In William, we trust...

Charity started 500 years ago still plays a big part in Birmingham

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CONTRARY to the widespread belief, Birmingham wasn't a prodigy of the Industrial Revolution, suddenly emerging as if from nowhere on to the national and international stage.

Rather, its growth was evolutionary until the acceleration of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and that acceleration happened only because it took off from firm foundations.

Those foundations were laid from the mid-1100s when the lord of the manor gained the right to hold a weekly market, but they were built upon strongly by successive generations of skilled and unskilled workers, small gaffers, bigger traders, merchants, and highly successful entrepreneurs like William Lenche.

From the early 1600s, the 'e' was dropped from his name and as such it remains well known in Birmingham because of the charity he founded 500 years ago in March 1525.

Lench's Trust is remarkable not only in its longevity and positive impact on our city, but also because it's one of the few constants in the succeeding five centuries of dramatic change propelling Birmingham from a small market and manufacturing town into one of the world's greatest industrial centres.

Throughout that extraordinary transformation, the trustees adapted and innovated to meet the needs of less fortunate citizens.

Started in the midst of Henry VIII's tumultuous reign by William Lenche's donation of land for charitable purposes, his trust's income was initially devoted to repairing bridges and roads locally, with the residue given to the poor.

From the 17th century, the provision of almshouses became an increasingly important feature of the Lench's Trust and by 1881, with its street repairing functions long gone, it was focused on giving homes and pensions to necessitous women of the 'deserving' poor.