Records of the THORNER Charity

Robert Thorner, after amassing considerable wealth as a merchant in London, retired in 1688, to the village of Baddesley, near Southampton, and became an elder of Above Bar Chapel. He died in 1690, and, after bequests to the congregation, and to Harvard College, New England, devised his real estate, consisting of land with shops and stalls in Leadenhall Market, London, to be applied to charitable uses. Portions were to be used for maintaining a free school in the parish of Litton Cheney. Dorset, and for the apprenticing and the eventual setting up of youths in Southampton, Salisbury. Dorchester and Litton. The early operation of the charity was limited, as the Leadenhall Market property had been leased out at a low rent until 1769, but eventually, in 1788-89, the Trustees were able to erect almshouses in Above Bar Street, Southampton, for poor widows. Further wings were added during the 19th Century. The almshouses in Above Bar were demolished when the Civic Centre was built in the 1930's but the Charity still operates, and provides homes for old people in Henstead Road and Regents Park Road, Southampton. One of the first Trustees was Isaac Watts, the father of the well known hymn writer and Congregationalist divine of the same name.