Shakespeare Birthplace Trust - Origins of The Trust

Origins of The Trust

For more than 200 years after the Bard's death, his birthplace was occupied by the descendants of his recently widowed sister, Joan Hart. Under the terms of Shakespeare's will, the ownership of the whole property (the inn and Joan Hart's cottage) passed to his elder daughter, Susanna; and then on her death in 1649, to her only child, Elizabeth. Elizabeth died in 1670, bequeathing it to Thomas Hart, the descendant of Shakespeare's sister, Joan, whose family had continued as tenants of the cottage after her death in 1646. The Harts remained owners of the whole property until 1806, when it was sold to a butcher, Thomas Court. When it was again put up for sale in 1846 on the death of Court's widow, the American showman P. T. Barnum proposed to buy the home and ship it "brick-by-brick" to the US. To purchase the property for the Nation, the Shakespeare Birthday Committee was formed, and such luminaries as Charles Dickens helped the Committee raise £3,000 and bought it the following year. Incorporated by a private Act of Parliament, the Birthday Committee became the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.