Thomas Pocklington Trust owes its existence to a jeweller-turned-property developer called Thomas Pocklington who, having suffered a short period of blindness, used his fortune to found the charity. Thomas was born in Sheffield, Chesterfield or Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, in 1860. All three towns are claimed as his place of birth in various census records between 1861 and 1901, although Sheffield is the most commonly cited. As a boy, Thomas lived in Whittlesey with his grandmother, Elizabeth Hurry, and his uncle, Jeremiah Hurry, a watchmaker. The 1881 census records that Thomas had moved to London and was now living at 10 Grafton Street, St Pancras, and working as a watchmaker and jeweller. He had also married Mary Ann, a Londoner born in 1854. That same census also records that Thomas’s mother, Ann Pricilla Pocklington, was now living with Jeremiah in Whittlesey. Current trustee Rodney Powell believes that Thomas was apprenticed to his great-grandfather, John Powell, as a jeweller and watchmaker. This seems highly likely: the 1881 census shows that Rodney’s greatgrandfather, John Powell, lived and worked as a watchmaker and jeweller in St Pancras. Thomas’s move into property development — like his bequest to the charity — has been attributed to a temporary loss of his sight. According to one brief history of the trust written in the early 1960s, Thomas suffered an inflammation of the eyes that left him blind for three months. Apparently, he vowed to make his fortune and use it to benefit the blind. In his will, Thomas left a large proportion of his estate to buy “a suitable piece of land, with or without buildings… to provide a suitable institution for the care, welfare and instruction of the blind”. He had also stipulated that his estate should accumulate for 21 years after his death before his wish was carried out. “It was an unusual bequest, ” admits Rodney, “but a wise one: clever investment and some luck with rising property prices
