Alderman Norman's Foundation is an educational charity based in Norwich, Norfolk in the United Kingdom.
The Foundation's objectives are the education of children who are descendants of Alderman John Norman and children / young people residing in the Parish of Old Catton, and educational organisations in the Parish of Old Catton, the City of Norwich and its immediate suburbs.
[4] The primary purpose of the will was to provide for the education of the sons of his family members and those of his first wife, Ann Mace.
[4] This element of the will was almost wholly unsuccessful: it is said that only one boy ever so proceeded to Cambridge, in 1742, and that he ended his days in a mental institution.
[4] Following this debacle, and the formalising of the interests of the descendants through the creation of the Claimants' Unity, the school finally opened in 1839, although in Norwich rather than the intended Catton, and not according to the very precise construction details set out in the will.
A party of 500 was entertained in the school-room, where the leader of the claimants, Samuel Daynes,[9] proposed 'The Memory of Alderman Norman'.
[11] The trustees battled successfully with the Charity Commissioners in the late 1880s, who had wished to remove the focus on the descendants as a class of beneficiaries.
[15] The mismanagement of the charity's accounts and finances in the first 100 years led to the establishment, in 1839, by a number of the descendants of a Claimants' Unity, to protect their interests.
[21] Both are modelled on a traditional Norfolk Broads reedlighter, a boat that carried the reed harvest.