Awards, etc.

Crane’s Charity: Notice by the Distributors

(Statutes and Ordinances, p. 777)

John Crane, an apothecary in Cambridge in the early seventeenth century, made a number of bequests to the University – the Benefaction of John Crane, 1651 (Endowments of the University of Cambridge (CUP, 1904), p. 565). Crane’s Charity ‘for the relief of poor sick scholars’ is the principal medical charity in the University. It exists to provide financial assistance to students who need treatment for physical or mental illness, or for injuries resulting from accidents.

The Distributors of Crane’s Charity give notice that they will consider requests for assistance from individual students on the basis of an application made on their behalf by their College Tutor. Further information, including a downloadable application form, can be found at http://www.cambridgestudents.cam.ac.uk/fees-and-funding/financial-hardship-support-access-funds/cranes-charity. Tutors are required to submit a report to the Distributors, after a grant of financial assistance has been made, as to whether the grant proved to be beneficial to the student supported – in terms of treatments, remaining on their course, completing their degree, etc.

Crane’s Charity has also provided financial assistance for collective activity that the Distributors have determined falls within the purposes of the Charity. Attention is drawn to the regular funding provided to sustain the mental health and psychiatric support work of the University Counselling Service: a Mental Health Advisor post; advice for students provided by a consultant psychiatrist in psychotherapy (especially in cognitive analytic therapy) for half a day per week in Term.

The following table summarizes the expenditure from Crane’s Charity in 2014–15.

Number of grants	Colleges represented	Average grant to students	Expenditure: grants to students	Expenditure: collective activities	Total Expenditure
35	19	£573*	£21,188	£65,755	£86,943

* The largest individual grant awarded was £1,857.