Lady Sarah Hewley

The Lady Hewley Trust, now a charity, began as Sarah, Lady Hewley's charity to support English Presbyterian, Congregationalist and Baptist ministers, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The trust was later at the centre of a 12-year legal suit in the nineteenth century, noted in Unitarian history, and turning on the current beliefs of ministers who were supported by its funds. While the legal judgment went against the Unitarians, the introduction of the Dissenters' Chapels Act 1844, which followed on the case, improved their position.