Letter from the Barbers' Company

Letter from the Barbers' Company

Barbers' Company.

4, Warnford Court,
Throgmorton Street, E.C.,
8th February 1883.

Sir,
The attention of the Barbers' Company having been called to the statements of Mr. Lucraft before the Livery Companies' Commission respecting Bancks' and Ferbras' Charities (printed evidence 13th day), I am instructed by the Court to make the following remarks, and in so doing to express their surprise that Mr. Lucraft ventured upon making statements respecting their Charities before satisfying himself as to their correctness.

1st.—As to Bancks' Charity.

The Company beg to refer the Commissioners to the Returns of the Mercers' Company, "Part 1, Return 2, Bancks' Charity." From these Returns it will be seen that the statements made by Mr. Lucraft are totally incorrect.

It will further be seen that since the year 1855 the Barbers' Company have received nothing in respect of this Charity. Notwithstanding this, the Barbers' Company continued to distribute to their poor, beef, loaves of bread, and money, until the year 1868, when the balance due to the Company from the Charity amounted to the sum of 66l. 19s. 9d., at which sum it still remains. The Court anticipate receiving no income from the Mercers' Company from the estate at Holloway until the year 1887 or 1888, when it is hoped that the debt to the Mercers' Company as specified in their Returns will have been extinguished, and that the Barbers' Company will then be in receipt of their 1/7th share of the ground rents (after providing for the fixed payments) amounting to the sum of 40l. per annum or thereabouts.

2nd.—As to Robert Ferbras' Will.

It is not the fact that Robert Ferbras devised two freehold houses in Dowgate Hill for the benefit of the poor members of the Company: he devised the houses to the Company upon trust, after doing repairs, to divide one moiety of the surplus receipts among the poor.

It is not the fact that for nearly 400 years the Company applied the income to their own corporate funds: on the contrary, for many years prior to the year 1848 they applied more than the income of the moiety, then about 20l. per annum, in payments to quarterly pensioners subsequent to that date. The accounts have been rendered to the Charity Commissioners, to which I beg to refer you.

I am, &c.,
H. Grose Smith.

H. D. Warr, Esq.,
City of London
Livery Companies' Commission,
2, Victoria Street, S.W.

LONDON: Printed by Eyre and Spottiswoode, Printers to the Queen's most Excellent Majesty.

For Her Majesty's Stationery Office.