Willie Hartley Russell MVO DL has taken up the position of Chairman of Berkshire-based charity, The Almshouse Association.

Willie Hartley Russell MVO DL has taken up the position of Chairman of Berkshire-based charity, The Almshouse Association.

He has been a dedicated member of The Almshouse Association Board of Trustees for 20 years, serving in significant roles as Chair of sub-committees, and as Vice Chairman of The Almshouse Association for the last six years.

The Almshouse Association is an essential component of the almshouse movement; providing support, information, and guidance on a broad range of general and specific issues, to over 1600 independent almshouse member charities that provide low-cost community housing for around 36,000 residents across the United Kingdom.

Willie is a highly regarded investment management professional with generations of family commitment to almshouses.

He is a driving force in his local community having recently been High Sheriff of The Royal County of Berkshire (2021/2022), Vice President of the Berkshire Community Foundation and a Deputy Lieutenant of the County.

He is a Freeman of the City of London and a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Pattenmakers, ensuring that the important links with City Livery Companies and The Almshouse Association are maintained.

Willie runs his own farming enterprise and has shown huge personal commitment to the almshouse movement, the family foundation, The Hartley Trust, which dates back to 1393. The Trust has been in the family for nearly 400 years and is the tenth-oldest almshouse foundation in the country.

Of his appointment as Chairman of The Almshouse Association Willie Hartley Russell said:“Almshouses are about people – the people that occupy them and the volunteer trustees who manage them. 

It is these people who provide the ‘community spirit’ that makes almshouse living so unique and enduring.

I am looking forward to becoming Chairman of The Almshouse Association. I want to build closer relationships with government and the housing sector to protect and enhance thisexemplary   form of community housing that is still so relevant today.

I hope, too, that I can encourage more philanthropic support for the longevity of the movement.”

On his appointment, Nick Phillips, CEO of The Almshouse Association, says:

“I am delighted.

Willie brings formidable experience to our leadership.

With his financial career in investment management in the City he brings sound business acumen, and with his long history of family commitment to almshouses, he has a depth of knowledge that can see the Association and the wider almshouse movement thrive and become robust for the next century.”