In her article about Datchet United Charities in the last issue of The Link, Gwenna asked whether there were any local descendants of the original benefactors whose gifts still provide support in so many ways for those who live here now. It is unlikely that any such descendants are traceable, but instead, there is quite a lot of evidence about those donors themselves. They are all listed on the wooden 'charity boards' round the walls at the west end of the church. Such boards quite often survive, another local example being at St Mary's in Langley, and they usually date from the early 1800s. At this period a village church, through the vicar and churchwardens, would have had a crucial role to play in supporting the poor, administering the charitable bequests made to them through the wills of the wealthy at a time when little other help was available.

Apart from the Barker Bridge House Trust, the earliest of these bequests is Mary Arnold's in 1767. Mary was the wife of Christopher Arnold (1692-1758) who was a London citizen and Goldsmith. He was also partner to the banker Henry Hoare - early banking emerged from the goldsmiths' money dealing businesses. Christopher and Mary, although they also had a house in Hampstead, leased the Rectory House and lands in Datchet from St George's College in Windsor (now misleadingly called Old Priory). Mary would thus have been the Rector's wife, a position of considerable power and status in the village, but not to be confused with the Vicar's wife, who would have been much less well off. Although she made her bequest in 1767, Mary Arnold did not die until1770 when she was aged 82.

Not surprisingly, her gift was in the form of bankers' stocks: '£100 3% consols, the interest thereof to be distributed yearly at Christmas to poor Housekeepers of this Parish, at the discretion of the Minister and Churchwardens'. Their discretion would almost certainly have favoured those poor housekeepers who attended church regularly.

The Arnold's memorial in the chancel of the church (above Richard Hanbury's brass) describes Christopher in glowing terms: 'Of most unblemished reputation in every duty of life, an affectionate husband and sincere friend; in business distinguished for assiduity, integrity and honour; his life was exemplary, a virtuous man and a good Christian'. Of Mary, the memorial says: 'Piety, secret and extensive charity joyn'd with her affability and chearfulness and made her deservedly esteemed by all who knew her'. So she was already known for her charitable giving in life as well as now, long after her death.

Francis Marshall and Rosamund Marshall seem to have been related to the Arnolds, and to have leased the Rectory following Mary Arnold's death. They both left the same amount of stocks as Mary Arnold had done, Francis in 1772 and Rosamund in 1785. Their conditions were slightly different, both requring that the income be distributed to 'such poor Housekeepers who do not receive Alms', implying preference to those who were trying to struggle to stand on their own feet.

James Randall was a completely different and rather unusual giver of charity. He was a parish foundling, an orphan brought up in the workhouse at the end of what is now called Holmea Road. He was in service as a footman and coachman all his life, but before his death in 1822 he had been able to pay for a vestry to be erected in the church, under which he desired to be buried. Presumably he was buried there, but his vestry was at the west end of the old church and was obliterated by the Victorian rebuilding. He also gave the church £200 to buy a clock for the old tower, and although the present clock faces are more recent the mechanism is still the 1822 original.

A memory of James Randall has been preserved in a letter written in 1859: 'He was a small, dark, shrunken looking man, wearing old fashioned knee breeches, very peculiar as were both Mrs and Miss Drew. He was considered very pecunious (ie wealthy). His wages were low, so he must early have commenced saving money. I don't think he lived a twelvemonth after Mrs Drew was killed in an accident and he left Miss Drew, and he died in 1822 aged 72.'

His bequest consisted of a large sum, £380 7s in stocks, which was the remainder of his life savings. The income from it was to be distributed in three parts by the vicar and churchwardens: for the purchase of bread and for coal for the poor, and in money to be given the aged poor in the workhouse at Christmas. James Randall would have been more aware than any well-born benefactor of conditions in the workhouse where he grew up.

Revd Isaac Gossett was the vicar of Datchet from 1814, a philanthropic new broom who managed to raise subscriptions from the parish to build the village school in 1843. Flowers have been placed on his grave in the churchyard in recent years by the present schoolchildren. By his will in 1847 he left £100 (in the usual 3% consols) and directed that the interest should be added to the Coal Club Fund of the parish, and specifically to those on the vicar's 'Coal List' - which has unfortunately not survived.

Thomas Hancock, who gave £50 stocks in 1853, is the only one of all the charitable benefactors about whom nothing further is known. The Hancocks were a Datchet family, but this Thomas has not at present been identified. Edward Mason's bequest in 1863 was £150 in East Indian 5% stock, to purchase 'good household bread among such poor and deserving inhabitants as the Vicar and Churchwardens shall think expedient'. He was a coal merchant - a substantial trade in those times, and lived at Riverside House on the corner of Queen's Road.

Daniel Marsh's Charity was rather different from all the others. In 1786 he gave £2 a year to provide bread on the first Sunday in January. Hand-outs of bread were commonly given in churches, and at Langley the bread-shelf still survives inside the church porch. The money was to come from profits of the land he owned, being a farmer on a fairly grand scale. At the time of enclosure in 1834, this land was deemed to be Charley Croft (south of Holmea road, towards the railway) and part of the Fleet (towards the Horton boundary), although both were by then owned by other people. The Marsh family may have been divided by religion; Daniel Marsh's son, John Fleetwood Marsh, emigrated to America in 1792 but left an enormous endowment of £1000 to the support of the minister of the Baptist community in the village by his will in 1828. He also left the American Bible Society a legacy of $10,000 - one third of his personal estate, although his will was apparently torn up by one of his family. A case of charity not beginning at home there, but the Baptists still benefit from their share as the rest of the village does from all the other benefactors.

(The story of the Barker Bridge House charity can also been found at this site.)