It has been nearly 400 years since the first gift to support financial aid was made to Harvard in 1643, and 50 years since the Harvard Management Company began managing the gift as part of its stewardship of the Harvard Endowment.
During this time, billions of dollars have enabled students to access an education at Harvard University.
It may surprise some, however, that the original scholarship was given to Anne Radcliffe, who as a woman was not able to attend the university until three centuries later (today the Harvard Radcliffe Institute bears her name). Radcliffe became known as Lady Mowlson after she married Sir Thomas Mowlson, a grocer and former mayor of London, in 1600. Although neither ever set foot on the Cambridge campus, the scholarship continues to support Harvard students with financial need nearly half a millennium later.
Although the couple had no children who survived infancy, both husband and wife were committed to supporting education. During his lifetime, Thomas Mowlson established a fund for a chapel and school at Hargrave-Stubbs in Cheshire, England, for the “management, education, and instruction of youth in grammar and virtue.” Radcliffe’s own family had long been involved in philanthropy, supporting a professorship at Oxford, English university scholarships, and the endowment of two English grammar schools. In 1604, Anne’s father, Anthony Radcliffe, had even attempted to help found a university in Yorkshire.
Experienced administrator
When Mowlson died around 1638, he left half his fortune to his wife, Lady Mowlson. The remainder, according to Harvard historian Samuel Eliot Morison in his 1937 commencement address, was divided “among various brothers, nephews, cousins, ‘twenty poor clergymen,’ and the Worshipful Company of Grocers.” Radcliffe managed her share so well that when a delegation from the Massachusetts Bay Colony arrived a few years later seeking financial assistance, she contributed £100 for the annual “maintenance of a poor student.”
In an 1894 article for New England Magazine, historian Andrew McFarland Davis painted a picture of Lady Mowlson’s life, writing, “Her donation to the College was perhaps a sufficient sign of her political sympathies. But if we need clearer indications, we find them in (her) donation to the Parliamentary Fund, which was to be paid to the Scottish army soon to take part in the victory over the King’s forces at Marston Moor,” a battle between Parliamentarians and Royalists in the English Civil War in 1644. Then-President of Radcliffe College, Wilbur Kitchener Jordan, noted in November 1949 that shortly after her husband’s death, Lady Mowlson “supported the Puritan and Parliamentary cause with characteristic vigor.”
Unworthy first recipient
In 1643, Lady Mowlson signed her gift over to Thomas Weld. Weld, minister of the church at Roxbury, had been appointed by the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1641 as a member of a three-man committee to plan a trip to England, which included procuring “cotton from any source for clothing.” During the trip, Weld also secured donations for the fledgling school on the banks of the Charles River.
On the original parchment document dated May 9, 1643, now weathered and worn and safely stored in Harvard’s extensive archives, Weld’s ornate handwriting, transcribed by historian Davis, records that he received from Mowlson: “One hundred pounds in English money, which she hath voluntarily given to Harvard College, in New England, to be raised by the Feudal Men of the College for the time being, as the best annual revenue that her wisdom may deem proper. This annual revenue shall, according to her good and pious intention, serve and remain as a personal stipend for the annual maintenance of a poor scholar.”
Weld, Kitchener said, persuaded Mowlson that his own son John, then a third-year student at Harvard University, would be the ideal first recipient of the gift. It was a poor choice, however. “The first Mowlson Fellow, I regret to report,” Kitchener wrote, “was expelled from Harvard College in the first year of his term, after President Dunster had personally prescribed him a good beating for having been caught breaking into two houses in Cambridge, from which he stole sums considerably in excess of his scholarship.”
In the years that followed, little was known about the scholarship, largely because the fund was initially entrusted to the colony’s treasury “for investment and safekeeping,” Kitchener writes. It was not until 1713 that the fund was returned to the care of the Corporation of Harvard College, where it was combined with the school’s general funds. It was not until 1893 that the President and Fellows of Harvard voted to use $5,000 to reinstate the Lady Mowlson Scholarship with an annual stipend of $200.
A gift that always brings joy
Today, their legacy lives on. Since the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative was created 20 years ago, making the cost of Harvard College affordable for every applicant, the university has awarded more than $3 billion to thousands of students. Next year, more than 55 percent of college students will benefit from need-based financial aid, with the average family paying a total of $13,000 for tuition, room, board, and other fees.
3 billion US dollars — Has been awarded to students since the launch of the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative 20 years ago
In the last academic year (2022-23), Harvard provided $851 million in financial aid to students across the university, including $246 million for undergraduate students. About half of that financial aid, about $440 million, was paid out from endowment funds, with the rest having to be supplemented by other means. And as costs rise and the university continues to expand its financial aid, the value of permanent endowment funds like Lady Mowlson’s is becoming increasingly important.
“Financial aid has never been more important as we continue to seek out outstanding students from across the country and around the world,” said William Fitzsimmons, longtime dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard College. “Access to Harvard for promising students of all backgrounds is a fundamental value and has been since the University’s beginnings. It is who we are.”
Thanks to the college’s extensive financial aid program, students whose families earn less than $85,000 a year — nearly 25 percent of students — do not have to contribute anything to their student’s college costs. In addition, qualified students receive a $2,000 “start-up grant” during their first year at Harvard to cover living expenses beyond tuition. They receive another $2,000 “start-up grant” at the start of their third year to prepare for interviews and explore options for graduate study.
“A person who cared deeply about future generations”
Looking back at the original gift in 1643, Fitzsimmons felt inspired, he said.
“Here she was in England, but she was imagining the New World and the new possibilities,” he said. “Anne Radcliffe was clearly a thoughtful person, a person with vision and a person who cared deeply about future generations. So people with that level of thoughtfulness and generosity have always inspired me greatly.”
This generosity also played an important role in his own college career, he added.
“As a first-generation student myself, this hits home because Harvard has made such a difference in my life and financial support was critical to me during my undergraduate years,” Fitzsimmons said. “I am pleased to report that over 20 percent of the class we just admitted is first-generation, and in turn, over 20 percent will receive Federal Pell Grants. This is another sign that Anne Radcliffe’s vision of reaching people from all walks of life is supported by her foundational gift.
“Their efforts are a great example of how one person’s attention can literally make a lasting difference.”
