Description:In her will, made in 1670, Lady Katherine Leveson, the wife of Sir Richard Leveson (1698-1661), established the Foxley Charity. This charity provided money for the maintenance of widows and poor children in places where Lady Katherine owned lands, including the parish of Trentham.
The Sutherland Papers contain a printed volume from the eighteenth century entitled ‘An Act for establishing and regulating a Charity, called Foxley Charity’. The volume tells us about the history of the Foxley Charity and its impact on life in the Parish of Trentham.
Lady Katherine provided money which was intended for the ‘maintenance’ of ‘three widows inhabiting the Parish of Trentham’. Each of the widows would receive ‘the yearly sum of ten pounds’. The widows who benefited from the Foxley Charity were required to wear a grey cloth gown bearing the letters ‘K. L.’, Lady Katherine’s initials, which were sewn onto the gown in blue cloth.
In addition to providing money for widows, Lady Katherine instructed the Trustees of her will that the sum of £100 from the rents of her lands was to be used ‘for placing forth ten poor boys apprentices, yearly, to some honest and lawful calling’. The money included provision for two poor boys from the Parish of Trentham.
Click on the image on the left to learn more about charities established by Sir Richard and Lady Katherine Leveson in the seventeenth century.