Bedfordshire Archives Service Catalogue
  • Reference
    X983
  • Title
    Ursula Taylor Charity Records
  • Date free text
    1824-1991
  • Production date
    From: 1824 To: 1991
  • Admin/biog history
    The Clapham or Taylor Charity originated in 1724 when Dame Ursula Taylor, a wealthy widow, gave by her will a farm of about 65 acres, situated in the parishes of Marston and Wootton, Bedfordshire, to provide an income for apprenticing children of poor parents to some trade. For about 140 years the trustees carried out the terms of the Trust by apprenticing boys to craftsmen who plied their trades in the villages and small towns within a radius of 20 miles of Bedford. A premium of £20 was paid to each master who took a Clapham boy as an apprentice. The whole income of the charity was not always required and a surplus accumulated. In 1861 the Charity commisioners made an order appointing the Vicar of Clapham an ex-officio Trustee of the Charity. In 1871 after repeated applications the Commissioners agreed to the Trustees appropriating, from the accumlated income, £650 to help build a parochial school. A further addition to the number of Trustees was made in 1895. Around that time clay began to be excavated on the Marston farm and royalties upon the products of the brickyard paid to the Trustees were remitted to the Cahrity commissions for investment in Trustee Stock. The Marston estate was sold in 1934 and all monies invested in trustee Securities. In 1922 a new scheme was made under an Order of the Commissioners. In the 1940s the Charity Commission ruled that the Trust was not an educational one, the Scheme of 1922 not allowing of income being used for education.
  • Deposited by the Trustees of the Ursula Taylor Charity
  • Scope and Content
    Minutes, financial papers, correspondence, apprenticeship indentures (1920s-30s), plans for school, plan of estate.
  • Loan status
    TOCATawaiting cataloguing
  • Level of description
    fonds
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