BUMPER YEAR FOR SIR SAMUEL MICO’s CHARITIES

BUMPER YEAR FOR SIR SAMUEL MICO’s CHARITIES

The Sir Samuel Mico Charities will be marking the end of a very successful year with the annual Sir Samuel Mico commemoration service on Friday 12th April 2019 at 1100 at St Marys Church Weymouth some 353 years after Sir Samuel Mico’s death.

In the last 12 months the Weymouth based charity has helped 117 local youngsters with grants or scholarships. Many of the youngsters who have benefited over the last 12 months from Sir Samuel Mico’s bequest, will mark this by attending the service with the trustees and other local dignitaries.

Gary Hepburn, Chairman of the Trust said “We have had a bumper year supporting 117 local youngsters with grants and scholarships, which is probably the most we have ever helped in one year. We continue to help a diverse range of young people doing all sort of educational and developmental activities.

We would however still like to help more young people doing apprenticeships locally and those studying basic and traditional trades as these are more what Sir Samuel had in mind back in 1665.

This year at our service we are also pleased to be reading a letter from Adam Mico a descendent of Sir Samuel Mico who lives in the USA. One of our trustees Stuart McLeod has been doing a lot of research into Sir Samuel made contact with Adam Mico and also discovered lots of new information and documents, including Sir Samuel’s baptism record. More information about the history of Sir Samuel Mico can be found on our website at www.weymouthtwoncahrities.org.uk

We have also recently put out a request for anyone who the charity helped in the past decades with apprenticeships or grants to get in touch and let us know what they went on to do, they can contact us through our website.

We look forward to friends old and new joining us at the service.”

The Trustees of Weymouth Town Charities which administers the trust left by Sir Samuel Mico (a London merchant who used Weymouth as his base) in his will of 25th September 1665, will gather at St Mary’s Church at 1100 on Friday 12th April. They will be joined at the annual service by the Lord Lieutenant of Dorset, Angus Campbell, the new Town Clerk of Weymouth and Honorary Aldermen of Weymouth and Portland.

After the service the Lord Lieutenant, Town Clerk, trustees and beneficiaries will process from the church to the George Inn (which is owned by the trust), with one of the ceremonial mace’s of Weymouth, which dates from the same period as Mico.

The commemoration service is an annual event laid down in Mico’s will of 1665, when a laurel wreath is placed beneath his coat of arms in St Mary’s Church. Mico decreed in his will that an annual service should be held in the parish church and a ”good divine” (vicar) should preach and afterwards the trustees and beneficiaries gather for lemonade, wine & hot cross buns and beneficiaries should report to the trustees on their progress