Thanks to the support of donors across the Colfe’s community, the Colfe’s Charitable Trust has now established a sizable endowment fund for the Leatherseller Scholarship Programme, securing the future of the programme in perpetuity – a key goal of Headmaster Richard Russell’s tenure.
Over 500 donations have been received by the Trust since 2022, with nearly 90% being earmarked exclusively for the Leatherseller Scholarship Programme, growing the Trust’s endowment to £2.7m for these life-changing awards. Separately, the generosity of bequest intenders means that a total intended value of £2.3m has been pledged to support the programme through gifts in wills.
For the 2025-26 year, the Trust will provide five fully-funded Leatherseller Scholarships. This is combined with additional grants from the Leathersellers’ Foundation outside of the Trust’s endowment, ensuring Colfe’s can provide a total of 15 Leatherseller Scholarships for the 2025-26 year.
Since its launch in 2009, the programme has provided over 100 fully-funded Sixth Form places to talented students from low-income families, most of whom join Colfe’s from local secondary schools, many of which don’t have Sixth Forms. Many Leatherseller scholars have gone on from Colfe’s to study at Cambridge, Oxford or Russell Group universities, while others have won places on highly competitive degree apprenticeships. Former scholars are now embarked on careers that include medicine, finance, law and meteorology.
Headmaster Richard Russell said: “The Leatherseller Scholarship Programme is an incredibly powerful engine for social change, and securing its future has been one of my highest priorities. Each year without exception, the contribution that our scholars make to our school, and to the wider world, demonstrates the value of the investment made in them. These young people enrich the dynamics of our sixth form. and many of them now speak of how their ongoing upward trajectory after leaving owes much to the opportunities they embraced while at Colfe’s. I am delighted that, thanks to the extraordinary generosity of the donors from our school community, alumni and wider family, we are able to make such a life-changing impact and continue the programme with such positive momentum.”
Further information about the impact of the Leatherseller Scholarship Programme, and stories from scholars and donors can be found on the Support Us section of the website.
For a confidential discussion about giving at Colfe’s, please contact Kathryn McNeill at kmcneill@colfes.com
