Hampden-Sydney College, a private men's college in Hampden-Sydney, Virginia, has announced a $12 million gift from the estate of alumnus M. Blair Dickinson, Jr. ('37) and his wife, Sarah "Lucile" Lawton Dickinson.

The bequest from Dickinson, who died in 1984, and his widow, who died in 2019, is the second largest gift in the college's 246-year history — behind a $30 million gift from the Pauley Family Foundation in 2019. The son of a Hampden-Sydney alumnus, M. Blair Dickinson, Sr. (1892), Dickinson served as a naval officer during World War II and spent his entire career as an educator, starting as a high school principal in Fauquier County and teaching, with his wife, a former sergeant in the women's division of the U.S. Marine Corps aviation corps, at American schools in Japan, Germany, and Italy.

"Lucile Dickinson was long admired and respected by the Hampden-Sydney community, and we are incredibly moved by this remarkable act of generosity," said vice president for college advancement Heather Krajewski. "In celebration of this historic gift, the college will make sure the Dickinsons' lifelong devotion to education will have an indelible impact on our students, faculty, and campus. An investment of this magnitude helps us enhance Hampden-Sydney's reputation as one of the finest small liberal-arts colleges in the nation by supporting the people and programs that are the cornerstone of our rich and distinctive experience.""