Thomas Colmore, bailiff. 
     George Davis,
     Win.  Walsingham, dead,
     Michael Lakin,
     Benjamin May,
     Michael Lakin, jun. 
     James Bedford,
     Samuel Ray,
     John Ryland,
     James Jackson,
     Stephen Bedford, dead,
     Joseph Tyndall,
     Joseph Smith,
     Robert Mason,
     Joseph Webster, dead,
     Abel Humphreys,
     Thomas Lawrence,
     Samuel Pemberton,
     Joseph Webster, jun. 
     John Richards.

FENTHAM’S TRUST.

In 1712, George Fentham, of Birmingham, devised his estate by will, consisting of about one hundred acres, in Erdington and Handsworth, of the value then, of 20_l_. per annum, vesting the same in a trust, of which no person could be chosen who resided more than one hundred yards from the Old Cross.  We should be inclined to think the devisor entertained a singular predilection for the Old Cross, then in the pride of youth.  But if we unfold this whimsical clause, we shall find it contains a shrewd intention.  The choice was limited within one hundred yards, because the town itself, in his day, did not in some directions extend farther.  Fentham had spent a life in Birmingham, knew well her inhabitants, and like some others, had found honour as well as riches among them:  He knew also, he could with safety deposit his property in their hands, and was determined it should never go out,—­The scheme will answer his purpose.

The uses of this estate, now about 100_l_. per annum, are for teaching children to read, and for clothing ten poor widows of Birmingham:  Those children belonging to the charity school, in green, are upon this foundation.

     The present trust are
     Francis Coales, and Edmund Wace Pattison.

CROWLEY’S TRUST.

Ann Crowley bequeathed, by her last will, in 1733, six houses in Steelhouse-lane, amounting to eighteen pounds per annum, for the purpose of supporting a school, consisting of ten children.  From an attachment to her own sex, she constituted over this infant colony of letters a female teacher:  Perhaps we should have seen a female trust, had they been equally capable of defending the property.  The income of the estate increasing, the children are now augmented to twelve.

By a subsequent clause in the devisor’s will, twenty shillings a year, forever, issues out of two houses in the Lower Priory, to be disposed of at discretion of the trust.

The governors of this female charity are

     Thomas Colmore, bailiff,
     Joseph Cartwright,
     Thomas Lee,
     John Francis,
     Samuel Colmore,
     William Russell, esq. 
     Josiah Rogers,
     Joseph Hornblower,
     John Rogers.

SCOTT’S TRUST.