capital was in the hands of Sir John Mordaunt, who paid 5 guineas a year to the churchwardens, which was distributed in bread after church every Sunday, in doles of 2s. to each recipient. (fn. 521) After Sir John's death in 1845 the trustees of his heir, Sir Charles Mordaunt, a minor, maintained the payment, although they reduced other charitable subscriptions. (fn. 522) The benefaction was not capitalised when the parish's other charities were transferred to the Official Trustee in 1857, although the payment of 5 guineas continued to be received annually from the Mordaunts and, after 1877, the Douglas-Pennants. (fn. 523) The payment may have ended with the death of Blanche Lady Penrhyn in 1944, since it appears not to have been continued by the Society of Merchant Venturers. (fn. 524)
The Whittlewood Coal Charity.
In 1854 the Whittlebury Disafforesting Commission, following the intervention of the 5th duke of Grafton, accepted that seven local parishes had established a claim to compensation for the loss of the right to collect sere (or broken) wood as fuel in Whittlewood and awarded them a total of £868, of which Wicken, as one of three out-towns, was entitled to £57 17s. 4d. The money was raised by the sale of a parcel of woodland in Passenham near Wicken Hurst. (fn. 525) The following year stock worth £63 3s. 1d. was transferred to the rector and churchwardens to endow the new charity, (fn. 526) which in 1857 was passed the Official Trustee, when the annual income was £1 17s. 10d. (fn. 527) At first, the Whittlewood money, like the three older charities in the parish, was used to buy bread for the poor, but from 1867 the income was handed to a coal club to buy fuel. This arrangement had ended by the 1880s, when the money was being given to the rector. From 1896 it was handed to the parish council but by 1907 it was once again being paid to the rector. In 1936-7 16 individuals received coal but thereafter, until at least the end of the Second World War, no disbursements were made and the annual income of £1 11s. 4d. was carried forward unspent each year. (fn. 528)