Philanthropist leaves £100m in will

A philanthropist and landowner who drove an old yellow VW Beetle and shunned expensive holidays for trips to Scotland has left more than £100million in his will, with a host of charities and good causes to benefit, along with staff on his estate.

Simon Gibson was 94 when he died in May last year at Landwade Hall on his 1,776-acre Exning estate, near Newmarket, which is currently on the market with an asking price of £50m.

Now his recently published will has revealed that, as well as leaving £1.6m to seven named charities, he had also made generous personal bequests to members of his estate’s staff, both working and retired, his carer and his legal representatives.

Mr Gibson was an honorary canon of Ely Cathedral and the largest single legacy itemised in his will of £1m will go to the Ely Cathedral Trust.

Receiving £100,000 each will be six of Mr Gibson’s favourite causes: the World Wildlife Fund (UK), the National Trust, Pembroke College, Cambridge, the King’s School, Ely, Great Ormond Street Hospital’s Children’s Charity and St Edmundsbury Cathedral, in Bury St Edmunds.

He never married and had no children, but Mr Gibson left his 10 nephews and nieces £250,000 each with his 10 godchildren each to receive £10,000.

Those who worked for Mr Gibson on his estate were also remembered with his will stipulating that all staff members employed by the Exning Estate Company at the time of his death would receive £30,000, while former staff of the company who had retired during Mr Gibson’s lifetime after reaching pensionable age are to receive £30,000.

Staff members working at Landwade Hall were also left legacies of up to £75,000.

Barry Taylor, Mr Gibson’s personal solicitor, who worked with him to set up his personal charity, the Simon Gibson Charitable Trust into which he poured millions of pounds which has been used to help a wealth of charities and good causes both local and national, said: “Overall he was a really generous man during his lifetime and as we can see from his will that has continued in his legacies.

“Simon’s residuary estate is to pass to his personal charity, the Simon Gibson Charitable Trust, the vehicle through which his extensive philanthropy was carried out.”

Mr Gibson’s fortune came through his great uncle, William Tatem, the first Lord Glanely, who was born in Appledore on the north Devon coast. Mr Gibson later paid for a new lifeboat, named Glanely, for the town’s lifeboat station.

William first went to sea at the age of 12 and he was to go from cabin boy to millionaire when he formed the Atlantic Shipping Company, which became the largest exporter of coal mined in Wales. In 1916, he was made Lord Glanely and a few years later acquired the Exning estate, including Exning House, later known as Glanely Rest, and used as an old people’s home for many years.

Killed in an air raid in 1942, it was his nephew George Gibson, Simon’s father, who inherited his fortune as his only son had died aged just six in 1905.

George’s philanthropic activities included The George Gibson Almshouses Foundation, set up to run retirement homes in Exning’s George Gibson Close, building Exning Court, a sheltered housing project in conjunction with Hereward Housing, and supporting Newmarket Day Centre.

Mr Gibson was determined, and happy, to carry on where his father had left off, supporting charities whenever he could, including Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (ACT), Ely Cathedral and Exning sports teams.

He endowed the Gibson Music School at the King’s School Ely, supported the East Anglian Air Ambulance and also made a sizeable contribution to the cost of the rearing stallion statue on the roundabout just outside Newmarket.

He was made a CBE in recognition of his charitable work.