hugh Losse, but in 1561,
by decree of the Court of Wards, Pointalls was
restored to the surviving trustees.
Four parish alms-houses had been built by 1614
on part of Pointalls meadow. (fn. 14) Customarily rentfree in 1723, they were condemned in 1739 and
rebuilt as six double alms-houses mainly at the
expense of Thomas Brandon (d. 1744). There were
16 inmates, 40 years' old and more, in 1805, 13 aged
inmates in 1850, and 14 in 1886. Between 1803 and
1824 the alms-houses cost a total of only £85 in
repairs and Christmas gifts to the inmates. In 1836
the trustees granted weekly pensions of 2s., which in
1876 were raised to 3s.; in 1886 the inmates' pensions ranged from 2s. 6d. to 10s., together amounting
to £126 a year, and Christmas gifts were £2 17s. 6d.
By 1860 most alms-people were receiving poorrelief. Although three widows who were constantly
drunk had been replaced in 1817, evictions were said
to be never necessary in 1886, when alms-people were
chosen from aged paupers long resident in Finchley.
Administered with the other charity estates and
lying between Long and Oak lanes and the modern
North Circular Road, where it totalled 11 a. in 1757,
Pointalls was often threatened with encroachment:
c. 1823¾ a. had to be bought for £350 to restore
its unity. In addition to the alms-houses built on
Pointalls by 1614 (fn. 15) there was a brick house by 1757; (fn. 16)
the house was beyond repair in 1824, when the
trustees vainly hoped to let the whole estate for
building. From c. 1834 some and from c. 1900 most
of Pointalls was let as allotments, which were
resumed by Finchley Parochial Charities in 1967.
In 1969 2 a. were let to Simms Motor Co. (later
CAV Ltd.), in 1971 Barnet L.B. bought 108 a. of
Pointalls and the trustees' allotment (fn. 17) for £441,000
and in 1972 a small plot was let for an electricity
sub-station, 3½ a. being reserved for additional almshouses.
In 1547 parishioners assembled at the church
house, which they had built at their own expense
near the churchyard and which they let for 8s., paid
towards the church. (fn. 18) The house and garden, with
the neighbouring clerk's house and various groves
and hedgerows, were held from 1562 with the
charity estates. The church house was let subject to
reasonable access until 1718, when it became the
Queen's Head inn. The rent rose steadily to £50 by
1824 and the inn was rebuilt after having been
destroyed by arson in 1836. As Finchley Hall, the
building was leased to the rector for a middle-class
school, later Christ's College, in 1857 and to Finchley U.D.C. for municipal offices in 1902. After being
bombed in 1944 the 2-a. site was used for temporary
storage until 1959, when the council bought it for
£4,000, later building a library there. The clerk's
house, which was let at only £1 in 1674, was
replaced by two timber houses before 1776. (fn. 19) In
1824 one was let to a poor widow and the other was
a chandler's shop. One or both may have been
rebuilt in 1849 and one was a brick house and the
other a timber cottage unfit for habitation in 1879.
Both were leased to the rector and churchwardens
from 1884, one being replaced by the modern reading
room. The other, described as the clerk's house,
was dilapidated c. 1940, when it suffered bomb
damage, but survived in 1977.
The Finchley inclosure award allotted the trustees
c. 6 a., (fn. 20) of which ½ a. was let with Sanny's gift and
the rest formed a block between High and Sylvester
roads and Oak Lane, separated from Pointalls by a
footpath. The estate was neglected in 1823 when it
was let on a 50-year lease, under which Oak and
Edgell cottages were built fronting High Road by
1826 (fn. 21) and Leicester House by 1851. The land at the
rear was let as allotments from 1892. Oak and Edgell
cottages were demolished between 1967 and 1970,
when Leicester House remained, with allotments
and nursery land behind. In 1971 the estate was
sold with Pointalls to Barnet L.B.
Expenditure in the 16th century was left to the
churchwardens and by the mid 17th century to
the trustees or one of them acting as warden of the
charities. In 1672 the warden's power to authorize
expenditure was restricted to sums under £2 but an
unsuccessful attempt to curb the trustees in 1684
left them free from parochial control but resulted in
provision for approval of new trustees and audit
by the justices. After 1857 the rector and parish
officers were excluded from the annual audit, to
which they had been admitted as observers since
1668. The trustees tried to resist encroachments on
the lands, ordered surveys, repaired buildings, and
apparently tried to enhance the estates' value with
building leases from 1760. The income rose from
£65 10s. in 1671 to £90 in 1740, £170 in 1805, £278
in 1824, £303 in 1868, and £526 in 1885; it sufficed
for normal expenditure and permitted savings for
rebuilding and special acts of charity.
In 1612 the charities' income was to provide £2
for bread on Mid Lent Sunday, the residue to be
spent on the church, highways, poor-relief, and
other charitable purposes. Maintenance of the almshouses was also an object in 1684. Highways often
involved major works and in 1824 the trustees helped
to repair all ways leading to the church. Wells and
pumps, with highways, cost £1,410 or almost a third
of the total expenditure between 1803 and 1824.
