This item intrigued me, too! From Googling I found this which, if I've understood it correctly, makes it sound even worse! Is this where the term "old maid" originated?! Or "if at first you don't succeed, try and try again"? What did the applicants have to do every 3 years? And what is meant by the "commonalty of the borough"? I have pictures in my mind of aging females putting on their wedding gowns every 3 years and parading around Wallingford in "Miss World" style whilst all the inhabitants lined the streets holding up score cards. And, did they get the money first and then their man? Or was he a prerequisite and, if so, what was that like to have a wife who'd been a reject for 12 or more years? I would be less miserable about this if someone could say that, actually, parents registered their baby daughters' applications at birth? "Miscellaneous Papers: viz. Charitable Donations; Parish Returns; and The Poor Clergy. Session 8 November --- 12 July, 1814-1815. Vol. XII. This book is to be preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. 1814-1815." pg 1 - "Copies of Memorials or Statements of Charitable donations, delivered in to the several Offices of the Clerks of the Peace of the several Counties or Ridings . . . in England and Wales . . ." 32 charities are included for Berkshire and no. 24 on pg 12 is Archbishop Laud's Charity. I'll include the full account here as it also refers to boys' apprenticeships which might be of interest, too: "A memorial or Statement in pursuance of an Act for the registering and securing of Charitable Donations;--Whereby it is declared by me the undersigned John Allnatt Hedges, town-clerk and one of the eighteen assistants of the borough of Watlingford in the county of Berks, THAT the real estate (there not being any personal estate) of the Charity, called Archbishop Laud's Charity, consists of divers fee farm rents issuing out of estates in the parish of East Hagborn in the said county of Berks, and hamlet of Aston Upthorpe in the same county; and the gross annual income arising therefrom amounts to forty-nine pounds nineteen shillings and three-pence: And the objects of which Charity or Charitable Foundation are for apprenticing five boys in each year for two succeeding years, and every third year for the portions of three poor maids, to be severally elected by the mayor, burgesses and commonalty of the borough of Wallingford aforesaid: and which Charity or Charitable Foundation was, according to the best of my knowledge and belief, founded by the said Archbishop Laud; and some deeds or other instruments relating thereto are, to the best of my knowledge and belief, in the custody possesion (sic) or controul (sic) of the said mayor, burgesses and commonalty; and the trustees or possessors of the said real estate, to the best of my knowledge and belief, are the said mayor, burgesses and commonalty." Followed by the town-clerk's italicised signature, etc, etc. Oxfordshire isn't included in this publication. Best wishes, Carole Skidmore in Devon