It was set up in the wake of a series of family tragedies and has given millions of pounds to good causes across West Yorkshire.

But next year, the little-known Emmandjay Charitable Trust will be wound up after half a century of helping hundreds of ill, disabled and disadvantaged people.

As a way of signing off, members of the trust have given £3 million to housing charity MHA to build more than 50 homes for older people on the former Ilkley Middle School site.

Frederick and Elsie Moore, and their daughter and son-in-law, Sylvia and John Clegg, established the trust in 1962 as a “token of gratitude for the happiness given to them by their late daughter and granddaughter”.

Mr and Mrs Moore’s daughter Mary Darling was just 33 when she died during pregnancy and her widower, John, then died in a car crash. Their daughter Jane went to live with her aunt but was kicked in the stomach as she saddled a friend’s horse and died instantly.

The remaining family members decided to put an inheritance into the trust, with the Emmandjay name deriving from Mary and Jane, and said the trust would last for 50 years.

In 2007, Emmandjay House, a block of eight flats for retired people, opened in Bingley thanks to money given to the Bingley Flower Fund by the trust.

However, little is known about the trust and none of the trustees, including the main trustee Sylvia Clegg, wished to speak to the Telegraph & Argus.

  • Read the full story Thursday’s T&A