| Admin history | The Marc Fitch Fund was established in 1956 with Trustees including Dr Francis W. Steer, Sir Anthony Wagner, Dame Joan Evans, Sir John Summerson, Sir Graham Rowlandson, and Sir Giles Isham, with a focus on scholarly and archaeological causes. The March Fitch Fund initially concentrated on publishing work that was already complete in the areas of local history, genealogy and heraldry. Individuals would apply to the Fund for financial assistance for publishing costs.
The fund was quite small initially with approximately £1400 to spend per year. In 1956 the first two recipients of grants to aid publication were: E.M. Clifford, Bagendon: A Belgic Oppidum, A Record of the Excavations of 1945-1956 (privately printed); and the Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society for the Year 1956.
As well as the usual grants to support publication costs, in the 1960s to 1980s, the Fund also initiated a few of its own projects. One of these focused on developing work on the history of English Surnames. This was partly achieved in 1965 by endowing an academic post – a Readership in the History of Surnames at University of Leicester, as part of the Department of English Local History. The first appointment to this post was Richard A. McKinley, and the post later became the Marc Fitch Research Fellow. The post has contributed to the research and publication of a survey of English surnames, originally by county and then by regions, with the first volume published in 1973.
Another project initiated and supported by the Fund was the cataloguing the records and collections of the College of Arms – the first volume of which was published in 1988 and the project to complete the catalogue is ongoing. In 1979 the Marc Fitch Fund was granted a coat of arms in recognition of Marc Fitch’s generosity to scholarship in heraldry, genealogy and other disciplines.
In 1975 the Leopard’s Head Press was established to publish the results of research projects that were financed by the Marc Fitch Fund. This included the Survey of English Surnames, and the catalogue of the College of Arms, and continues to produce publications today.
From 1987 the Fund decided to make a small number of grants to other projects that usually related to cataloguing or research – such as a grant towards the cataloguing of the business and personal papers of Sir John Soane in 1988, pump-priming grants aimed at reviving the Victoria County History publications in Northamptonshire and Durham in 1996, and a grant initiating a series of public lectures on local history to the Institute of Historical Research in 1999.
In 1987/1988, the Marc Fitch Fund provided a grant to refurbish and convert a Victorian house local to the University campus to house the Centre for English Local History which was named Marc Fitch House. The Fund also donated Marc Fitch’s family portraits, and library collection, along with a grant to provide an annual income to keep the library up to date. In 2020 Leicester University announced plans to sell the building at 5 Salisbury Road, and relocate the Centre onto the central campus, with the library and archive remaining accessible from the new central campus location. |