Charities, Dice and Doles

In modern times, the term charity usually conjures up images of people with collecting boxes and the work of national and international organisations attempting to alleviate problems and suffering in the world. Similarly, the word dole suggests a trip to claim benefits. However, up until the 20th century the vast wealth of charities and doles to be found in the British Isles operated on a much more personal and local level and sought to provide relief for some very specific hardships, mostly brought about by wars, changes in land ownership and the resultant inequalities in society. Many land charities and doles were created at the same time as the abolition of many feudal constraints still surviving in the Tudor period, when it was left to local philanthropists (often the land owners themselves) to look out for the needy in the parish. 17th and 18th century records show just how seriously charities and doles were regarded, with loyalty and good character, as well as need, at the heart of them.

Most have lapsed, although not all. Some have survived as social or customary celebrations - maybe just communal reminders - while others which have not been legally abolished by Act of Parliament have actually been invoked in the law courts as existing customary rights.

Here are just a few ...

Dicing For Maids’ Money

On 29 January, 1674, John How of Guildford, Surrey, departed this life leaving £400 in his will for the benefit of maidservants. Mr. How stated that the annual interest from this sum should be competed for by two women who will have qualified for a chance to benefit by remaining in service in the same Guildford household for two years - provided it was not an alehouse or inn. Known as Dicing For Maids’ Money, the successful maidservant had simply to roll a dice and achieve the highest number.

Originally there was nothing for the runner up - nor, of course, anything for men. Perhaps to redress this balance, in 1702 another inhabitant of Guildford, John Parsons, bequeathed the interest on a sum of £600 to any poor male who had finished a seven year apprenticeship. One proviso to this was that should no man present himself as suitable for the claim, then the money would go to an unmarried maidservant ‘of good repute’. Following a prolonged period of failing to find such a man, in 1909 the money became permanently attached to John How’s Maids’ Money and because of the larger amount involved, it meant that the maid who lost at the roll of the dice would also benefit. Perverse as customs tend to be, the runner-up would receive the larger sum from Parsons' bequest! However, as the difference is currently under 20p, there is little resentment between the rivals.

This gentle and curious custom usually happens on the last Thursday of January at the Guildhall in Guildford.

Maidservants’ Charity

Even older, though, is the Maidservants’ Charity in Reading, Berkshire. By a will dated in June, 1611, the mathematician John Blagrave provided a payment of twenty nobles which was £6 13s 4d (£6.67p) to ‘one poor maiden servant who should have served, dwelt, or continued in any one service within any of the three parishes of Reading, in good name and fame five years at the least, for her preferment in marriage’. For fairness, it was stipulated that three qualified girls would cast lots ‘yearly forever on Good Friday’. And so they have, although not always on Good Friday. Once held at the town hall, the action now takes place in St Mary’s Church House in Reading.

Forty Shilling Day

In 1717 , in Wotton near Dorking, Surrey, William Glanville provided in his will for the payment of forty shillings (£2) each to five local poor boys, aged sixteen or under, who could recite from memory on the anniversary of his death the Lords Prayer, the Apostles Creed and the Ten Commandments. This had to be done with both their hands placed on his tomb. They also had to read aloud from the fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians, as well as write two verses of the same chapter in a clear hand. Not much to ask for a couple of quid, really!

Glanville died on 2nd February and this date is known locally as Forty Shilling Day. The tenacity of the people to maintain this custom has seen tents erected around the tomb when inclement weather has threatened to defeat it - and even a shift to a Spring date when things were really bad.

Butterworth Charity

Another dole administered by a tombstone is the Butterworth Charity. This takes place each Good Friday at St. Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield, London, where, after an outdoor sermon is given, hot cross buns are distributed to those attending. In earlier times this involved the distribution of silver-sixpenny pieces, as well as hot-cross buns, to twenty-one ‘poor widows of the parish’. The origins of this one are uncertain but are thought to stem from the 17th century, and it is unlikely that the gravestone used here is that of the original benefactor. His or her name is a mystery. The name Butterworth comes from a 19th century philanthropist who re-endowed the fund when it was on the point of bankruptcy.

Travice Dole

At Leigh, near Manchester in Lancashire, the Travice Dole is distributed on Maundy Thursday. Forty poor people of the parish receive five shillings (25p) each after visiting and walking the length of the tomb of Henry Travice, who died in 1626. Here again the actual location of this tomb is unknown because the original site of the church was used to build a new one in Victorian times. Today, recipients are expected to walk the length of a particular pew before collecting their bounty.

