The Stanford Trust
The Stanford Charity Trust – Educational Grant
Each year the Stanford Trustees make grants to suitable applicants who under the age of 25 years and who are about to commence a Higher Education course level 4 or above or who enter into an apprenticeship and who reside in Laceby, Bradley, Irby, Barnoldby-le-Beck or Aylesby. (Grants are not normally made for A-level studies or those undertaking a level 3 qualification).
The Educational Grants are not means tested and will only be given once (usually during the first year). Grants are given to help cover the initial cost of tools, books or specialist equipment.
Applications must be made by the 1st October each year, and any Educational Grant will be made to all successful applications during the December of that year.
Applications and further information is available from Laceby Stanford Primary Academy website here: http://www.stanfordschool.org/aboutus/heritage.html or on their Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1923523884584768/user/100073920347124/ or by contacting the Clerk to the Trustees on email at: stanfordtrustclerk@gmail.com
The Stanford Trust 1720 - 2024
The Stanford Trust is a registered educational charity and is the Charitable Foundation of the Voluntary Controlled Laceby Stanford Junior and Infants School. It also carries out other charitable activities.
In 1712 Philip Stanford, a landowner locally, died, and left property, lands and all his wealth to his widow, Sarah. The Stanford’s had previously lived in Barnoldby-le-Beck and then at Bradley, where they had two children who, sadly, had died in infancy.
When his father died Philip inherited property and land in several parts of Lincolnshire and the family crest (which became the Stanford School badge). He and Sarah moved to Laceby to farm around ninety acres of land and to live in the property at the bottom of Cooper Lane known as College Farm House. This property still stands today.
Sarah was the step-daughter of Richard Nelthorpe whose uncle, Sir John Nelthorpe, had founded a Grammar School in Brigg in 1669. Possibly this family tradition led to Sarah's decision to interpret her husband's Will in the way in which she did? She was required before her own death to set out how Philip's Will was to be implemented. This did not say she should build a school but simply said she should have full power and authority in her lifetime to “settle and convey his dwelling house and all his lands in Laceby for ever … upon such or as many poor widows or other charitable uses as she, his said wife should nominate, appoint or think fit”.
Sarah formed a charitable Trust signed by a Deed of Trust on 11 October 1720. Its principle aim was to ensure that a school was built in Laceby and it charged the first Trustees to raise the sum of £60 from rental income of land. It took the Trustees ten years to do this and in 1730 Laceby Stanford Charity School, was opened to the children of the “poor inhabitants of Laceby, Barnoldby and Bradley”. Sadly, Sarah did not live to see the building of the schoolhouse and the opening of her school, she died in 1725.
The original school/house was demolished in the early 1970s. As well as owning the land and buildings and employing the staff, the Trustees were responsible for the administration of the school, standards, provision of books and equipment and repairs and maintenance. This continued for over two hundred years up until the 1944 Education Act when the school changed to a Voluntary Controlled Trust School and became maintained by the Local Authority.
The school, however, was not the only focus of the Trust and its Trustees. Sarah had also listed in the Deed of 1720 several other charitable causes which she required the Trustees to implement. She said that the Trustees were to pay towards…. ”putting out some of the said Scholars belonging to Laceby to be an Apprentice to some honest trade”. This was a very enlightened decision of Sarah's in a rural area where poor families might have little expectation for their children other than working on the land.
Sarah did not forget her husband's decree that she should help the “poor widows” of Laceby and she included in her Trust a requirement that the Trustees should “distribute among the poor people of Laceby … upon every first Sunday in every month throughout the whole year forever five shillings in Bread at the Church Door.
Sarah specified in the Trust Deed that every year, on the anniversary of Philip's death in May, a Sermon should be preached in the Church. She also required the Trustees to distribute the sum of five shillings to the Scholars. The division of five shillings between the pupils of the school at that time was assumed to equate to approximately 1d (one old penny) each and so the day became known as Penny Day (now Founders' Day). 1d (old penny) has since been increased to 50p.
The Stanford Trust Today
The Trust still owns the land and buildings of the existing school site, together with other land in the area and the site and building known as The Stanford Centre. The Stanford Centre was built from funds received from a compulsory purchase order of Trust land by the Local Authority. It was officially opened in 1975. It is now run and operated by a group of Volunteers known as The Stanford Centre Group.
As the Charitable Foundation of Laceby Stanford School, the Trust appoints three Governors to the school and provides support throughout the year in the form of additional educational resources and equipment. All Year 6 school leavers from the appropriate villages receive either a Bible or a dictionary donated by the Trust.
There are two further areas of work, firstly in the provision of grants to young adults, who are entering higher education or apprenticeships who attended Stanford School.
And secondly the provision of bread and money for ‘the poor’ has evolved into an annual charitable grant for residents of Laceby which is administered by the Stanford School.
The Trustees are proud to celebrate and to continue to uphold the 304-year legacy of Philip and Sarah Stanford.
Click on images below to enlarge.
