Group    From 1566 

Bedford Charity

Categories: Education

Created by a gift of land by Sir William Harpur to the corporation of Bedford. A merchant from Bedford he had come to London and done so well that he was Lord Mayor in 1561. The following year he purchased 12 acres of land that had belonged to Charterhouse and in 1566 he and his wife Alice gave the property to the Bedford Corporation to support education in Bedford.

The charity has been renamed the Harpur Trust and still owns properties within the original Harpur estate and still supports education in Bedford.

We learnt all this from the resourceful A London Inheritance where there are maps showing the extent of the estate and photos of 5 other extant Bedford Charity markers. 

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Bedford Charity

Commemorated ati

Mrs. Eliz. Doughty and the Bedford Charity

These plaques mark property boudaries and identify ownership.

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Other Subjects

University College London (UCL)

University College London (UCL)

The first English university established since Oxford and Cambridge and the first not to discriminate on race, class or religion, and the first to accept women on equal terms. Jeremy Bentham was no...

Group, Education

8 memorials
HMS Shrapnel

HMS Shrapnel

From Exploring East London: "During World War II the college was used by the armed forces for providing technical training for personnel; first by the RAF in 1940, then by the army in 1941 and then...

Group, Armed Forces, Education

1 memorial
Braidwood Academy for the Deaf and Dumb

Braidwood Academy for the Deaf and Dumb

First school in England for the education of the deaf.  Established  by Thomas Braidwood.  On old maps one can see a large house just a little to the north of the plaque location but we can find n...

Building, Education

1 memorial
Lady Byron

Lady Byron

Born as Anne Isabella Milbanke, sometimes known as Annabella, an heiress in her own right. Unusually well-educated. An unwise marriage to Lord Byron in January 1815 lasted only a year but did produ...

Person, Education, Friend / family, Race Issues

1 memorial
George Lillie Craik

George Lillie Craik

Born Kennoway, Fife. Literary scholar and writer. Created professor of English literature and history at Queen’s College, Belfast in 1849. Buried at Holywood, near Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Person, Education, History, Literature, Ireland, Scotland

1 memorial