Carlow Bread Dole

The whereabouts of George Carlow’s tomb, on the other hand, is known - it’s in the backyard of the Bull Hotel in Woodbridge, Suffolk. This yard now occupies the site of Carlow’s garden where he was buried in 1738. His will allowed for the tomb’s upkeep from the rent-charge on his house (the Bull Hotel annexe), and the following inscription tells the rest:

Weep for me dear friend no more for I am gone a little before
But by lite of pity prepare yourself to follow me.
Good friends for Jesus sake forbear
To move the dust entombed here.
Blessed be he that spares these stones.
Cursed be he that moves my bones.
Twenty shillings worth of bread to be given on this stone
To the poor of the town on the second of February forever.

This is the Carlow Bread Dole and whereas once 20/- (£1) would have provided the 120 ‘two-penny loaves’ originally intended, today it would buy but one large loaf. Nevertheless, a dozen loaves are still distributed each Candlemas by the rector and churchwardens of St. Mary’s parish church, which in fact has its own weekly bread dole.

Tichborne Dole

Possibly the oldest of those still surviving is the dole at Tichborne in Hampshire, which dates back to the 12th century and takes place every 25th March (Lady Day). It involves the distribution of flour to the parishioners of Tichbome, Cheriton and Lane End from the steps of Tichbome House: a gallon for local adults and half a gallon for the children, a maximum of four gallons per household.

The origins are quite fascinating. It is said that during the reign of Henry I the aged and bed ridden Lady Mabella of Tichborne, who was well known locally for her acts of charity, requested of her husband, Sir Roger de Tichbome, for the distribution of bread to the poor on Lady day, 25th March. Sir Roger agreed but, being an extremely cruel individual, would only give to those living on land that Lady Mabella could walk around with a lighted torch before it went out. Being unable to walk, she began to crawl through the night and managed to travel 23 acres of land in this way before she collapsed with exhaustion and the torch went out. The spot where she and the torch were finally extinguished is called ‘The Crawls’. Having suffered such meanness of spirit in Sir Roger, she cursed the family with her dying breath by threatening loss of wealth, family name and collapse of the house and if they ever did away with the annual dole. The prophesy was that seven daughters would follow the birth of seven sons.

What do you know - in 1794 Sir Henry Tichbome foolishly agreed with local magistrates to stop the ceremony and diverted the Crawls’ revenue to the church. Having seven sons already, he should have heeded the warning! Amongst other calamities brought about by the curse, Sir Henry’s grandson and rightful heir duly had seven daughters born to him, thus threatening the family line, and part of the house fell down in 1802. Needless to say, the dole was restored in 1835 and has continued ever since, in spite of the occasional threat. One of these was just after the Second World War because of food rationing. When over 5,000 bread coupons were sent to the Ministry of Food in support of the charity, it was decided to let the dole continue - and the bread coupons were even returned.

Biddenden Maids’ Charity

On Easter Monday at Biddenden in Kent, the Biddenden Maids’ Charity is distributed, which takes the form of a loaf of bread, a pound of cheese and a pound of tea. Legend has it that this began when Eliza and Mary Chulkhurst bequeathed to the parish twenty acres of land, still known as the Bread and Cheese Land, ensuring that the income from it would be used to provide an annual dole for the poor of the district. The Chulkhursts were Siamese twins, born in 1100, who were joined at the hip and shoulder. At the age of 34 one sister died and the other, needing to be immediately separated from her sister in order to survive, refused to be cut apart and died as well some six hours later. It was then that the dole was born.

However, this explanation of the origin of this dole has been seriously contested for at least 200 years by a whole gaggle of historians. One states that no image of twins appears until the early 18th century and that the land was most likely given by ‘two maidens of the name of Preston’; while another places the origin in the 16th and not the 12th century, which means that it is still pretty old. Whatever the origin, the dole was administered in the church until 1682 when, owing to scenes of ‘disorder and indecency’, it was moved to the church porch. In the 19th century it was moved yet again, this time to the old workhouse where it is still distributed. If you go there on Easter Monday you will be given a Biddenden cake, which has on it an impression of the two sisters with one arm each and A34Y, their age at death. As one folklorist says, the cakes are ‘more valuable as memorial than food ... hard, long lasting and practically uneatable’. Each to their own taste!

Beginners’ Guides:
British Folk Customs: From Plough Monday to Hocktide