Magdalen Charity Criticised
From the Hastings News of 26/12/1873
The vestries of the parishes of All Saints and St Clements condemned the trustees of the Magdalen Charity for trying to divert a large part of the benefit of that charity away from those two parishes to the western parishes of the borough. The trustees had proposed a scheme to the two vestries whereby two other local charities, the Parker’s and Saunder’s, would create a “good middle class school” aided by a portion of the Magdalen’s income. This income came from the 57 acres of land that Magdalen’s owned between Bohemia and Warrior Square, which was rapidly increasing in value because of the development that had been taking place there.
A special committee of the two vestries stated that they opposed the scheme because on 27 March 1852 the High Court had ruled that the two parishes were solely entitled to the benefit of Magdalen Charity. It had started in 1294, in order to help the sick and poor of Hastings, then covered by just the two parishes. In 1852 Decimus Burton had led an attempt by St Leonards parishes to obtain some of the benefit, but the trustees and parishes had succeeded in stopping that. However, in following years the trustees had allowed their land to be opened up for roads and development, generating rents that added greatly to the charity’s income. Then in 1866 the trustees made a school proposal very similar to that of 1873, but the Charity Commissioners had refused it on the grounds of the 1852 ruling.
The All Saints and St Clements committee put forward an alternative scheme to the trustees, which would spread the Magdalen’s benefit further in the borough, but did not include the middle class school. The committee complained that none of the Magdalen’s trustees came from All Saints or St Clements, and they had refused to appoint any who did.
But in 1877 the Charity Commissioners proposed a scheme for administering the Parker’s, Saunder’s and part of the Magdalen charities as one unit under the name of the Hastings Grammar School Foundation. The was formally approved by Queen Victoria on 26 March 1878, and the Grammar School came into being.