There are three women named in the Founders’ Prayer, including our subject for this week’s piece, Hannah Brackenbury. Who was she, and how did she come to be known as a major benefactor of MGS?
Hannah Brackenbury was born in Leyland in 1795 to Francis and Sarah Brackenbury. She had two brothers who survived infancy, Ralph and James. She seems to have spent the first half of her life in Manchester, though little is known about these years. She did not marry, and in 1844 she moved to Hove with her now invalid brother James. James had made his fortune working as a solicitor for various pioneering railway companies. He died the same year, a widower with only one child to leave his fortune. On the death of his daughter Henrietta and brother Ralph in the 1860s, Hannah Brackenbury was the beneficiary of the family fortune. In just seven years between 1865 and 1872, Brackenbury donated over £100,000 to various institutions and causes.
She donated large sums of money to endow scholarships to Balliol College Oxford, and the Brackenbury scholarships in History and Natural Sciences still exist at the college. Searching through Ulula, it seems many Old Mancunians have been awarded Brackenbury scholarships during their time at Balliol, including notable geologist Sir Lazarus Fletcher. She also gave money to endow six scholarships at MGS, two each for Classics, Mathematics and Natural Sciences. These were awarded based on an examination, and gave scholars a sum of £50 per annum for a duration of three years. On her death in 1873 she bequeathed a further £6600. This money was timely, with the School in the throes of updating its curriculum, expanding its capacity and building new premises.
As with Edward Langworthy and Oliver Heywood, Brackenbury directed much of her philanthropy to other major Manchester institutions including Owens College, Manchester Medical School and Ancoats Dispensary.
Rachel Kneale
Hoots from the archive 