Richard's handouts down the centuries

Richard Inglethorpe built up a considerable fortune during his life, which spanned the 58 years from 1560 until 1618.

At the time of his death he owned 15 city centre houses, several commercial properties and considerable tracts of land - all commanding prime sites in the heart of Worcester, such as The Cross, High Street, Goose Lane (now St Swithun's Street), Sansome Street and Taylor's Lane, off Foregate Street.

Occupying former Inglethorpe land today are the Victoria Institute and the Worcester Arts Workshop.

Richard Inglethorpe was twice married but, having no children, decided with his second wife Margaret, after their deaths, to leave all the family's immense wealth to the poor.

The couple lived at the south end of High Street, in a substantial property somewhere between Fish Street and the Cathedral. Inglethorpe was City Chamberlain in 1602, and High Bailiff in 1610.

In his will of 1618, Inglethorpe specified: "Being desirous to set my house in order and to dispose of the estate wherein God has blessed me, in such a manner as may be best pleasing to him, I do hereby will and appoint, that the companies of the four and twenty and eight and forty" - (in those times, the Worcester Corporation) - "immediately after the decease of my said wife, shall elect, nominate and appoint to almshouses six poor men of the said City being of honest life and report, and such as are either very aged, blind, lame, sick of the palsy, or falling sickness, and by reason of their age or infirmity of body, are not able to work and labour for their living; and also one poor woman being likewise of honest life and report and of the age of 50 years at the least or upwards, which woman shall wash the clothes of the said six poor men, make their beds and attend upon them in all times of their sickness, to help them and provide things necessary for them." Inglethorpe further bequeathed two shillings a week to each of them.

As befits such a leading citizen and benefactor, Richard Inglethorpe was buried in Worcester Cathedral where his memorial plaque is still to be seen today in the South Aisle of the Nave. It bears the delightful epitaph:

"Here lies his fraility

His faire soule above

Who sorted all his actions to that end

This cities glory every good mans love

In life, in death, the poore's perpetual friend

As hospitable as they speake of Jove

His zeal, but how dare we commend

Beyond all pens his praise will best appeare

Onely to write tis Inglethrop lies here".

His generous legacies were to be embodied in what became known as the Inglethorpe Charity or Inglethorpe's Trust, and this, down nearly four centuries since, has continued to benefit needy local people and to enhance aspects of Worcester life, though, alas, his name has been long forgotten.

In 1836, the Inglethorpe Charity, together with a myriad of other local charities, was amalgamated into the Worcester Municipal Charities - a consolidation of city land, property and investments which now represent vast and valuable holdings to be administered for the benefit of needy local people.

Much of the land and property bequeathed by Richard Inglethorpe is still in the ownership of the Worcester Municipal Charities today, the most prominent being No.1 The Cross, an historic building which began life as the White Hart Inn and then became The Civet Cat store. In more recent decades, it has been occupied by the International Stores and now by the Nat West Bank.

I've been learning all about Richard Inglethorpe and his legacies from Paul Griffith, chairman of the Worcester Municipal Charities. I am indebted to Paul for all the detailed background information for this article. He, in turn, thanks local historian Dr Pat Hughes for her invaluable help.

He points out that two streets off Lowesmoor - Inglethorpe Meadow and Inglethorpe Square - and an inscription high up on No.1 The Cross (re-built 1890 - Inglethorpe's Trust) have for years now been the only physical reminders of a once worthy city benefactor.

However, Paul and the Worcester Municipal Charity Trustees have been determined to revive and perpetuate the name of Richard Inglethorpe once again and to ensure it survives more indelibly on the Worcester scene.

Recently, an old and "rediscovered" foundation stone from the original Inglethorpe Almhouses of 1620 was erected and unveiled in Taylor's Lane as part of the Victoria Institute luxury flats development.

Paul Griffith says that two ancient buildings in the Hopmarket Yard, now owned by the Hopmarket Charity, have been acquired on a 50-year lease by the Trustees of the Worcester Municipal Charities and are currently undergoing restoration.

They will come back into use at Christmas, as refurbished offices for the Worcester Citizens Advice Bureau and for the Ethnic Access Link, which provides an interpreting service for Worcester people unable to speak English.

In fitting memory of Richard Inglethorpe, whose original legacy of 1618 is largely funding the building works, the charity trustees have decided to name the premises No.1 and 2 Inglethorpe Court.

But back to the first and most important of Richard Inglethorpe's legacies - his almshouses for "six poor men" and a poor woman housekeeper.

In essence, Inglethorpe's Almshouses were to have a chequered existence covering some 270 years, and have been lost to the Worcester scene for a long time.

His first almshouses were built at Sansome Street in 1620, under instructions from his widow Margaret. The site was then in the Town Ditch - a sort of wide dry moat area running alongside and outside the old City Walls as part of Worcester's defences.

However, in 1645, when the English Civil War was at its height, the city was garrisoned by a Royalist force who pulled down many of the houses just outside the walls to improve the defensive fortifications. It seems the same houses had given cover to the enemy during fighting in 1642 and had interfered seriously with the defenders' field of gun and artillery fire.

Among the properties destroyed were Inglethorpe's Almshouses. Written records from the time speak of the buildings being "burned down for the preservation of the city". The outcome was that in the same year - 1645 - the poor from Inglethorpe's Almshouses petitioned the Corporation for "an habitation, instead of that hospital which was ordered to be taken down for the fortification of the city".

