al clause, we shall find it
contains a shrewd intention. The choice was limited within one hundred
yards, because the town itself, in his day, did not in some directions
extend farther. Fentham had spent a life in Birmingham, knew well her
inhabitants, and like some others, had found honour as well as riches
among them: He knew also, he could with safety deposit his property in
their hands, and was determined it should never go out,--The scheme will
answer his purpose.

The uses of this estate, now about 100_l_. per annum, are for teaching
children to read, and for clothing ten poor widows of Birmingham: Those
children belonging to the charity school, in green, are upon this
foundation.

The present trust are
Francis Coales, and Edmund Wace Pattison.

CROWLEY'S TRUST.

Ann Crowley bequeathed, by her last will, in 1733, six houses in
Steelhouse-lane, amounting to eighteen pounds per annum, for the purpose
of supporting a school, consisting of ten children. From an attachment
to her own sex, she constituted over this infant colony of letters a
female teacher: Perhaps we should have seen a female trust, had they
been equally capable of defending the property. The income of the estate
increasing, the children are now augmented to twelve.

By a subsequent clause in the devisor's will, twenty shillings a year,
forever, issues out of two houses in the Lower Priory, to be disposed of
at discretion of the trust.

The governors of this female charity are

Thomas Colmore, _bailiff_,
Joseph Cartwright,
Thomas Lee,
John Francis,
Samuel Colmore,
William Russell, _esq_.
Josiah Rogers,
Joseph Hornblower,
John Rogers.

SCOTT'S TRUST.

Joseph Scott, Esq; yet living, assigned, July 7, 1779, certain messuages
and lands in and near Walmer-lane, in Birmingham, of the present rent of
40_l_. 18s. part of the said premises to be appropriated for the
interment of protestant dissenters; part of the profits to be applied to
the use of a religious society in Carr's lane, at the discretion of the
trust; and the remainder, for the institution of a school to teach the
mother tongue.

[Illustration: _Free School_.]

That part of the demise, designed for the reception of the dead, is
about three acres, upon, which stands one messuage, now the Golden
Fleece, joining Summer-lane on the west, and Walmer-lane on the east;
the other, which hath Aston-street on the south, and