College – Issue 36

HERITAGE Maria founds the Somes Scholarships

How did Maria Somes of 5 Westbourne Terrace, London, create scholarships for a college which had hardly begun, on the other side of the world? 1

Part of the question is easily answered. She gifted land to

receipts for all and singular the said rents and arrears of rent... for providing for and maintaining by and out of the rents issues and profits thereof from time to time a Scholarship or Scholarships”. But it so nearly didn’t happen. There were complexities at every turn.

Bishop Designate, who made the initial approach to Maria Somes to purchase a Canterbury Association Land Order. She would have been familiar with land orders as her late husband Sir Joseph Somes had either purchased or advised her brother John Waring Saxton, to purchase them in Nelson. Each Land Order was £150. The land was £3 per acre with 10 shillings for the land fund, 10 shillings for the

Christ’s College, Canterbury and assigned “unto the said College or Corporate Body all rents and arrears or rents now due in respect of the several Allotments or parcels of land and buildings or any of them together with full power for her and the said Maria Somes in her name to sue for recover and give effectual

It was Thomas Jackson, the

Rual section 1

Town section 1

Lyttelton from the Harbour, date unknown, Collett Collection Lyttelton Museum

Christ’s College Canterbury

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