Harpur Trust

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The Bedford Charity (The Harpur Trust) is a charity in Bedford, England which is principally concerned with the operation of private schools. The Bedford Charity (The Harpur Trust) is the legal name, but it is most often referred to as the Harpur Trust.

The stated aims of the Harpur Trust are as follows:

The promotion of education
The relief of hardship and need
Recreation with a social welfare purpose for the people of Bedford and its surroundings.

The Bedford Charity was founded in 1566 by Sir William Harpur (1496-1573). Harpur was a merchant from Bedford who became Lord Mayor of London in 1561. He was knighted in the following year. In 1566 he and his wife Dame Alice gave an endowment which consisted of some property in Bedford and 13 acres of water-meadows which are now Holborn. It was to support free schooling, dowries for poor maidens and “nourishing and informing poor children”. The school which he had founded in Bedford eventually became Bedford School. It was not until 1882 that girls' education introduced.

Today the trust runs Bedford School for boys (formerly Bedford Grammar School), the co-educational Bedford Modern School which was for boys only until 2003, and two all-girls' schools, Bedford High School (formerly Bedford Girls' High School), and the Dame Alice Harpur School (formerly Bedford Girls' Modern School), as well as a Pilgrims Pre-Preparatory School. It is these schools run by the Harpur Trust that make Bedford famous for the quality of its private education.

In January 2008 it was announced that the Harpur Trust (with Bedford College) intends to sponsor John Bunyan Upper School (a state comprehensive school in Bedford) thereby turning the school into an Academy. This was confirmed by Bedfordshire County Council the following June.^[1]

The Harpur Trust also runs almhouses in Bedford and the nearby village of Bromham, and has a grants programme for local good causes. The Trust's gross income for the year to 30 June 2006 was £46,646,000, and at that date it had investments valued at just over £80 million. Its current Chief Executive is David Russell.