In the small Warwickshire village of Leamington Hastings stands an attractive seventeenth-century stone building with the following inscription:

The narrative conveyed in this lengthy inscription raises many questions, not least who was the benefactor Humphrey Davis (or Davies)? Why did he found this almshouse; who were the poor people who lived in it; and what benefits might they have received? One might also ask: who were the five men named as rescuing the almshouse and why did they become involved in the way that they did?

Almshouses like this one and others, some very much older, are a feature of many towns and villages across England. They are curious institutions, built by the rich to be lived in by the poor, tangible representations of philanthropy, and a visible demonstration of historic attitudes towards the poor. They have a long history: the oldest recorded almshouses pre-date the Conquest, with almshouses continuing to be founded through the centuries up to the present day. The period after the Reformation and into the early years of the eighteenth century, in particular, saw a remarkable number of almshouses founded, as people from many different backgrounds used new wealth to revive and remodel an ancient form of provision to meet new needs and aspirations. Post-Reformation almshouses are often considered to have been places of privilege for the respectable deserving poor, operating outside the structure of parish poor relief to which ordinary poor people were subjected, and doing little to assist the poorest and most needy.