I read the article on Leverton Charities, Waltham Abbey, in the High Country History Group Journal (June 2015), with considerable interest. As President of Waltham Abbey History Society, I gave a lecture on Thomas Leverton and George Fawbert several years ago and was aware of much of your information.
George Fawbert (1756-1824) came to Essex from Yorkshire and seems to have been at Burnt Mill, Netteswell, before moving to Waltham Abbey where he traded as a victualler from about 1794. He moved several times and spent his last years at Cheshunt, where he died on 22nd April, 1824. Although a memorial slab in Waltham Abbey records him and his wife, Sarah, he was apparently not buried there, although Sarah was.
The executors of his Will were Thomas Augustus Jessopp and John Barnard, a maltster of Harlow. After paying various legacies to relatives - he and his wife left no children - the executors purchased a property in Waltham Abbey for the Leverton School, as you state.
Sarah Fawbert, the widow, died on 19th April, 1828, and also left a Will, naming several beneficiaries including James Bell, maltster of Harlow, her husband's nephew.
Thomas Augustus Jessopp died leaving John Barnard as the sole executor of George Fawbert's Will to distribute the remaining funds, and this was unsuccessfully contested in H.M. High Court of Chancery by James Bell.
As a result, £8,000 was transferred to John Barnard (maltster of Harlow), William Barnard (maltster of Sawbridgeworth), Richard Barnard (miller), and William Barnard (farmer) to establish a charity "for the express object and purpose in the first place of forming and maintaining a weekday school for the education of children of both sexes". The school was built with two classrooms in Harlow and opened on 20th April, 1836, as Fawbert & Barnard Charity. My wife has been a governor of the school for over forty years, chairing the governing body for more than half that period. The full name of the school is Fawbert & Barnard's (Undenominational) Primary School. From the outset, it was laid down that no child could be excluded on religious grounds.
A similar school was established as Fawbert & Barnard Charity in Sawbridgeworth in 1839 and this, too, is still flourishing.
All good wishes.
Stan Newens.