Yapton&FordHistory-Roe's Charity

By Allen Misselbrook, Yapton & Ford local history

Visitors to Yapton Church, or to give it it’s full name, St Mary the Virgin, may look on one of the memorial tablets and wonder about its significance. The one I am referring to is on the wall above the pulpit. It is ‘Sacred to the memory of Stephen Roe, Citizen of London, Born in this Parish’. According to the accepted history of Stephen Roe, born, 1699, in Yapton is that he was the son of William Roe, a local butcher. In 1716 his father apprenticed him to a Chichester Needlemaker by the name of Thomas Raymond, for seven years at a cost of £40. This fact was not born out by the re- Stephen Roe memorial search by David Wilson of Chichester, who could not find any record to confirm this. What is more, he could not find any reference to any Needlemaker named Thomas Raymond in Chichester. What David did uncover was a Stephen Roe was apprenticed to a Thomas Raymond of Cy (possibly an abbreviation for City [of London]) on the 18th December 1716 for £40. Is this too much of a co-incidence? What is not in doubt is his move to London. While living in London he accrued a fortune. Testimony to this lies in his will which, when adjusted to today’s value, is in excess of £700,000. Research has not discovered how he amassed his fortune. It appears that Stephen had married twice. His first marriage was to Elizabeth Hopcroft in 1722 and a second marriage in 1736 to Elizabeth Drury. Stephen died in 1767 and is buried in the Church of St Bartholomew the Great, near Smithfield, on the March 11th 1767. In his will, written in 1766, he did not forget his childhood home. He instructed that £1200: three per cent annuities should be transferred to the Minister, Churchwardens and Overseers of the poor of Yapton. They were to spend £20 of the annual interest on educating as many poor Boys and Girls of the Parish as possible, with the remaining £16 pounds of interest per year should be used to support, with equal shares, seven poor people or housekeepers of the parish. According to research undertaken by Denis Vardy, a Yapton School teacher and local historian, in 1819 there were twenty boys and girls being taught in a local school free of charge. It is assumed that the £20 from Roe’s Charity paid for the Master’s salary. Denis also discovered a report written in the early part of the 19th century which recorded that in 1833 Stephen Roe’s School catered for 20 boys plus 14 paying scholars. It was also during the early part of the 19th century that a move was made towards improving the education of children resulting in the National Schools project coming into being. There seemed to be a little resistance to this move locally, with the result that there was not a National School in Yapton until 1864. It was financed by annual contributions including the £20 from Roe’s Charity. This Charity is still in existence albeit with a depreciated value. The value was so much reduced that the two purposes of the fund were combined and used for education purposes. How much the annual payment and who decides who the beneficiaries are, requires a little more research. Stephen Roe Charity is a regular Agenda item for the Annual Yapton Parish meeting. Finally, Stephen Roe’s name lives on in the village by way of the main entrance road into the new housing estate alongside the school, Paddock View, being named Roemead Drive. To contact Allen Misselbrook on a local history matter please email: allen@yaptonhistory.org.uk