Over the same period £686 was spent on the church,
including salaries of the organist, organ-blower, and
clock-maker. Contributions were also made towards
the adornment and repair of the church: £250 subscribed for a new gallery in 1805 was much criticized.
In addition £413 was spent on coal and £224 on
bread between 1803 and 1824, although only £2 was
spent on bread in the three years before 1824.
Barley loaves were given away in the famine years of
1697-8 and £75 was spent on bread in 1796 and £67
in 1800. In 1825, in preference to spending more on
bread, the trustees assisted apprentices, as in 1675
and 1699, and from 1809 they contributed towards
the National school. In 1824 several cottages were
let at low rents to the poor, as had been done in 1675
in lieu of poor-relief. The feoffees also maintained
the alms-houses, giving the inmates fuel and cloth
and from 1836 pensioning them. Other pensions
were paid by 1860 and nine outpensioners received
a total of £2 5s. a week in 1886. Contributions to
church paths and highways ceased in 1853 and 1866
but by 1848 gifts were made to new Anglican
churches and schools. Land was also let as allotments.
While they often co-operated with the vestry, the
trustees refused merely to relieve the rates, whether
for the church in 1684 or the highways as in 1866.
They were continually criticized from 1850: in 1857
a memorial sought more expenditure on the church,
the highways, and the poor, and in 1859 the vestry
claimed that gifts to district churches were illegal
and that the trustees were unrepresentative. Dissension grew in the 1880s, (fn. 22) when successive vestries
appointed committees to influence the trustees, until
in 1892, after litigation, Chancery established a
Scheme amalgamating the charity estates with
several distributive charities. (fn. 23)
Finchley Parochial Charities.
Under the Chancery
Scheme of 1892 trustees would ultimately be single
nominees of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, the
rector, and the churchwardens and overseers, four
nominees of the vestry, and four co-opted trustees,
although the Scheme was modified by the Local
Government Act, 1894. All the fuel fund's land was
to consist of allotments and other estates were to
serve a similar purpose. In 1899 allotment-holders
opposed plans to build on the land constituting
Sanny's gift and in 1972 they defeated a planning
application for the fuel land. The income from the
fuel land was still to provide coal, of which £100
worth was distributed in 1919 and annually between
1968 and 1972, usually among the alms-people and
pensioners; any surplus went to the Finchley
District Nursing Association by 1939, when the
trustees vainly sought confirmation of the practice.
Finchley church was to receive £50 a year and the
district churches were to share £100 until 1976,
when a Scheme amended the sums to £700 and
£1,400. Provision was also made in 1892 for the
alms-houses, pensions, and a wide range of discretionary payments; the last were redefined in 1955
but of little importance in 1977.
The combined incomes of the charity estates and
the distributive charities, which had totalled £679
in 1885, were augmented by bequests after 1892.
Edwin Layton gave £25 for pensions to old people
awaiting admission to the alms-houses in 1903 and
F. A. Hamilton of Brent Lodge gave £500 for the
same purpose in 1904. The trustees in 1904
received £64 stock left by Mrs. Sophia Low and
later a further £25 bequeathed to her executor John
Yates Paterson. By 1925 the sums had been consolidated as £637 stock known as the donation fund,
yielding £14 a year.
Further bequests included £1,000, evidently given
by one Laming to augment the pensions. William
Alfred Taylor (d. 1941) left the residue of his estate
after his wife's death to provide pensions of 7s. 6d.
for poor residents of Finchley; £5,841 was ultimately received, most of it in 1955. Ellen Maria
Hall bequeathed one-sixth of her residuary estate,
amounting to £300 received in 1952. Finchley
Charities' income was £823 in 1919 and £940 in
1922: of £580 spent in 1919, £150 was given to
churches, £100 in fuel, and £300 to the alms-houses
and pensioners. The income grew to £1,350 by 1954
and more rapidly thereafter. Although sales of land
paid for additional alms-houses, the income reached
£5,915 in 1969 and £40,931 in 1972. Much of the
money from the sale of Pointalls was spent on
building.
The alms-houses, under the Scheme of 1892,
were to be rebuilt as twelve, for old inhabitants not
receiving poor-relief. Pensions of 6s. were to be paid
to inmates and 10s. 6d. to married couples. Pensions
of not more than £15 a year might be granted to
non-residents and a ceiling of £270, later £300, was
placed on all pensions combined. Plans for the new
alms-houses were ready by 1893 and carried out
soon afterwards. There were 18 alms-people, including 6 couples, in 1918, 14 in 1952, and 12 in 1954,
shortly before a communal room was converted into
an extra alms-house. Pensions were reduced by a
Scheme of 1910 but temporary increases for inmates
were allowed in 1918 and 1924. In 1918 the inmates
received from 2s. 6d. to 10s. a week and eighteen
others received 2s. 6d. and in 1954 both alms-people
and others received 6s. 6d. A Scheme of 1955
raised the ceiling on pensions to £400 and permitted
new building. Four extra alms-houses were finished
in 1958 and another eight by 1969, when the estate
had been renamed Wilmot Close. A further 26 units
for 30 old people and a steward's house were later
built, providing a total of 50 units for 60 almspeople. Annual expenditure on Wilmot Close rose
from £2,447 in 1968 to £3,383 in 1972, while
pensions increased from £485 to £542. By a Scheme
of 1976, ability to contribute towards the running
costs of the alms-houses might be made a qualification for admittance.
