Philanthropy
On 20 September 1569, only a couple of weeks after the burial of his wife Joan, Vaughan executed a deed giving a newly erected house and its garden on the south side of Dartford High Street for the use of the poor in Dartford. The original deed was still at the church in 1829 but had been lost by 1933. This house was rebuilt in 1769; the garden was sold in 1871 and the house sold in 1919 for £1450. At the time of this deed Vaughan was a yeoman of the chamber to the Queen.
On 24 March 1576 Vaughan together with his son-in-law William Death and Edward Gwynn of London executed a deed conveying a house and garden on the High Street of Dartford to trustees, with the purpose of using the rent from the house to pay a master for the Grammar School. The original deed was lost between 1723 and 1829, but its substance was re-iterated in a deed of 11 January 1660. The 1576 deed is generally taken as the date of establishment of the Grammar School. Unlike deeds establishing other grammar schools at about this time, there was no provision for school premises. This appears to have been because a room above the Market House was used as a school room.
Vaughan died in 1580 and was buried at Dartford on 8 May that year. His will included the following bequests:-
- "to the moste poorest people of Darteford aforeseyd clothe to the valewe of 40s to make theym cotes."
- "to the pore and needy people of Stone nere Dartford 13s 4d"
- "unto the poore people of Erythe 20s"
Apart from a substantial bequest of livestock to his granddaughter Johane Vaughan (daughter of his deceased son Charles) most of his assets passed to the family of his daughter, Elizabeth. A complicated arrangement compensates his second wife, Alice, for the sale of some land during their marriage that would otherwise have formed part of her dower. He mentions a sister who has not been identified “…my Syster Dethegye 40s, (yf she be lyvyng at the tyme of my decease) and to Wyllyam and Luce her chyldren to every of theym 20s. “ and his cousin “unto my cosyn James Vaughan of Swannescombe 40s.” There were small bequests to several friends, a servant and “my cosyn Thomas Edwardes my best saten doublet”.
The name of William Vaughan is still remembered in Dartford today in the name of one of the houses at the Grammar School.
Read more about this topic: William Vaughan (philanthropist)
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