Latymer, like most schools that predate the rise of state funded education, owes its origins to the foresight and generosity of a series of individuals who held the view that wealth brought with it obligations to help those who were less fortunate than themselves.

The Latymer Foundation has a long history of giving since the original bequest of Edward Latymer in 1624 to provide “eight poore boies” from Edmonton yearly on November 1st with a doublet, a pair of breeches, a shirt, a pair of woollen stockings and shoes. In return for being educated to the age of thirteen at a "petty school" the boys had to wear the red Latymer cross on their sleeves. The trustees are under a duty to carry out the provisions of his will "unto the end of the world."

In 1662 John Wild of Edmonton made a further bequest including £4 per annum for the maintenance of a schoolmaster and a similar sum to maintain a poor scholar at Cambridge. This was followed in 1679 with a bequest by Thomas Style of Edmonton of £20 per annum for teaching " twenty poor boys ... Grammar and Latin tongue."

For more than a century there were no further bequests until in 1811, Ann Wyatt, a widow of Hackney, left £500 5% Navy Annuities to build a new school and £100 in the same securities for its maintenance.

Address:

The Latymer Foundation Archive Assistant
The Latymer School Edmonton
London N9 9TN

Website: www.latymer.co.uk/the-latymer-foundation/the-latymer-foundation

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