The first rebuilding of Inglethorpe's Almshouses was financed by the sale of The Old Clochium or Leaden Steeple - a separate bell tower and spire which stood for many years alongside Worcester Cathedral. It was sold in 1647, and out of the proceeds, Parliament made a compensatory grant to Inglethorpe's Charity of £113. 3s. ld. for replacement almshouses for those "burnt to the ground during the unhappy wars," together with a further £246 3s. 8d. for the upkeep of the inmates. The seven almshouses were rebuilt in 1648, again in the Town Ditch, and seem to have survived further disruption for about 80 years.

However, in 1732 the city council did a shady deal with John Garway, a local hop merchant, in relation to certain property in the town ditch, consisting of "a newly-erected warehouse and all those seven decayed tenements adjoining, used as almshouses belonging to Inglethorpe's Charity."

A firm condition was that Garway would "at his own costs and charges, build seven new almshouses in Taylor's Lane." In return, Garway took possession of the Town Ditch land and also the White Hart at The Cross, but sold them on to a Lady Gresley for a large profit with the Inglethorpe Charity receiving nothing.

However, the whole deal was ruled illegal when the Attorney General discovered that Garway was, at the time, "a leading member" of the city council and also a charity trustee.

This meant that Lady Gresley did not have any legal claim on the property as she had bought it off someone who should never have had it in the first place.

To make things worse, Lady Gresley sold on the White Hart in 1827, to a John Hall at immense personal profit. However, in order to complete the sale, her solicitors applied for a licence from the Corporation to agree the transaction, but the council refused.

Paul Griffith explains that in those days corruption of this kind was commonplace in charities managed by local councils, and so widespread was public concern that a national inquiry was set up.

The Brougham Commission arrived in Worcester in 1827, and soon found numerous examples of fraud. The particular case of the Inglethorpe land and properties was referred to the Attorney General, who recommended court action in 1831.

However, Lady Gresley had by then died but, eventually, the White Hart was recovered by the Inglethorpe Charity through legal action.

As a direct result of the Brougham Commission, the Lord Chancellor took control of all Worcester's municipal charities away from the old un-elected Corporation and handed them over in 1836, to a new independent body of trustees. Those charities, thus consolidated, have remained the Worcester Municipal Charities to this day.

However, returning to the year 1732, the unscrupulous John Garway did at least fulfil his agreement to build new Inglethorpe Almshouses in Taylor's Lane, where they remained for 167 years until finally being demolished in 1899, to make way for the building of the Victoria Institute.

Interestingly, Richard Inglethorpe had originally left this same land in Taylor's Lane in his will, and part of it had already been used for the erection of four almshouses - two for his own charity and two for the John Nash Charity.

Before the 1899 demolition, the inmates of the Taylor's Lane almshouses were relocated to refurbished vacant almshouses in Friar St, belonging to Michael Wyatt's Charity of 1725, which by then, was also managed by the same Worcester Municipal Charity Trustees.

Famous Worcester physician Sir Charles Hastings, founder of the British Medical Association, was chairman of the Municipal Charity Trustees in Victorian times when they bought 15 acres of land "adjoining the Orphan Asylum" in Henwick Road - now the YMCA.

It was intended to build the next cluster of Inglethorpe Almshouses on this land, but somehow the Trustees never got round to it. Bits of the land were gradually sold off and, eventually in the 1960s, the remainder of the site was compulsorily purchased by the local authorities for the building of a new St Clement's School.

We finish this lengthy tale of Richard Inglethorpe and his legacies with the remarkable saga of the "wandering" foundation stone from his first almshouses in Sansome Street.

That stone has made a tortuous journey lasting 380 years but has now, at long last, found a permanent resting place in Worcester's townscape. It has led a charmed life and has only survived due to an amazing sequence of events.

The foundation stone went "walkabout" after the second set of Inglethorpe Almshouses was commissioned by John Garway in 1732, and nothing was heard of it for more than 200 years until the late 1940s when it was found at Upton House, Upton Snodsbury, near Pershore, by the owner Mrs Florence Piller.

Until then, it had been used, face down, as a hearth stone. Finding the inscription underneath, Mrs Piller carefully preserved the fragments and showed them to county archivist E.H. Sargeant.

At the time, wealthy local hop merchant George Gascoyne was owner of much of the former Inglethorpe Charity land on the north side of Sansome Street - originally the site of the first Inglethorpe Almhouses, but then covered by furniture and hop warehouses, stables and store rooms. The site is now occupied largely by the Worcester Arts Workshop.

George Gascoyne, who was treasurer of the local Archaeological Society, readily paid for the foundation stone fragments to be pieced together, the missing portions restored, and the whole re-erected in 1951 on one of his warehouses at Sansome Street.

However, when this building was demolished in the 1970s, city conservation officer Will Scott rescued the foundation stone once again and placed it in the Commandery for safekeeping.

The stone has lain there for some 30 years since, waiting for a suitable site, though for the past decade, local historian Annette Leech has personally campaigned for the foundation stone to be taken out of store and re-erected, possibly on the burial ground wall of the Friends Meeting House, of which she is warden. This location would have been close to the original Inglethorpe Almshouse in Sansome Street.

Annette was repeatedly told, however, that the local authorities did not have money available to conserve and re-erect the stone but, fortunately, in more recent times, Paul Griffith heard of its existence and asked the Municipal Charity Trustees to agree a joint project with the city council and Wimpey to put erect it at the Victoria Institute site being renovated as luxury apartments.

The happy outcome is that the foundation stone now has a permanent place on a wall in Taylor's Lane, near to where Richard Inglethorpe's tiny cottages for the poor once stood.

The stone and a new commemorative plaque were recently officially unveiled by Dr Pat Hughes, author of several publications on Worcester in the 16th and 17th Centuries. She painstakingly produced the superb painting, recently featured in Memory Lane, of the 1502 funeral in Worcester Cathedral of Prince Arthur, son of Henry VII.