History of the Jane Cart Trust

Relates to her younger brother William Chew who left money to Jane and her sister as his intention was to set up a school for 40 poor boys of Dunstable.  

Said to be at the time the largest painting in the country at 30 feet high, the work of art was painted by Sir James Thornhill, George I’s Sarjeant Painter. Although originally intended for the church of St. Mary le Bow, the Rector refused to have it in his church, so Jane and her sister Frances bought the picture and hung it on the east wall of the Dunstable church. The painting is described as being a group seated beneath a triumphal arch and supported by composite columns. During the Victorian restoration of the Priory Church, the painting was pierced by a scaffold pole and then exposed to the weather when the roof was removed. It was eventually rolled up and stored in the tower, where it gradually rotted and subsequently thrown away.

These were believed to have been bought as a memorial to her son Thomas Chew Cart who died in 1722. The houses, next door to Chew’s Charity School, were for six poor women, widows or spinsters, who were communicant members of the Church of England in the Parish of Dunstable. Applicants would be considered from other areas such as Caddington, Kensworth, or Houghton Regis, if there were insufficient applicants from Dunstable.

Jane’s sister, Frances Ashton, died in 1727. In the following year, Jane gave a set of Communion plate to the Priory Church and the gift may well have been in memory of her sister. The set consisted of two silver chalices and covers, two silver flagons and a silver alms dish. Only the flagons and the alms dish survive, the rest having been stolen early in the 20th century. Each piece is inscribed: ‘1 Aug AD 1728 Offered to God and Given to the CHURCH of Dunstable by JANE CART, Widow & Relic of JAMES CART late Citizen of LONDON, and Daughter of THOMAS CHEW formerly of Dunstable and Elizabeth his wife.’ For many years these items were kept in a bank vault. Early in the 21st century they were presented to St Albans Abbey, where they may still be seen.

Jane introduced a weekly sermon or lecture to be given on a Sunday afternoon promoting the worship of God and the spiritual welfare of the inhabitants of Dunstable. In the same year she donated a three – decker pulpit.

In 1734, Jane ‘presented to the Minister and Churchwardens of the Parish a Compleat new Large Clock’ and pledged £1 a year for its repair ‘for ever’. The clock was mounted in the Tower with no hands or external face and struck the hours only which could be heard across all Dunstable. The hands and the face were fitted in 1899 to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee two years previously. In 1972 an electric mechanism was fitted which saved the expensive and time-consuming weekly winding. The Jane Cart Trust is still responsible today for the upkeep of the clock.