 He also dedicated more effort to philanthropy; for example, he gave land for a library and endowed the Nettlefold Hall at West Norwood.He devoted much of his energy to the Unitarian Church, was president of the Sunday School Association and later the British and Foreign Unitarian Association, and was one of the main supporters behind the construction of the 1886 Essex Hall, the headquarters building for the denomination.His daughter Edith was better known as Mrs Sydney Martineau, from 1929 the lay president of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, the successor to the organisations her father presided over.