THE OLDER CHARITIES OF PLYMOUTH. 
25 
THE OLDEE CHAEITIES OF PLYMOUTH. 
BY R. N. WORTH, F.G.S., ETC. 
(Read October 16th, 1884.) 
The fact that there are extant a series of official reports on the 
Charities of this kingdom may seem to some to render the work 
undertaken in this paper unnecessary. Those, however, who are 
familiar with these documents, and especially with the report of 
the first enquiry, upon which all the others are based, will know 
that the reports are often fragmentary, often inaccurate, often 
perfunctory ; and moreover that in the earlier investigations, more 
particularly, the standard of judgment was not that which would 
accord with the clearer views of the present day. The original 
Commissioners were not wholly to blame for this. They had in 
hand a difficult and a novel task, and they met with hindrances on 
every side. Here from sheer laziness, and there of set purpose, 
they were kept in ignorance of matters it was essential they should 
know ; and documents were reported to be lost, which not only did 
exist, but were easily accessible. Their report upon the Plymouth 
Charities, which they examined into in 1820, is neither better nor 
worse than most of its fellows ; but it is meagre and inexact to a 
degree that deprives it of fully half its value, and in many points 
is seriously misleading. Moreover, from the necessary limitations 
of the enquiry, it does not deal so fully with the beginnings of the 
Charities as historically is desirable, and its biographical hints are 
scanty in the extreme. The object of this paper is to supply the 
deficiencies thus indicated — to trace from original sources 1 the 
inception of the various Charities included within its scope; to 
indicate their first character and purpose, with the changes that 
have taken place in their operation ; and to recal the memories of 
a host of forgotten benefactors of the ancient town of Plymouth, 
1 Not a single statement is given second-hand where an original document 
is available. 
