Dame Alice Owen British Philanthropist (1547-1613)

Alice Owen, name at birth Wilkes was born in 1547 to an Islington landowner Thomas Wilkes and his wife. 

In her childhood, when playing with other children in the fields in Islington, she had a narrow escape of being killed by an arrow shot by an archer, which pierced the hat on her head.

For this lucky escape she recorded her gratitude in later life by the erection of a school and almshouses on the spot known as 'Ermytage' field. The story appeared in this form within five years of her death however the story is often disputed. 

Alice was married three times her first husband with whom she had 11 children was Henry Robinson who was part of the brewers company. Later ‘The Worshipful Brewers Company’ became trustees of Owen’s school. 

Henry lived to found Dame Alice Owen’s school in Islington in 1613, the year Alice died.

Her second husband with whom she had one daughter with was William Elkyn who’s occupation was an Alderman of London.

Her third husband was judge & politician Thomas Owen in 1598 Alice became his widow and her name was often then styled as Dame Alice Owen or she was called Lady Owen, although Alice was never knighted.

On 21 December 1598, Alice Owen was left free to carry out her long cherished plans. 

On 6 June 1608, she obtained a licence to purchase in Islington and Clerkenwell for eleven acres of ground, where she erected a hospital for ten poor widows, to the value of £40 a year in the Brewers' Company. The site had previously been known as the 'Ermytage' field. Here she also erected a school, free chapel, and almshouses, on the east side of St. John Street Road, which stood till 1841. 

In one of the gables three iron arrows were fixed, as a memorial of the childhood event previously described. By indentures dated in 1609, she gave to the Brewers' Company a yearly rent-charge of £25, in support of her almshouses. 

On 20 September 1613, she made rules and orders for her new school. She had previously, by her will, dated 10 June 1613, directed the purchase of land to the amount of £20 a year for the maintenance of its master. She made many other bequests, especially to Christs hospital and the two universities of Cambridge and Oxford.

Alice Owen died 26 October 1613, and was buried in the parish church of St Marys Church Islington, where a monument preserved her effigy and those of her children till 1751, but on the pulling down of the old fabric, part of the monument was removed to the school and a fresh one was erected to her memory in the new church.

See my previous post about more details of Dame Alice Owen’s school.