The large legacy of Mr Little

We can only imagine the gnashing of teeth and purple-veined ire of the Little brood when the last wishes of their deceased sibling William, who decades earlier made his fortune in Swindon, were relayed to them.

William had three sisters and one brother and his only concession upon making his last will and testament was to leave a sister – presumably the only one he had any hint of affection for – £100. The rest? A big fat round zilch.

But their loss was unquestionably Swindon’s gain because for the next 80 years and beyond, countless thousands of predominantly young people have benefited from William Little’s noble legacy to his adopted community.

A sizeable sum amassed in Swindon from impressively humble beginnings has been channelled back via a fund to help recipients attain higher education – from covering living and travel expenses to buying books, musical instruments and other items essential to their educational development.

Some of Little’s money, as stipulated, even went into re-building The County Ground. And the cash continues to roll in today, largely providing children from struggling families with school uniforms.

No continuous records exist but I estimate from the information available that well over £1 million has been divvied out from the Little’s magnanimous cache.

Now the Swindon Civic Voice, which celebrates the town’s heritage, is keen to raise Little’s profile, fearing this honourable gent has become, or is becoming a forgotten hero.

It has even acquired a copy of the contentious will that so inflamed his family back in ‘27.

Civic Voice spokesperson Martha Parry said: “A man like William Little should not be forgotten. He was appreciated then, when he was alive and for years afterwards. But now...”

Martha added: “Lots of young students were able to go to grammar school or attend university or college as a result of this fund.”

A Swindon acquaintance of hers, the late Joyce Line, studied English Literature at Oxford under the tutelage of Chronicles of Narnia author CS Lewis thanks to a grant from the WG Little Fund.

One of my own pals, the late, multi-talented and much missed Paul Cooke attended RADA, the celebrated school for dramatic arts, with assistance from the fund.

So who was this bountiful, altruistic fellow – Little name, large by legacy? Described as tall and fair-haired, William Graham Little was born in Chippenham in 1856, from a Scots family, and was 18 when he arrived in Swindon in 1874 keen to exploit opportunities in a boomtown generated by the Great Western Railway Works.

Becoming well known as a door-to-door salesman, he peddled buttons, boots, hat-pins, shirts and the like in the streets of New Swindon while astutely offering credit for those without cash up-front at a trifling two-and-a-half per cent.

Shrewd but high principled, Little’s doorstep dealings quickly won the trust of locals and he soon saved enough to open a clothes and fabrics shop at 32 Fleet Street.

Business thrived, enabling him to build Faringdon House on the corner of Faringdon Street (now Faringdon Road) and Catherine Street. You can still see the insignia embedded in the brickwork – “WGL 1892,” along with fading white paintwork on the gable denoting he was a “draper, milliner.”

In turn-of-the-century Swindon, a made-to-measure man’s suit at Little’s – according to its sales ledger – cost 30 shillings, the equivalent of around £165 today.

A pair of good quality boots would set you back five shillings and 11 pence – £50 today, so says the Historic Inflation Calculator. Located in one of the town’s key retail thoroughfares, Little’s spacious premises soon spilled into the property next door, enabling the business to operate from numbers 1 and 3 Faringdon Road, as well as 32 Fleet Street where he lived.

Little’s doorstep credit also flourished for decades to come.

Success created status and Little – or “WG” as he was known – became a councillor, JP and alderman (a higher ranking councillor) – a contemporary and colleague of the day’s leading local figures including James ‘Raggy’ Powell and Rueben George.

Little, who never married, died at 70 in 1927 leaving an estate of £47,213 – equivalent today of around £2.5 million. Predictably, the smell of filthy lucre filled the air when Little’s family, with whom he had largely lost touch, heard of his demise.

Having bequeathed £100 (£5,455 today) to a sister, Frances, he left the bulk to the town he loved. Naturally, his horrified kin weren’t allowing his hard earned fortune to slip through their fingers – not without a fight.

They vigorously contested the will but after five years of be-wigged gentlemen thrashing it out in court, they lost – paving the way in 1932 for the WG Little Scholarship and Band Concert Fund.

His fortune was left in trust “for the promotion and advancement of education and recreation among the youth of the town” – a wide-ranging remit which has since aided so many people in so many ways. Oh yes, and £25 a year for band concerts in the “pleasure grounds of the Swindon Corporation,” a provision that has now ceased.

In 1999, ex-Swindon councillor Bob Tostevin, a former Little Fund trustee, told us: “He made his money out of Swindon so he wanted to leave it all to Swindon.

“He has done so much to help so many in the town that he should perhaps be better remembered.”

No photographs, sadly, appear to exist of WG. His gravestone, however, can be found at the Radnor Street Cemetery, having been “gratefully erected by the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the Borough of Swindon to perpetuate the memory of William Graham Little.”

•  WG’s adjoining Faringdon Road premises have had several uses over the decades.
  The larger late Victorian building Faringdon House was home in the Sixties to the Council for Social Services and, until 2012, the Citizens Advice Bureau.
  Number 3 has served as a string of shops. Held by trustees Swindon Council, 1 and 3 Faringdon Road are both boarded-up after the authority said it would cost £200,000 to modernise them.
  The council now proposes to buy them from the fund (based on current market value) so that Forward Swindon – in charge of redeveloping the town centre – can refurbish them.
• SINCE 1999/2000 a total £515,000 has been dispensed from the fund by its trustees Swindon Council.
  Their records do not go back further but an Adver article in 1965 said that grants of £52,000 had been made since 1938.
  In 1993 and 1996 we reported that awards of £37,000 and £33,000 respectively had been made from the fund by the old Thamesdown council.
  So perhaps an estimated £300,000 plus was handed out from the Little Fund during the Nineties, along with further awards from 1965 to 1990. 
  That means that at least £1 million must have been divvied out overall. Probably a lot more.
  Awards are made from interest accrued from investments from the fund with the core amount – currently £268,000 - remaining untouched.
  One of the largest single grants in recent years was £6,000 to help recreate Swindon’s historic Children’s Fete at Faringdon Road Park in 2012.
  The fund predominantly goes on uniforms for children of needy families transferring from primary to secondary school.

• SINCE 1999/2000 a total £515,000 has been dispensed from the fund by its trustees Swindon Council.

  Their records do not go back further but an Adver article in 1965 said that grants of £52,000 had been made since 1938.

  In 1993 and 1996 we reported that awards of £37,000 and £33,000 respectively had been made from the fund by the old Thamesdown council.

  So perhaps an estimated £300,000 plus was handed out from the Little Fund during the Nineties, along with further awards from 1965 to 1990.

  That means that at least £1 million must have been divvied out overall. Probably a lot more.

  Awards are made from interest accrued from investments from the fund with the core amount – currently £268,000 - remaining untouched.

  One of the largest single grants in recent years was £6,000 to help recreate Swindon’s historic Children’s Fete at Faringdon Road Park in 2012.

  The fund predominantly goes on uniforms for children of needy families transferring from primary to secondary school.