Origins of the trust
In March 1955 Sir Godfrey Mitchell endowed a charitable trust with a gift of shares in the construction company George Wimpey Ltd. The founder determined that the trustees of the new trust should be able to use the funds for any charitable purpose.
In 1979 this trust became known as The Tudor Trust. The current value of its endowment is approximately £250m. The trust’s assets are held in a wide range of funds managed in a responsible way.
Historic grant-making
In its first 20 years, the activities of the trust reflected the interests and experience of the founder and of the first generation of trustees in education and in the construction of buildings.
Below you can read more about how Tudor's work has evolved through the decades.
1960s and 1970s
During the 1960s and 1970s the trust made large grants to build university halls of residence in London and then in Glasgow. The trust also made large grants to building projects in the care and hospice sector that evolved into a substantial programme of capital funding. At the same time, smaller grants were made to schools, youth clubs, village halls and homelessness projects.
1980s
During the 1980s, the trust continued making capital grants and small grants, along with increasing its mid-value and longer-term grants, often to fund core salary costs. It also expanded the geography of its grant-making to Northern Ireland.
1990s
By the 1990s, Tudor was positioning itself as a broad funder. The Guide to Major Trusts described Tudor as "an organisation giving effective help to those who need it most and may be least likely to get it". During this decade, the trust provided funding that would inform its future grant-making including: supporting the formation of CLINKS, which works with the voluntary sector within the criminal justice system; funding the building of the HMP Edinburgh prison family visitor centre in Scotland; and funding community-led housing projects.
Recent work
In the last 20 years, alongside continuing to make capital grants, Tudor’s funding has been characterised by multi-year core grants to smaller under-resourced organisations. The trust also established more targeted funding, developing areas of issue-specific or geographical interest.
Notably, in 2017, the fire at Grenfell Tower in London saw Tudor act as the administering partner for a Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government fund in partnership with other funders to quickly get money to groups who needed it urgently. In 2020-21, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, the trust quickly established immediate support grants in response to challenges the voluntary sector was facing.
Tudor will be entering its 75th year of existence in 2025. In order to more fully understand the trust’s past, we intend to undertake a social history of the trust to learn how the context of each decade shaped its activities.
You can read more about how we work now in What we do.