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Peabody (Peabody Trust), founded in 1862, is one of London's oldest and largest housing associations with around 27,000 properties. It is also a charity and urban regeneration agency. The organisation was originally named the Peabody Donation Fund, and now brands itself simply as “Peabody”.〔 ==History== The Trust was founded in 1862 by London-based American banker George Peabody, who in the 1850s had developed a great affection for London, and determined to make a charitable gift to benefit it. His initial ideas included a system of drinking fountains (comparable to the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association scheme actually set up by Samuel Gurney and Edward Thomas Wakefield in 1859), or a contribution to the "ragged schools" of the Earl of Shaftesbury. In March 1859, however, he settled on establishing a model dwellings company. Three years later, in a letter to ''The Times'' on 26 March 1862, he launched the Peabody Donation Fund, with an initial gift of £150,000. The aim of the organisation, he said, would be to "ameliorate the condition of the poor and needy of this great metropolis, and to promote their comfort and happiness". The paper reported, "We have today to announce an act of beneficence unexampled in its largeness and in the time and manner of the gift".〔"Unprecedented Munificence" and untitled leader article, ''The Times'', 26 Mar. 1862, p. 9.〕 Shortly before his death in 1869, Peabody increased his gift to a munificent £500,000.〔(News story, Peabody website )〕 The Peabody Trust was later constituted by Act of Parliament, stipulating its objectives to work solely within London for the relief of poverty. This was to be expressed through the provision of model dwellings for the capital's poor. The first block, designed by H.A. Darbishire in a red-brick Jacobethan style, opened in Commercial Street, Spitalfields, on 29 February 1864. It cost £22,000 to build, and contained 57 "dwellings" (i.e. flats) for the poor, nine shops with accommodation for the shopkeepers, and baths and laundry facilities on the upper floor. Water-closets were grouped in pairs by the staircases, with one shared between every two flats.〔"Mr. Peabody's Gift", ''The Times'', 1 Feb. 1864, p. 5.〕〔''Illustrated London News'' (1863).〕〔The block was sold by the Trust in the late 1970s, being considerably smaller than most of the later estates and outdated in its facilities. However, it still stands, and is now a private residential block named The Cloisters.〕 This first block was followed by larger estates in Islington, Poplar, Shadwell, Chelsea, Westminster, Bermondsey, and elsewhere. By 1882 the Trust housed more than 14,600 people in 3,500 dwellings. By 1939 it owned more than 8,000 dwellings. In its early days, the Trust imposed strict rules to ensure that its tenants were of good moral character. Rents were to be paid weekly and punctually; there was a night-time curfew and a set of moral standards to be adhered to; and the dwellings could not be used for certain trades. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Peabody Trust」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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