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Smyth is one of the most important figures at the Guildhall as he helped to keep the peace between the Town and the Abbey, by paying the Cope Silver tax, paid to the abbey every time there was a new abbot. His death is marked by the Cake and Ale Ceremony which is still held every year.

Margaret, the wife of Jankyn (John) Smyth, was a 15th-century benefactor in her own right, contributing money and property to religious and charitable causes in Bury St Edmunds. Together with her husband—one of the town’s most significant benefactors—she helped to endow the Candlemas Guild, an important religious guild within the town.ft money for the relief of prisoners

Little is known about Thomas Bereve, other than he was a benefactor.

William Tassell is a minor but genuine historical benefactor of Bury St Edmunds, known primarily through administrative charity records rather than narrative history.

Edmund Jermyn of Rushbrooke, near Bury St Edmunds, is a documented local benefactor, but he is not a widely written-about figure in narrative histories. What we know about him comes mainly from inscriptions, family context, and local records rather than full biographies

Thomas Bright the Elder is another early post-Reformation local benefactor of Bury St Edmunds, but—like Edmund Jermyn—he survives mostly in local records, benefaction lists, and inscriptions, rather than in full biographies.

Robert Parker the Elder is one of a small group of late 16th-century benefactors to Bury St Edmunds whose memory survives mainly through local charitable records and benefactors’ lists, rather than detailed biographies.

Mistress Heigham the Elder is a particularly interesting figure among the early benefactors of Bury St Edmunds because she represents female philanthropy in the late 16th century, which is less frequently documented but often very significant.

James Baxter left a benefaction connected with the library at St James’s Church but he did not found the library itself. Instead, he endowed its maintenance.

Falls into the same identifiable group as James Baxter—early 17th-century local benefactors tied to the town’s emerging civic structure after incorporation in 1606.

Another figure from the same early 17th-century civic and charitable network as Baxter and Walker—but in his case, a little more can be said with confidence about his family context and status.

A high-status gentlewoman—almost certainly a widow—who lived in or was connected to Bury and made a charitable bequest to the town, likely recorded in her will and administered through local institutions such as the Guildhall Feoffment.

A mid-17th-century property-owning townsman who contributed to Bury St Edmunds’ system of structured charity—likely through a will-based endowment—during the politically and religiously transformative Commonwealth period.

A property-owning townsman whose will established (or helped establish) a lasting charitable endowment—later known as the Battley & Sutton Charity—supporting the poor or inhabitants of Bury St Edmunds.

A member of the Suffolk gentry—linked to the Clopton and Poley families—who died in Bury and likely contributed (by will) to local charitable or civic life, reflecting the ongoing involvement of the landed elite in the town’s institutions.

A knight and man of substantial means who, through his giving (likely recorded in his will), contributed to the established charitable framework of the town in the late 18th century. He established a medical charity now administered by Guildhall Feoffment.

Eva was the first woman to serve as a Councillor and Mayor of Bury St Edmunds She was listed as Eva Paulina Greene, and was the wife of John Wollaston Greene, a Bury solicitor (founder of Greene and Greene), and great grandson of Benjamin Greene the Brewer. Eva lived to the ripe age of 95, being buried at Thurston in 1973.

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