Benefactors who have made people’s lives better
OVER the years we have reported many incidences when the milk of human kindness has flowed freely.
In May 1930 Margaret Darell, daughter of Sir Lionel and Lady Daisy Darell of Fretherne Court, near Saul, became engaged to Helmut Schroder, eldest son of a financier.
For her engagement present Margaret asked Helmut to buy every blind person in Gloucestershire a wireless.
The dutiful fiance did, an act of benevolence that set him back £10,000 (that’s about £250,000 in today’s values) and gave 150 visually-impaired people a pleasant surprise.
Helmut, who plainly had a nice turn of phrase (or a good PR exec on the staff if you’re being cynical) was quoted in The Citizen as saying: “We hope the radio will bring spring into the lives of those who can’t see its blossoms”.
Another benefactor was Gloucesterborn cricketer Tom Goddard, who played for the county and in three Tests for England.
The spin bowler lived in Stroud Road and between the First and Second World Wars he began a tradition that continued in the city for more than 20 years.
It started in 1921 when Goddard invited a few underprivileged children for a day out.
They drove in his car to see the fields of daffodils grown by a friend named Clinton who farmed land at Kempley.
After a tour of the daffs, the city waifs sat down to a picnic tea provided by Goddard.
The following year the good-hearted Goddard organised a similar trip, this time taking along a few more children and so it went on until by the 1930s the trip to the daffodil fields was a wellestablished annual event involving more than 100 city kids who were transported in hired buses.
In another act of generosity, Goddard gave a crown (25p) to every child born in Gloucester on the coronation day of George VI in 1936.
There’s a long history of beneficence in Gloucester. Perhaps it’s something in the water. Scriven’s Conduit, which can now be seen in Hillfield Gardens, London Road, originally stood in Southgate Street.
The drinking fountain in ornately carved limestone was installed by Alderman John Scriven at his own expense in 1636 to provide clean water, piped in from Robinswood Hill, for people in the city.
When the Gloucester social reformer Robert Raikes died in 1811 he left sufficient funds to give every pupil past and present of the Sunday schools he’d helped found one shilling and a plum pudding.