The Rev. Robert Edmonds by his will proved on 17 August 1863 bequeathed to the rector and churchwardens of Church Lawford £500, the interest to be laid out on 25 March in every year in the following manner: viz. £5 towards the support of the Sunday School penny club, £2 for the purchase or towards the repair of books in the old parish library, and the remainder in the purchase of either coals, blankets, or sheeting, or in certain named articles of grocery, to be distributed generally among the poor of the parishes of Church Lawford and King’s Newnham, special favour to be shown to the widows, the aged, and those having large families. The testator directed that the recipients of the charity shall be members of the Church of England. The benefit was reduced to £320.19 by the Court of Chancery.
Ann Edmonds, a niece of the testator gave £200 in augmentation of his gift to be held upon the same trusts. By an Order dated 21 December 1906 the Charity Commissioners determined that the part of the endowment of the charities which ought to be applied to educational purposes consists of the sum of £200.
In 1929 the Rugby Advertiser looked back 25 years to the distribution of the Edmonds Charity, as shown opposite.
Distribution of the Charity Money continued into the latter half of the twentieth century – the village newsletter of 1966 records that the monies of all three ecclesiastical charities (Marriotts, Crofts and Edmonds) were distributed that year.
