Welcome to
the Helena Trust
A newly established charitable trust based in Liverpool, UK.
Welcome to
About us
The Helena Trust is a family charitable trust reflecting philanthropic traditions of support for the community, the arts and radical ideas. Whilst embracing a wider family legacy, the Trust is named after Helena Muspratt who personified these values.
Committed to voluntary action in the community she was a founder, with Eleanor Rathbone, of the innovative Liverpool Personal Service Society and became its Chair (PSS is still a social enterprise organisation, now with national reach).
She was also an early patron of the first Liverpool Repertory Company, based at the Playhouse Theatre, a novel concept at a time when musicals and pantomimes dominated the city’s entertainment. And she became closely involved in the suffragette movement in support of her sisters-in-law, Nessie Stewart-Brown and Julia Solly, who were leading suffragettes.
Helena continued with her commitment to charity in spite of personal tragedy which, over a short period of time, saw the death of her son and his infant twin children, as well as her husband.
At her funeral service at Liverpool Cathedral in September 1943, the Bishop of Warrington gave this eulogy:
“To see her rise triumphant over grief in renewed devotion to the city that she so loved, to see how the sanatorium in the midst of other sufferers, to find the depth of their delight in her friendliness and charm, was to understand the sort of place she had won in the hearts of Liverpool people, and to her daughters and her family they offered deep and respectful sympathy. Let the example of this frail, yet victorious, little lady live on and inspire us with the reflection that her life consisted, not in the abundance of possessions, but in the outflow of the heart for the welfare of our fellow creatures.”
Although the Bishop’s language now seems outmoded, even mawkish, we hope that, in the spirit of Helena’s philanthropy, we can continue to make a difference.