The Next Step

If you are considering leaving a legacy to the in your will, please let us know. Any information will be treated as confi dential and is not binding.

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Sharing Inspiration from the past, for the future

Wordsworth and the Making your Will

The Wordsworth Trust is one of the Lake District’s When making a new will or amending a current will, great heritage attractions. Tens of thousands of people it is always best to consult a solicitor. He or she will from all over the world visit and the be able to advise you and answer any questions. Wordsworth Museum every year, and thousands more You might also want to make sure that your make the journey to the historic hamlet of Town End immediate family are aware of your intentions. Postcode: that surrounds Wordsworth’s home. Inheritance Tax liabilities can signifi cantly Telephone: Dove Cottage is at the centre of this internationally reduce the value of your estate after death. renowned site within the Lake District National Park. Bequests made to the Wordsworth Trust are Email: Around it are some 22 properties also in the care covered by the Charitable Donations Exemption of the Wordsworth Trust, where many of our staff and are not subject to Inheritance Tax. I have already left a gift to the Wordsworth Trust work and live. in my will Ways you can give A gift in your will would enable us to continue to Please send me more information conserve and protect the unspoilt appearance of the – A Pecuniary bequest landscape that Wordsworth loved, and give our visitors This is a gift of a specifi c amount. Please contact me for an informal discussion a sense of how Town End would have been in his day. – A Residuary bequest Please detach this form and return it to: This is a gift of a percentage of the The Development Offi ce, The Wordsworth Trust, remainder of your estate. Dove Cottage, , , LA22 9SH. – A gift of an object or work of art. Alternatively, contact Mark Bains, Development Manager. Telephone: 015394 63515. Email: [email protected]. 'Life is divided into three terms – that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profi t by the present, and from the present to live better in the future.' REGISTERED CHARITY 1066184 www.wordsworth.org.uk The Wordsworth Trust is a living memorial Inspired by the Past Inspiring the Future – the Collection Learning and Enjoyment to the life and poetry of William Wordsworth and his contemporaries. It is a registered William Wordsworth (1770–1850) produced some of the The Wordsworth Trust holds and conserves one of We contribute to people’s learning and understanding greatest literary masterpieces in the English language. the world’s great literary collections, including more at every stage of life and enable as many people as charity and was founded in 1891 ‘for the A legacy was important in fostering Wordsworth’s than 90% of Wordsworth’s manuscripts, most of which possible from all backgrounds to enjoy the poetry of eternal possession of those who love English development as a poet; it was a gift from his late were written at Dove Cottage. Nowhere else can such Wordsworth, his contemporaries and the writers of poetry all over the world’. friend Raisley Calvert that secured his fi nancial future, a signifi cant quantity of a great writer’s original work today. enabling him wholly to devote himself to poetry. be seen in the very place where it was created. Legacies have been crucial to the Our education team works with children and adults to Wordsworth Trust, and have helped us It is thanks to the bequest of the Wordsworth Our collection of over 60,000 books, manuscripts and encourage creativity and a love of reading and writing. to create, in the words of the Spectator, family archive made in 1935 by Gordon Graham works of art was amongst the fi rst to be given the Educational workshops are run to complement some Wordsworth, the poet’s grandson, that our collection government’s ‘Designation’ status for its national and of our special exhibitions. For example during the ‘the fi nest literary museum in the world.’ is of such importance. In addition to manuscripts of international importance. As well as the Wordsworth exhibition Telling our own Story, which explored the People of all ages benefi t from our award- Wordsworth’s greatest poems, the archive includes the archive, we hold important material and works of art lives of women in the Wordsworth circle, we created winning educational activities, and we have correspondence and diaries of Wordsworth’s family and relating to many of the great writers and artists of the a session based on letter-writing where children were friends, including his sister Dorothy’s famous journals. Romantic period such as , John encouraged to think about life in the past and then established an international reputation for Keats, Lord Byron, J.M.W. Turner and John Constable. produce a letter in the style of, and using the materials our work. Through our commitment to More recent legacies have enabled us to achieve things that would have been available in, Regency times. contemporary writers and artists, we link the that it would otherwise have been very diffi cult for The Jerwood Centre houses our collection in secure creativity of the past with that of the present. us to aff ord. Mrs Marion Nightingale left one sixth of and environmentally controlled conditions, and has a The Wordsworth Trust has an internationally established her net estate to the Wordsworth Trust: a tremendous specially designed reading room for use by everyone programme of poetry readings and free talks for Please consider us in your will, so that we gift that enabled us, for example, to carry out major with an interest in the period. The Centre is a valuable anyone with an interest in literature and art. A gift in can continue this vital work for the benefi t of improvements to some of our historic properties. Miss resource for those studying the collection, and will your will could help us to continue to inspire people of future generations. Phoebe Johnson left a fi nancial legacy, which went enable continuing research into Wordsworth and the all ages. towards the preservation and enhancement of the Romantics in the future. collection, as well as several important scrapbooks of Grasmere history. Your gift, of any size, could also ‘The Jerwood Centre will further establish Grasmere . . . youthful Poets, who among these Hills help us to make new acquisitions, conserve works of as the Global Centre for Wordsworth studies and for Will be my second self when I am gone great importance for future generations, or support the study of British in general.’ William Wordsworth, ‘’, 1800 Michael McGregor, the preservation of the historic hamlet of Town End. Seamus Heaney, June 2005 The Director