Garfield Weston Foundation
2007 Annual Report and Accounts
Education – £11,333,000 in 206 grants

Education receives the largest portion of the total distributed by a considerable margin, with National Museums Liverpool being the largest beneficiary with a total contribution of £2,000,000 pledged towards its proposed new Museum of Liverpool.

The flagship element of Liverpool’s activities for its European Capital of Culture status in 2008 is the redevelopment of the waterfront museums. The Museum of Liverpool, housed in a new building over three floors overlooking the famous Three Graces historic buildings on the waterfront, will provide 10,000 square metres of floor space incorporating a flexible and changing interactive programme. The themes will be The Port, the Global City, the People’s City and the Creative City and will feature the domestic, religious, cultural, literary, artistic, musical, architectural, sporting, military, mercantile, industrial, social, economic and political histories of the city. As well as the four main display galleries there will be a first floor atrium, history resource centre, community meeting rooms, learning facilities and a restaurant. It is intended to be a major tourist attraction for the region and a minimum of 750,000 visitors per annum are anticipated.

A grant of £1,000,000 is donated to the Imperial War Museum for the acquisition of Charles Upham’s Victoria Cross and Bar and other medals, which will be on permanent loan to the Waiouru Army Museum in New Zealand.

Grants of £500,000 are provided to both the British Museum Development Trust towards the renewal of their Galleries of Roman Britain and to the Museum of London for updating the exhibitions, refurbishing the Medieval Gallery, creating a new Education Centre and increasing access to the archive by digitising the collections and funding academic archaeological research.

A grant of £340,000 is enabling the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art to acquire the remaining piece of land on their West London campus. The need had become increasingly urgent in order to consolidate all of its teaching and performance activities on one site. The intention is to build a new state-of-the-art theatre, expanded teaching and technical facilities and improved student facilities.

Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh receives £300,000 towards its new campus in Musselburgh. They are also consolidating all their activities on to one site, the first purpose-built university campus in Scotland for a generation. With excellent communication links into Edinburgh, it has been designed for the widest possible use by the community and will be an exemplar in sustainable development.

Eleven grants of £250,000 feature in the Education category, three of which are universities and one school.

Loughborough University is a leader in research into health and life sciences (5* rated). The main areas of study include immunology, health and paediatric exercise physiology, nutrition, exercise physiology and muscle function. There are currently thirty academic staff, research assistants and postgraduates in physiology research, with several hundred working in healthcare generally. As part of the campus redevelopment they are planning to demolish redundant 1930s buildings and bring the laboratories and teaching facilities, currently in twelve separate buildings, on to one site. The Trustees are contributing to this capital appeal.

They are also supporting the University of Liverpool’s improvements to the infrastructure of its Faculty of Veterinary Science. A new small-animal hospital will replace a 1970’s building in Liverpool which no longer provides the facilities or environment for extensive clinical teaching programmes and research required to be carried out. It will be adjacent to the existing large-animal hospital enabling collaborations to take place and some facilities to be shared. It will free up space on the main city campus for other development work. This most recent grant takes the total provided by the Trustees to this project to £750,000.

The University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne has responsibility for four museums which are all in need of attention and which are currently attracting a combined total of 150,000 visitors per annum. The Hancock Museum is the most important, covering Natural Sciences, and in addition they have the Museum of Antiquities, the Shefton Museum and the Hatton Gallery. The Trustees are contributing to a major refurbishment of the Grade II* listed Hancock Museum, which will include the building of an extension to house the collections of the other three museums together with temporary exhibition space, a dedicated learning suite, library and resource centre.

Other museums receiving grants of this level are Brooklands Museum, the Tank Museum and the Jewish Museum, all towards capital upgrades. The grant to Historic Royal Palaces is towards the creation of dedicated education facilities at Hampton Court Palace and to the Society of Antiquaries of London towards the restoration of its premises.

The London Library is also supported with £250,000. This is the world’s largest independent lending library, with over one million volumes. It has acquired all of the most important published works in each generation, with books dating from the 16th century. It combines the academic depth of a major university library with a wide range of books and periodicals for the general reader. Over 95 per cent of the collection is stored on 15 miles of shelving which may be freely browsed and over 97 per cent is available for loan either in person or via the postal service. The membership of 8,000 includes most of the important writers, opinion formers and academics of today. They have embarked on a £30 million development project. Most book stacks have been full for six years and yet the Library is currently growing at an average rate of 8,000 volumes a year, requiring half a mile of additional openaccess shelf space every three years. As a result, collections have been scattered and environmental conditions need addressing. Failing water and electrical installations are putting the collections at risk of flooding and fire and there are inadequate reader spaces. Through the acquisition of adjacent premises they will be able to provide an additional 30 per cent of space integrated with the existing site. This will enable subjects to be logically sequenced and for periodicals to be brought together on a single floor. Temperature and humidity levels will be stabilised and a purpose-designed conservation studio will secure the future of the ageing collections. Reader spaces will be doubled and new IT developments will be incorporated.

Another library to benefit is St Deiniol’s in Hawarden, with a grant of £100,000. This Grade 1 listed building contains over 250,000 printed items and 19th century studies particularly on theology, plus 30,000 volumes of William Gladstone’s own personal library, his non-political correspondence and papers. It has 26 bedrooms, is widely used for residential retreats and delivers a programme of events and activities. Their £1.35 million appeal is to restore the fabric and upgrade the facilities, including the provision of disabled accommodation and a better lecture theatre. The present chapel will become a meeting room, the dining room and kitchen will be enlarged and a small extension added.

The Trustees continue their support of secondary education, with grants both to private schools for bursaries and extending access and to the state sector for improving the infrastructure. The proposed new City Academy in Newton-le-Willows receives a capital grant of £250,000 while the new Thomas Deacon Academy in Peterborough receives £25,000 towards staff training required before opening. Lodge Park Technology College in Corby is supported with a grant of £50,000 towards a new Sixth Form facility which will also be available for adult learners out of school hours.

As in the past, the pursuit of excellence is encouraged by grants given to specialist organisations, examples being £50,000 to the Purcell School in Bushey, £25,000 to both Sense About Science and the Masterclass Media Foundation and £10,000 to the School for Social Entrepreneurs. A further £10,000 is added to previous support provided to the Edward Barnsley Educational Trust, which trains master craftsmen in handmade furniture.

Extra-curricular activities featured on the list include the National Space Science Centre (£50,000), Tower Hamlets Summer Education (£15,000), Making It Industrial Heritage Trust (£10,000), the Children’s Discovery Centre in East London (£10,000), the British Schools Exploring Society (£10,000) and the Ideas Foundation (£10,000). The Cricket Foundation has a further £100,000 added to the earlier grant of £250,000 towards the Chance to Shine Appeal.

Various special schools have been successful. For example, Henshaws College has had a second grant of £100,000 given towards its Living Life campaign, which will enable it to offer independent living skills training to its visually impaired students. A similar amount is provided to Derwen College for the Disabled, towards the creation of a bigger retail training shop. Chailey Heritage School receives £50,000 towards the refurbishment of its accommodation for students over 16, while Grafham Grange Special Education Trust receives £25,000 towards a new multi-use games area.

Children’s welfare in the school environment is considered very important and is demonstrated by a £100,000 grant to School-Home Support Service. This is a national charity that builds bridges between home and school to enable children and young people to make the most of their education. This is done by providing trained and experienced workers and learning mentors who become part of the school’s pastoral care team. Children particularly at risk of isolation, bullying, lack of confidence and general disadvantage are identified and the families are involved in finding solutions.