Philanthropy
In November 1495 Smyth refounded the hospital of St John the Baptist in Lichfield and added to it a school for poor children. In 1500 he founded the Cuerdley Chapel which was added to the south aisle of St Luke's Church, Farnworth for the use of his tenants from Cuerdley. The nearby village of Cuerdley was the seat of the very ancient Smith family of Cuerdley his armorial progenitors from which the renowned Captain John Smith also claimed his lineage. He purchased land including a footpath from the village to the church to allow entry for his tenants by a separate door to avoid contact with the residents of Farnworth at the time of the plague. In 1507 he made an endowment of £350 to found a grammar school in Farnworth, the village of his birth.
Also in 1507 Smyth founded a fellowship in Oriel College, Oxford and gave manors to Lincoln College. Around the same time he and Sir Richard Sutton set out to found a new college in Oxford. They rebuilt Brasenose Hall, added other existing halls to it, and having obtained a charter in 1512, called it "The King's haule and college of Brasennose". This is now Brasenose College. Smyth's intention at the college was to benefit clergy from the north of England. The twelve fellows of the college were to have been born in the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield, or to have come from Lancashire, and particularly from the area of his birthplace. He gave to the college his lands of Cold Norton and, by his will, a considerable legacy of lands, plate, vestments, manuscripts and books.
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Famous quotes containing the word philanthropy:
“Almost every man we meet requires some civility,—requires to be humored; he has some fame, some talent, some whim of religion or philanthropy in his head that is not to be questioned, and which spoils all conversation with him. But a friend is a sane man who exercises not my ingenuity, but me.”
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“I shall not be forward to think him mistaken in his method who quickest succeeds to liberate the slave. I speak for the slave when I say that I prefer the philanthropy of Captain Brown to that philanthropy which neither shoots me nor liberates me.”
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