A SMALL but much appreciated local charity that has for nearly 100 years supported students from the Blandford area with grants to help them with their studies has a fascinating history going back over 500 years.

The Milton Abbas Emily Faulkner Trust celebrated the quincentenary of the foundation of the school which led to its existence in 2021.
A free grammar school was founded in the town of Milton by Abbot William de Middleton (1482-1523) by deed dated 10 February, 1521, which was sealed with the common seal of the abbey. Trustees were established to oversee the running of the school, supported by the endowment of Little Mayne Farm in West Knighton, which paid for its running and maintenance.

Less than 20 years later, the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII saw the monks dispersed and the abbey and estate sold to Sir John Tregonwell, whose family lived there for a century. In 1752 it was sold to Joseph Damer, who famously had the town demolished and replaced by the model village of Milton Abbas.
The school remained within the abbey grounds and in 1773 the trustees named in a lease offered to a farmer for the West Knighton Farm were named as Sir William Hanham, Baronet, of Deans Court, Wimborn Minster; George Chafin, Esquire, Chettle; Henry Bankes, Esquire, Kingston Hall (Kingston Lacy); Thomas Gundrey, Esquire, Dewlish; Edward Berkeley, Esquire, Winfrith; Edmund Morton Pleydell, Esquire, Milborn Saint Andrew; Henry William Portman, Esquire, Brianston; Richard Bingham, Esquire, Melcombe; Henry William Fitch, Esquire, High Hall; Radford Gundrey, Esquire, Dewlish; David Robert Michel, Esquire, Dewlish; Jonathan Morton Pleydell, Esquire, Bath and George Bingham, Esquire, Batchelor in Divinity.
Notable by his absence was Joseph Damer, whom the trustees refused to accept, and with whom they had a long-running battle over the state of the school until it was relocated to Blandford by Act of Parliament in 1775.

The site at 45 East Street is now Boots, next to M&Co, and occupied what is now the car park to the rear. Records reveal the occupants in 1804 to be school master John Wharton and clerk Morton Coulson. They were followed by the Rev Thomas Wise in 1830, the Rev Charles Stroud Green in 1842 and J Penny RA in 1865 – in 1861 the school had more than 50 pupils, including children of head, James Penny, and wife Elizabeth.
George Coombs was listed as resident in the 1882 Blandford Directory, Frederick Thomas Harrison MA in 1901 and the Rev Edward Mears in 1901 at what was described as a boarding and day school with covered playground and gymnasium. The headmaster in 1917 was Mr ETH Royds.

Virtual plaque: The memorial to former pupils lost in the First World War

A memorial to Old Miltonians, former staff and pupils from the school lost during the First World War, lists 2nd Lieut E de Q Mears of the 10th Essex, son of the former headmaster, and 13 others, many of whom had until aged 14 attended Blandford Secondary School in Damory Street and subsequently moved to the grammar school.
The school relocated from Blandford in 1928 to Whatcombe Manor but closed in 1932 allowing Blandford Secondary School to assume grammar school status.
In 1927 the Milton Abbas Foundation was established to assist only boys in the Blandford area. It received a bequest from John Iles Barnes in 1914 and a donation in 1932 from the Woodhouse History Prize Fund, and was further enhanced in 1998 when it was amalgamated with the Emily Faulkner Trust. That trust was registered in 1995 pursuant to the will of the late Emily Ann Faulkner with the object of assisting boys and girls who were or had been pupils of Blandford Upper School or lived within its catchment area.
The amalgamated charity became the Milton Abbas Emily Faulkner Trust, and continues to support the education of young people in the area. It offers grants totalling about £4,000 a year to students aged 14 to 24 years for their education and training to help with their expenses, as well as extra courses, books, equipment and travel, giving a much needed boost to the students who have the extra backing of the charity’s eight trustees.

For more on the trust’s work, to make a donation or bequest to help local young people, contact the chair of Trustees, c/o The Secretary Val Dear, Blanchards Bailey Solicitors, Bunbury House, Stour Park, Blandford St Mary, Blandford Forum DT11 9LQ.