Extract on REVELSTOKE from:

Report of the Commissioners concerning Charities, containing that part which relates to the County of Devon. 1826, Vol. I., Exeter: Printed & Published by T Besley Jnr. page 217.

In 1818, as a result of debates and arguments that even now remain obscure, the Parliament of Great Britain launched a detailed and elaborate investigation into the activities of charitable trusts in England and Wales called The Charity Commission or The Brougham Commission. This first inquiry eventually lasted for 19 years, and the 32 reports published contain 26,987 pages of material. 228,880 endowments for charity were reported. The commission consisted of a series of four commissions for the years 1818, 1819-30, 1831-34, and 1835-7. The enquiry was brought about through the efforts of Henry Brougham, who later served as one of the commissioners. The rare book from which the section on Revelstoke is extracted was produced from a digital copy held by the Bodleian Library that can be downloaded from Google Books, with a search by either authors or title. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. Those on which copyright has expired are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.

REVELSTOKE

Parish House and Garden

Sir Warwick Hele, Knight, by his will, bearing date 1st of June 1625, gave to the several churchwardens of the several parishes of Wembury, Yealmpton, Revelstoke and Newton Ferrers, and to the mayor and burgesses of the town of Liskeard, to the use of the poor of the several parishes, 20l to each, to be by them severally employed in setting to work the poor of the said several parishes and town for ever, the yearly benefit that should be raised thereby, to be yearly distributed by the said several churchwardens and mayor, unto the poor of each of the said parishes and town respectively.

There are belonging to the parish of Revelstoke, a house and garden occupied by paupers, which, in the returns of 1786, are said to be vested in the parish officers for the benefit of the poor. They are reputed to have been the property of the parish for a great length of time, but we have been unable to find any document respecting them.

It is not improbably that they may have been purchased with the above mentioned legacy of Sir Warwick Hele.