About Rachel Fowler

Miss Rachel Fowler was a member of a prominent business family in Melksham during the 19th century. She was a member of the Society of Friends but recognised the importance of the Anglican and other churches in the town in her charities.

She appears to have been an outstanding person - dominant and determined and very much an individualist. She had a lively interest in the welfare of Melksham and its people with a particular concern for those (especially widows and spinsters) who had fallen on hard times and were unaccustomed to applying for poor relief.

One of the members of her family was John Fowler (b.1826) who was an engineer and inventor of the steam plough.

Miss Fowler founded at least three charities, all of which continue under the 1960 Scheme which established the “Melksham Almshouses, Public and Eleemosynary Charities” - an amalgamation of six Melksham charities.

These three charities were The Rachel Fowler Red Flannel Charity, the Melksham Almshouses and the New Hall, Market Place, Melksham.

The Almshouse charity was established by a deed of settlement whereby 5 dwellings at Bath Road and 16 shares in “The North Eastern Railway late Stockton and Darlington Railway” were given to trustees for the housing of widows and spinsters “of good moral character and not in receipt of parochial relief”.

The New Hall, completed 1877, was presented by Miss Fowler to the town and there was a deed of settlement drawn up in 1879. The Hall was to be used as a lecture and reading room and a meeting place for non-controversial and non-political purposes for the general benefit of the townspeople.

The first Minutes book gives an account of the opening of the Hall and includes a cutting from a local newspaper. The Minutes also make reference to her visit to the Hall to see the portrait of herself given by people in gratitude of her gift of the Hall.

The portrait was for many years boxed up on the wall of the New Hall but was taken down in 1979 and repaired and renovated by the Trustees of the Charities and is now installed in the Rachel Fowler Centre.

The New Hall was requisitioned for official use at the beginning of the 2nd World War.

Rachel Fowler was buried in the churchyard of the Quaker Church in King Street. The area has subsequently been cleared and the headstone of Miss Fowler has been donated to the Centre.