Unusual legacies at Oxfam
Howard Lake | 16 June 2010 | Blogs
Having just featured the story about the bet from beyond the grave that could net Oxfam £300,000 or more, I thought I’d share a few of the more unusual legacies that Oxfam has received.
Each year the charity receives about 600 legacies, worth around £10-11 million per year. But some of these are rather unusual. They include:
* A pair of gold teeth and a dentist’s chair from a former dentist;
* The royalties from a number of books and plays, including Doctor Finlay’s Casebook, which was on TV from 1962 to 1971;
* A letter written by Florence Nightingale, which was sold for several hundred pounds at auction;
* Some racing greyhounds;
According to Oxfam, “the most expensive shares left to us was a holding of shares in the original Woolwich Arsenal Football Club. The shares had been overlooked in 1920 and were traced through four subsequent estates. Each share was worth £6,965 when finally sold in 2009”.
What is the most unusual legacy that your charity has received?
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.