Christmas Charity in Chippenham

Christmas is a time for giving, not only presents to family and friends, but an opportunity for charities to appeal for funds. This is not new; Simpson and Roud’s Dictionary of English Folklore (2000) refers to doles to the poor being made on St Thomas’s Day (21 December). Research for the Wiltshire VCH has turned up several examples in the north Wiltshire parish of Chippenham. The town had a number of charities for the poor, several of whom made their distributions during the winter months, and of these some made a point of distributing money or other assistance on St Thomas’s Day.

Robert Gale, a London vintner, made his will in 1628 leaving £20 a year to the poor of Chippenham from estates in Lincolnshire and Derbyshire, to be distributed on St Thomas’s Day by the bailiff and six of the oldest burgesses of the borough. Gale’s bequest further stipulated that 20s. be paid to the bailiff and burgesses for their trouble, and a further 20s. to a preacher for a sermon. The poor were still receiving Gale’s charity in 1834, when a half-crown (2s. 6d.) was distributed to each person, but only to the deserving ‘second poor’, that is, those not already in receipt of parish relief. By 1902 the charity distributed half-crowns to 169 persons. The value of this gift declined in real terms, and by 1942 a decision had been taken to increase the amount to 5s. The charity continued to operate into the 1950s, but eventually amalgamated with Sir Francis Popham’s, another Chippenham charity.

In 1642 Henry Smith, a London silversmith, left the income from a Gloucestershire estate to benefit the poor of 23 parishes, including Chippenham. In Chippenham, Smith’s gift was distributed on or close to the feast of St Thomas, in the form of coats to poor persons. Both men and women were eligible to receive coats, but by 1766 coats were being distributed to men only. Smith had required that a badge identifying him as the donor be sewn on any clothing provided by the charity. This was still being done in 1834, but had been abandoned by 1904, by which time eight or nine coats were being given away each winter. By 1917 the provision of coats had been abandoned, and instead beef was distributed to the poor.

In 1834 Ann Bradbury made a will leaving the interest on £100 to provide blankets for the aged and deserving poor of the parish, excepting every fifth year when the interest was to be put towards the maintenance of her sisters’ tomb in the churchyard. Twenty-four blankets were distributed at Christmas 1903, but rising costs of materials during the First World War meant that only nine persons could receive blankets in 1917. The value of the endowment declined in real terms and by 1948 the income was being disbursed as cash gifts of 5s.

The terms of Goldney’s Charity, founded in the 1680s by the will of Gabriel Goldney, provided for six honest, poor labouring men of the parish to receive coats each year, the funds coming from a house and land left by Goldney to provide £6 a year for this purpose. The distribution does not appear to have been specified as having to take place on St Thomas’s Day, but, for a time at least, it seems to have taken place around Christmastide. Six coats were still being distributed in 1904, but the declining value of the charity’s fixed endowment saw it amalgamated with several other Chippenham charities in the 20th century.

~ Rosalind Johnson, Contributing Editor