Amongst documents recently passed to the museum are papers concerning a number of charities. Here we see the accounts of one charity for 1907 – the Christmas Coal Charity funded by Bishop Tanner. The Bishop was the son of a Vicar of Market Lavington and became the Vicar of St Asaph in Wales.
Here are the accounts.

Coal charity accounts – 1907
We can see that 120 hundredweight of coal was distributed amongst 68 parishioners at a cost of £7-10-0. Of this just a pound came from the old charity with most of the rest being from the offertory on Christmas day. The Vicar put a shilling in the pot
What we think is lovely is that the people who benefited from this charity are listed.

Recipients of the coal charity – 1907
There are many familiar local names here receiving one, two or three hundredweights of coal.