Alderman William Smith, the first Mayor and a great benefactor of Brighouse created The Smith Foundation Trust on the 5th September 1916. He bought the Boothroyd Estate for the Trust to set up an orphanage for girls. On his death in 1922 he left the bulk of the estate to the Trust - money that would have gone to his cousin's adopted son William Henry Smith, who was sadly killed in the 1914-18 war.
The orphanage opened in July 1920 for girls but soon admitted boys and changed its name to Smith's Homes. The Homes continued for nearly 40 years. During the 1939-45 war they admitted girls from the Sailor's Orphan Home in Hull.
Post war, the Trustees changed the name of the Trust to The Smith Homes. This came about following an approach by the Ministry of Education after the enactment of the 1948 Children’s Act. The revised scheme allowed the continuance of the Homes for a limited time but added authority for the Trustees to make grants to special schools and to establish special schools of their own.
Grants were made to Breckenborough and Chaigley School, additionally Holly Bank House was purchased by the Trust to convert into a Special School for Physically disabled children. This School was opened in 1953 and was run by the Trust until 1998 when it was handed over to the newly formed Holly Bank Trust.
By the end of 1959, the last of the children left the Homes and by then plans were in hand to open a further residential special school in the buildings. The William Henry Smith School opened in September 1961 for 48 boys. In December of the following year, the Charity Commission made a scheme that changed the name of the Trust to The Smith Foundation.
Over the next 30 years the school developed its education and social care provision becoming recognised as a specialist school for boys experiencing social, emotional and mental health difficulties, becoming very much a part of the national spectrum of special needs provision. During this period the Trustees with the help of the DfES provided a new science building, new kitchen and then portable classrooms and a Gymnasium. In the early 1990’s it became clear that the residential accommodation needed to be replaced and the Trustees provided two new houses using some of their capital and money raised from Trusts.
In 1994 the Trustees commissioned a feasibility study that identified a plan to maximise the use of existing buildings through conversion and refurbishment to create new teaching facilities to allow the school to meet the challenges of the new millennium.
Since that time each summer there has been building work to fulfil the plan as money has allowed. This has seen the whole site transformed with derelict buildings becoming teaching and communal facilities, single en-suite bedrooms for all the boys and recreation improvements in the houses on the Care side of the school. On the Education side all the original temporary classrooms have been rebuilt to provide permanent accommodation; an IT suite, Assembly Hall, Design and Technology Rooms, Art Room, Music Room, Sports Hall, Life Skills Kitchen and more recently a new therapy centre has been provided. There has also been onsite expansion in recent years including the addition of a new building for Commissioned Services in 2019 and in 2020, which will be used as a learning space for new students from September 2023.
The Foundation has also purchased a former B&B which has been developed and from late 2023 is now 52-week children home, known as Boothroyd House.
In 2021 the Trustees purchased a further property offsite which was a former day nursery in Elland which will be operating as a College from September 2023. In late 2023, additional buildings adjacent to College have been acquired to support the growth of the college, works on this building are expected to be completed by Spring 2024.
