RICHARD HUMFREY
Richard Humfrey was believed to be a wealthy retired London merchant who leased Boughton Hall and estate for some years between 1508 and 1556 from the second Lord and Lady Vaux of Harrowden. (Lord Vaux's mother was the elder daughter of the last Sir Thomas Green of Boughton).
Richard Humfrey's home, Boughton Hall
(tragically demolished 1836 to make way for a new lodge)
In his will dated 30 November 1547 Richard Humfrey left certain land and
tenements in Pitsford parish for the benefit of the inhabitants of Boughton.
Apparently there was some mismanagement or misinterpretation of the terms of the
will for a note in the church registers in 1606 states that the then Rector, the
Rev John Parker and seven freeholders recovered the land from a Mr Francis
Inglebye:
In the yeare 1606 was the Towne land recovered by lawe from Mr Thomas Inglebye having been fowre yeares before in suite in the chancerye and brought to the right uses of the towne of Boughton according to the will of Mr Richard Humfrey that gave it not withstandinge it had been kept from the towne almost three score yeares. The partyes that did recover it were John Parker parson of this parish in whose name the whole suit was tryed, Roger Lanman Gent, George Hillier, Henry Morton, Francis Willbye, Francis Facer, Robert Willbye, Augustine Odell all freeholders to the great charge of these few men all the rest ready to spend their money against them besides many harde wordes and great trouble which these fewe men endured yet being so charitable a worke for they that shall come after to be inhabitants in Boughton they endured both the great charges and the harde wordes and so in the end brought it to good passe. God be blessed for it. Amen and all you that come after have good cause to praise God for them.
Even that did not set things to rights for a decree of the Commissioners of
Charitable Uses dated 13 January 1637 stated that the will was liable to
misconstruction and error and decreed how the whole rents and profits of the
premises should be employed.
Some two hundred years later, about the year 1840, following years of
discontentment in the parish over the distribution of the charity funds an
extract of the will contained in the inquisition of 1637 was put up on
a tablet
in the church and remains there to this day.
Until 1915 there was only one body of Trustees administering all as the Richard
Humfrey Charity. It was then that a variation to the scheme was made setting up
the Richard Humfrey Educational Foundation.
In 1920 the buildings and land amounting to about 48 acres were sold for £3,250
and the proceeds invested by the Charity Commissioners.
An extract from The Northampton - Harborough Line by John Gough, published by
the Railway and Canal Historical Society states:
In the act of 1858 the company (L.N.W.R.) took powers for the compulsory purchase of land in the parish of Pitsford adjoining and on each side of the Brampton to Pitsford road between the Nene and the approach to a bridge being built for the railway line. The land was largely owned by Richard Howard-Vyse and the Feoffees of the 'Humphries' Charity [mis-spelling]. At a gateway to the entrance to a farm house on the Brampton-Pitsford road adjacent to the railway bridge can be seen a notice, 'Humphries Farm'.
© Harry Lovell 1998
