Bequest Board, St Michael’s Church, Theydon Mount

On the north wall of the tower is a bequest board which reads:

1838

Sir John Smyth of Hill Hall, Baronet, left the sum of fifty pounds to the poor of this Parish.

1840

The Reverend Sir Edward Bowyer Smyth of Hill Hall, Baronet, gave the sum of fifty pounds, as an Augmentation to his late Brother’s Legacy, and invested the joint sums in the purchase of £109, 3 per cent Consolidated Bank Annuities, in the names of Henry Soames, Rector, William Bowyer Smyth Esquire, and Francis Tanner, Churchwarden, in order that the interest of the said joint sums should be expended in Coals, Clothing, or Food, to be distributed in each year among poor inhabitants of this Parish, at the discretion of the Rector for the time being.