Peter Minet Trust is an independent charitable trust set up by Peter Minet in 1969 from the proceeds of the sale of property owned by Peter in Camberwell and Lambeth. In the 1940s Peter had struck up a lasting friendship with Susan Minet, a distant cousin. Peter became Susan’s sole heir and received much of her property portfolio before her death in 1976.
We know that Susan Minet’s father, William Minet, had property in Lambeth and Hayes and, in 1890, donated 14 acres that became Myatt's Fields Park and paid for the construction of the Minet Library in Knatchbull Road, SE5. Susan and Peter trace their family back to Isaac Minet, one of four brothers who rowed across the Channel in England from Calais in 1685 to escape religious persecution as Huguenots, French Protestants. Peter died on 17 December, 1988.
Peter Minet Trust is a charitable trust with an independent Board of Trustees and Director, with no links to the Minet family.
Peter Minet also set up The Idlewild Trust in 1974, a separate arts and conservation trust with its own Director and Board of Trustees.
Over the next three years, we are committed to understanding more about the origins of our endowment.