A PAIR of long-standing Huddersfield charities will merge.

Huddersfield Tradesmen’s Benevolent Institution and the Henry Percy Dugdale Charity are set to become one organisation.

The Institution was founded at the end of the 19th century to help tradesmen in Huddersfield who had fallen on hard times.

The Henry Percy Dugdale Charity was formed under the will of Huddersfield man Mr Henry Percy Dugdale after his death in August 1939.

He requested that a trust be created to assist people from Huddersfield who were suffering financial problems. The charity has operated ever since and, in the last 12 months alone, provided £51,000 of assistance to around 60 local people.

The Institution has paid out pensions to its beneficiaries for more than 100 years, but recently it found fewer people were coming forward to ask for help and so decided to transfer its funds to the Dugdale charity.

The Charity Commission has agreed and now the Dugdale charity will look after the Institution’s existing beneficiaries and also take new applications for help.

Anyone who thinks they may qualify for help should write to The Secretary, Henry Percy Dugdale Charity, PO Box 577, HD1 9NL.