Elize Hele of Fardel in the parish of Cornwood, Devon and of Parke in the parish of Bovey Tracey, Devon, was an English lawyer and philanthropist. In 1632 he transferred his lands into a trust intended for "pious uses", from which charitable action and in order to distinguish him from his many prominent relations, he became known to posterity as "Pious Uses Hele", which his biographer Prince looked upon "as a more honourable appellation than the greatest empty title". The trustees included his wife, together with John Hele and a number of friends. The trust was used to create a number of schools in Devon including Plympton Grammar School .
Origins
Hele was born in 1560 at Worston in the parish of Brixton near Plympton, Devon. He was the elder of two sons of Walter Hele of Brixton by his wife Jone Maynard, a daughter of Thomas Maynard of Brixton. His uncle was the very wealthy lawyer John Hele, of Wembury, Devon, Recorder of Exeter in 1592, and Member of Parliament for Exeter 1593-1601, who married a daughter of Ellis Warwick of Holbeton. The Hele family originated at the manor of Hele in the parish of Cornwood.
Marriages and children
He married twice:
Firstly to Mary Hender, daughter and co-heiress of John Hender of Bottreaux Castle in Cornwall. The arms of Hender appear on Hele's monument. By his first wife he had a son:
*Walter Hele, who died aged 13 and whose kneeling effigy appears at the base of his father's monument in Bovey Tracey Church.
He died in 1635 and was buried in St. Andrew's Chapel in Exeter Cathedral, as was also his wife when she died on 20 June 1636. His elaborate monument with semi-recumbent alabaster effigy survives on the south side of the chancel in Bovey Tracey Church, opposite that of Nicholas Eveleigh, his second wife's first husband.
Legacy
His will took some time to settle. Twenty years later, his will was challenged in the House of Commons by his great niece Joane Hele who petitioned the court to allow funds from the will to be redirected to her. Hele's executor, Sir John Maynard, was neutral to the outcome and Sir Edward Rhodes ruled that funds should be given to Joane but that the charitable causes should not be abandoned. In 1649 John Maynard and Elize Stert, as surviving trustees, granted the lands and profits of the estate to be enjoyed by the governors, assistants and wardens of the Hospital of the Poors Portion, Plymouth, for the education of poor children. John Maynard and Elize Stert had also purchased in 1656, on behalf of the Hele Charity trust, an estate at Lower Creeson, Mary Tavy. Yearly accounts were compiled each November and money was to be used to build a schoolhouse at Plympton St Maurice and to buy lands at Brixton to support the preaching minister. In 1656 his trustees, Sir John Maynard and Elize Stert apportioned money for the founding of the Blue Maid's Hospital and in 1658 for the establishing of Hele's School in Plympton. An indenture of 17–18 December 1658 between the Hele Charity trustees and the City of Exeter and governors of St John's Foundlings Hospital, Exeter, granted the profits of the manors of Clyst St Lawrence, Clyst St Gerrard and Teignharvey, as well as of Torre House, Newton Ferrers, to the Hospital, for the maintenance of the poor children. The heirs of Sir John Maynard were John Kerr, Earl of Ancram, Lady Suffield, Ernest Edgcumbe, Viscount Valletort and Viscountess Castlereagh. Sir John Maynard's descendants received the remaining income from the bequest and distributed it to charities as they decided for the next two centuries. Legal proceedings resulted in depriving the descendant of Sir J. Maynard, who was the surviving trustee, of all control over the funds, which were thereupon vested in the Crown.
