The Spectacle Makers' Charity

Membership of a City of London livery company offers good fellowship, and an unsurpassed opportunity to cultivate new friendships and interests. However, it also implicitly entails three duties:

• To "maintain the privileges and uphold the dignity of our ancient and honourable City of London".
• To help the Company to support its parent craft.
• To contribute to its charitable fund.

A 2006 survey of the then 107 livery companies of the City of London revealed that they collectively made charitable disbursements totalling £41 million. Since the establishment of the Spectacle Makers' Charity in 1998, we have started to make a reasonable contribution to that figure, but we ought to be able to do better. Every Spectacle Maker undertakes on admission to the Freedom to contribute to the fund, which is a means of combining individual contributions and transforming them into something that has a great collective power for good upon the beneficiaries.

Those beneficiaries are largely, but not exclusively, national (and in some cases international) organizations that are dedicated either to the fight against the causes of visual impairment, or to improving the quality of life for those unfortunate individuals who have already fallen victim to it. They are chosen by the Trustees who can draw upon their own and the Company's unique combination of knowledge and skills in the field of eye care to ensure that the grants will be used to best effect.

Some of our beneficiaries have been featured quite prominently in recent editions of From the Master & Wardens, but if you would like to remind yourself of who they are and what we do for them, please see Recent Grants.

All donations are gratefully received and regular donations can be made very easily by means of a standing order, and in a tax efficient manner by using Gift Aid, thereby allowing the Charity to claim back from HMRC an additional 28p for every £1 donated.

Please also consider making the Spectacle Makers' Charity a beneficiary under your will. The Livery Company can certainly be trusted to use your legacy in accordance with your wishes. When Dean John Colet, the founder of St Paul's School, was asked several hundred years ago why he had bequeathed his estate to the trusteeship of the Mercers' Company, he replied:

"...that there is no absolute certainty in human affairs, but for his part he found less corruption in such a body of citizens than in any other order or degree of mankind."

Not only can you be sure that the Spectacle Makers will make the best possible use of your legacy, but your munificence will be recorded for posterity in the Book of Benefactors.

Please help the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers to increase our capability to do what we were founded to do in 1629 – lessen the incidence of preventable visual impairment and improve the quality of life for those who have unfortunately succumbed to it.

Christine Tomkins
Chairman of Trustees
The Spectacle makers' Charity

Charity donations increase

The trustees of the Spectacle Makers’ Charity are delighted to report that, thanks to the collective generosity of the Livery and Freedom, they will be able to increase the amount disbursed this year by 17%, compared to 2008/09.

Given the gloomy economic background against which this has been achieved, we echo the trustees’ thanks to you all, and trust that you will continue to support our Charity as much as your circumstances allow. Amongst this year’s beneficiaries of your kindness and generosity are:

• Henshaw’s College for the Blind
• The Royal National College for the Blind
• The British Wireless for the Blind Fund
• The RNIB’s Library Service
• The Visual Advisory Service at Treloar College
• The St Thomas’ collaborative training & research programme with the Ophthalmology Department of the Muhumbili University of Health and Allied Services in Tanzania.
• Optometry Giving Sight
• The Jubilee Sailing Trust & Sailability

The trustees have also been able to contribute to national campaigns to help the wounded returning from Afghanistan, and their families, through grants to the Royal British Legion, the British Limbless Ex-Servicemen’s Association and SSAFA, besides ensuring that the Spectacle Makers continue to support such major City causes as the Lord Mayor’s Appeal, The Sheriffs’ & Recorder’s Fund and St Paul’s Fabric Fund.

The SMC-funded VAO project in Uganda

The trustees of the Spectacle Makers’ Charity have provided Vision Aid Overseas (VAO) with the funds needed to establish a brand new “International Vision Centre” at Jinja, in Uganda, in the form of a state of the art optometric workshop.

The Jinja Hospital will house the centre, and the Charity will provide the machinery and training. VAO has been providing refractive training in the area for a number of years, but this new facility represents advancement of its long-term goal of providing sustainable eye-care services to the poorer countries of the world.

It is the Charity’s aim to train local staff to the point where they can use the facility to prescribe, manufacture and dispense spectacles, with minimal support from its volunteers, and so meet the enormous demand within a catchment area of some 4 million people for low cost quality spectacles unaided.

This project was originally conceived by Past Master Peter Mills, who for many years was VAO’s “Country Leader” for Uganda.