Ewelme (/ˈjuːɛlm/) is a village and civil parish in the Chiltern Hills in South Oxfordshire, 2.5 miles (4 km) northeast of the market town of Wallingford.

[5] William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, Lord Chamberlain of England, and his wife Alice established the school and cloistered almshouses from their profits from the East Anglian wool trade[6] in 1437, and endowed them with estates in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire and Wiltshire.

There were originally thirteen almsmen; as of 2020[update] the charitable trust[9] runs 23 homes for men and women, in Ewelme and in Marsh Gibbon, Buckinghamshire.

[10] Under King James I, the original purpose of the position of Master of Ewelme Hospital was diverted in 1617 to support the Regius Professorship of Physic at the University of Oxford; this was confirmed in 1628 by the attachment of the stipend to the chair.

[11] At the same time, the Rectorship of Ewelme was made to support the same university's Regius Professor of Divinity, who then served as rector of the parish.

[13] The tomb chest of Thomas and that of his wife Matilda Burghersh are topped with memorial brasses showing him in plate armour and her in mantle, veil and wimple with their respective crests[14] (his a unicorn and hers a lion) at their feet.

William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk was Alice's third husband; she was married first to Sir John Philip, and second to Thomas Montagu, 4th Earl of Salisbury.