Sometimes you stumble upon an old article about an old tradition or ceremony and wonder when it’s next happening.
Back in January 2011, I wrote about Signor Favale’s Marriage Portion Charity, which was set up in 1882 by Italian-born Pasquale Favale, who had married a London girl, and wanted to ensure future marrying couples could afford their wedding.
He stipulated that each year a portion of the money was to be given to “three poor, honest, young woman, natives of the City of London, aged 16 to 25 who had recently been or were about to be married“. To endow the fund, he gave 18,000 Italian Lira, which would have been about £720 at the time.
It took a few years for the fund’s investments to reach the point where a payment could be made — of £12 per bride in 1914. Paid out annually thereafter, the City suffered the usual problem of people in Greater London not understanding that only people born in the City of London could apply. In 1922, the City’s town clerk complained of being “inundated with useless applications”.
The fund grew over the years, but with a maximum of three brides per year, it was possible to increase the size of the payment, although not in line with the cost of weddings, which are rather more expensive today than they were in 1882.
In 1971 it was still only £15, but the charm of the bequest often outweighs the fiscal amount offered, and doubtless for many recipients, it’s the romance of the story behind the bequest that matters.
It was raised to £50 in 1987, and to £100 in 1991. In recent years, it was £150 per blushing bride, which isn’t going to cover the cost of canapes, let alone the rest of the wedding, but each year, the city would post a notice in churches letting blushing brides of the bounty that was on offer. And a few, but fewer each year would apply.
The charity had been earning around £450 a year from its investments, and the last time it found any poor, honest, young women to assist with their wedding was back in 2018.
However, the charity no longer exists, as it was wound up in 2020.
Although the City had been discussing the issue of the charity for a few years and its struggle to find blushing brides, the final nail was a report in 2019 from the Charity Commission under its Revitalising Trusts Programme which identified Signor Favale’s Marriage Portion Charity as an ineffective charitable trust, defined as one which has spent less than 30% of its income over the past 5 years.
A lack of poor women in the City getting married put the charity in a position where it might need to be closed as it was no longer deemed to be of “public benefit”, which is the essential element of retaining charitable status.
The money didn’t vanish though – in March 2020, the money was transferred to another charity managed by the City of London, the Combined Relief of Poverty Charity, which provides general charitable support for people in need within both the City of London and Greater London.
So while the romance of the original bequest may have been lost, the money left by Signor Favale in 1882 is still supporting good deeds, even though it seems that the City has bowed to the inevitable, and accepted that it has run out of ” poor, honest, young women” looking to get married.
