About

The Harry Crossley Foundation was already well established by the time Doris died in 1986. On her death the Doris Crossley Foundation was created, with the aim of doing similar philanthropic work, but allowing for the support of undergraduate students in their first or second year of study at both the University of Cape Town and Stellenbosch University, along with colleges such as the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT). SEA, LAMTA and TSIBA.

The students receiving funding from this smaller Foundation come largely from disadvantaged backgrounds and are first-generation tertiary students in their families. To assist with the hurdles they face, students are provided support through the funding offices to help them assimilate into university life and ensure that they can perform adequately to reach their graduation goals.

To date, The Doris Crossley Foundation has donated over R?? million to covering educational costs of undergraduate students.

History

Edith Doris Matthews was born in Lytham, Lancashire, on 28 May 1904. She spent her childhood with her sisters Clara and Winnie and their brother Alfred in a cottage on the Clifton estate, where their father was gamekeeper.

When Alfred left school at the age of 14, the family moved to a house in Lytham. Edith – later always called Doris, perhaps to avoid confusion with Edith, her sister-in-law – also left school at 14 to work at Booths, a high-class food store in St Anne’s-on-Sea. She went on to become a successful café supervisor and manager.

She met Harry Crossley in a pub in Ireland, where she was living and working at the time. Harry had bought a house in DunLaoghaire, Dublin, in 1947, and initially engaged Doris to be his housekeeper, but as a relationship developed between them they moved together between Ireland, Spain and a rented apartment in Hove, near Brighton.

Doris’s niece, Anne Holmes, visited them there and wrote: ‘Harry was very charming and showed me around Brighton. He told me that he played the stock market every day and that he had done very well with gold and diamond shares. He said he also enjoyed expressing his opinions and spent time writing letters to the editors of The Guardian and The Times newspapers.’

Harry’s entrepreneurial skill and adventurous nature drew him to new opportunities in South Africa. Doris declared she would only accompany him if they were married, so on 23 January 1950, just prior to setting sail for their new home, they were married at the Registry Office on Stephens Green, Dublin, recruiting two passers-by as witnesses.