Distributive charities.
Thomas Cleave gave £50 to
buy a rent-charge of £2 16s. to provide thirteen
penny loaves for distribution among the poor of
Finchley every Sunday. In 1636 a rent-charge was
bought to supply the twelve poorest churchgoers,
including the sexton, who also received the thirteenth
loaf for administering the charity. In 1824 the net
income was £2 10s. 10d. and distribution was normally to widows at the church, although the sexton
had recently been told to make it to children at the
National school.
Roger Hayton in 1663 gave a rent-charge of
£2 12s. on a house for distribution of 1s. worth
of bread every Sunday. The house had been
demolished by 1729, when the charity was defunct.
Thomas Tickner in 1667 was granted land from
Finchley common to enlarge the grounds of the
later Lodge House, subject to perpetual payments of
£2 to the poor and £2 to repair the church causeways.
The charge was extinguished under the Finchley
inclosure award.
William Haynes's and William Nicholl's bequests
of rent-charges of £2 were recorded on a table of
benefactions in 1734. Joseph Newton was then
recorded as the payer of 12s. 6d. a year from Mill
House.
William Norris by will dated 1809 left £300 in
trust to pay for repairs to his family tomb, the
residue to be distributed in bread or money; £270
was invested to yield £12 4s. 10d. in 1824, when any
residue was spent on bread or occasionally distributed in money or coals. Meat and groceries were
supplied in 1865.
John Orsley in 1810 left money in trust to provide
bread. The income was spent on blankets in 1864-5
and amounted to £7 16s. 6d. in 1868.
Under the inclosure award 17 a. were allotted and
let at £40, to provide coal for the poor. In 1824
every chosen family received a sack and the residue
was divided according to need. After 1868 a plot
was sold to the G.N.R. and c. 1875 2 a. were sold to
Samuel Wimbush, the proceeds being invested. In
1885 there was an income of £46 from rents and
£65 from dividends. Prolonged pressure led the
trustees c. 1888 to convert the remaining 15½ a. to
allotments, which were still used in 1977.
Alexander Murray in 1829 bequeathed £400 stock
for the repair of his tomb and distribution of bread.
The income was spent on groceries in 1864-5 and
amounted to £12 in 1868.
Francis Matthews by codicil dated 1830 left £200
stock for the repair of his tomb and bread for the
poor. In 1864-5 the income was spent on groceries
and coal and in 1868 it amounted to £6.
Jane Andrews by will proved 1849 left £100
subject to repairs to her tomb for distribution in
fuel. The income was spent on groceries in 1865 and
yielded £2 17s. 9d. in 1868.
Mrs. Sharma Jemima Clarinda Morison in 1860
left £100 for distribution of fuel. The income was
spent on coal in 1865 and yielded £3 3s. 7d. in 1868.
The charities of Cleave, Norris, Orsley, Murray,
Andrews, and Morison, with the fuel fund established under the inclosure award, became part of
Finchley Parochial Charities in 1892.
James Lermitte in 1858 gave £200 stock, half of
the income to maintain his tombstone and be distributed among the poor and half to assist the
National schools. In 1861 the transaction was completed by his executors and in 1905 the Charity
Commission divided the stock into an educational
and an eleemosynary charity, the latter to be devoted
entirely to the poor of the chapelry. In 1965-6 the
income of c. £2 7s. was distributed by the vicar of
Holy Trinity.
John Anthonie Bradshaw (d. 1884) left £500 to
provide annual distribution of groceries and coals
to at least 60 poor parishioners. In 1965 the income
of £11 4s. was added to a large balance and in 1966
only £5 was distributed by the rector, but from 1967
expenditure greatly exceeded income. Most payments were contributions of £1 5s. (£2 in 1971)
towards fuel for between 7 and 24 people. From
1969 distribution was by the Finchley Guild of
Social Service.
Ann Sims (d. 1942) left the residue of her estate
totalling £2,536 towards a trust fund for distressed
gentlefolk or other poor persons in Finchley.
Trustees were established by a Scheme in 1948 and
there was an income of £70 from 1965 to 1971. In
1965 £51 was distributed to the needy and £10
given to the Finchley Guild of Social Service
towards chiropody and Christmas presents. In 1971
£45 was given to the needy, £12 10s. to the guild,
and £10 to St. Elizabeth's Home.