CHARITIES FOR THE POOR.
John Franklin,
by will proved 1596, (fn. 2) left 20s. a year charged on
lands in East Barnet to the poor of Little Stanmore
but in 1823 there was no record that the money had
ever been paid. (fn. 3) A churchwardens' account of the
disbursement of £5, 'the annual gift of Sir John
Franklin', in 1693 (fn. 4) presumably refers to a deed of
Richard Franklin, confirmed in his will (proved
1615), (fn. 5) whereby a rent of £5 a year was left to the
poor. Richard's grandson and namesake accordingly
settled a rent-charge of £5 on Litten's Mead in
Hendon in trust in 1652. The money was to be
distributed by the churchwardens on All Saints' Day
but in 1823 payments, of 1s. to 4s., were made on
St. Thomas's Day (21 December). (fn. 6) Sir Thomas
Plumer supplemented the payments by 30s. a year,
representing five per cent interest on £30; in 1811
the sum had been owed as a fine to the duke of
Buckingham in return for inclosing a piece of wasteland, but the duke had given the money to the poor.
In 1963 the income of Richard Franklin's charity,
£4 3s. 4d. from 2½ per cent consols, was distributed
among at least 20 old people. (fn. 7)
Alms-houses were built in Church field by Dame
Mary Lake, who, by will proved 1646, instructed her
son Sir Lancelot to settle a rent-charge of £33 a year
to support the inmates, four old men and three old
women, all of them unmarried churchgoers. The
almspeople were to receive 1s. a week, 20s. worth of
coal every summer, and a black gown, worth 20s.,
at Christmas; vacancies were to be filled by the
churchwardens and parishioners, with the approval
of the owner of Canons so long as he should be of
the blood of Sir Thomas Lake. Sir Lancelot, by will
proved 1680, therefore left all the tithes of Little
Stanmore, worth about £100 a year, to his executors,
who were to maintain the almspeople and assign the
remaining profit to the incumbent. Since the incumbent had been granted most of the profits for
life, Sir Lancelot's heir Warwick Lake in 1694
agreed to pay £33 a year to the trustees until the
expiry of the lease. Warwick also supplemented the
income by £11 13s. 4d. a year, charged on 13 a. called
Crowshots which had been bought with £300
bequeathed to the poor by Sir Lancelot's grandson,
Lancelot Lake, in 1693. (fn. 8) Under a Scheme of 1870
the rector himself was to pay the £33 to the trustees.
A further Scheme in 1880 regulated the charities of
Dame Mary, Sir Lancelot, and Lancelot Lake, i.e.
the alms-house buildings, the payment from the
rector, and the rent from Crowshots, to which had
been added the income on £1,000 given by the
executors of Miss Harriett Hurst, (fn. 9) whose will had
been proved in 1878; (fn. 10) the number of almspeople
was reduced to 2 men and 2 women, who were to
receive at least 7s. a week each. In 1903 the number
was fixed at two men and one woman, who were
'diligently' to attend church (a provision omitted in
1880); part of the building was to be let and £100
from Harriett Hurst's stock was to be spent on
repairs. The charities were consolidated as the almshouse charity of Dame Mary Lake and others in
1920, by which time the land forming Lancelot
Lake's endowment had been converted to stock
worth £466 13s. 4d. (fn. 11) The alms-houses, originally
eight tenements, formed a half H-shaped block of
one storey, north of the church. They were said to be
in good repair in 1937, when the brick walls had
been cement-rendered, (fn. 12) but in 1938 the urban
district council's surveyor found them damp; the
last inmate left in 1953 and the site was added to the
churchyard four years later. After stock had been
bought with the proceeds of the sale, the charity in
1962 had a total income of c. £80, which was
distributed in food, fuel, clothing, and weekly
allowances. The income, from stock and the surplus
of the account of the Whitchurch institute, was more
than £250 in 1970. (fn. 13)