Parish Charities

But this was not always so as is revealed in the following information. You can read about how provision was made for the poor of the land from earliest times and the various institutions and mechanisms those previous generations put into place. The story is brought up to date describing the current activities of the Parish Charities and how we try to position ourselves given the pervasive reach of the Welfare State.

What in fact you are looking at in the gallery is a sequence of panels that have been assembled for Village Archive days. They are best read in number order as this will allow you to progress from early times to the present day chronologically. The panels make occasional reference to other display material that is set out on the Archive days but this shouldn’t detract from the history as a whole. Another slight oddity is that the Charity is “Hagbourne-wide” meaning that it benefits East, West and North (modern Northbourne) Hagbourne. You can improve the visibility of some of the text by using the magnifier facility that is built into the Windows operating system. Press Ctrl-Esc, then type R, then enter “magnify” in the Run window.

Should you wish to know more, or to have a closer sight of any of the material that went into this history, you can contact hagbourne.charities@gmail.com or contact Doug Amos on 01235 814024.

Introduction – The labourer’s life

Early times – A legal framework from ‘Good Queen Bess’

East Hagbourne Benefactors – Who gave what

Turbulent times – Captain Swing foments discontent among Hagbourne’s poor

The Workhouse – Advantages of an open village

Poors Land – Butts Piece, a sop to the poor for loss of commons

Money in and Money out – Practicalities of distribution

Into the Future – Recent history and future developments