A widow has left hundreds of thousands of pounds to charity.

Friends say Margaret Pearson, 90, was "a real lady" who was sweet and generous.

Mrs Pearson, of Beach Crescent, Littlehampton, left an estate worth £1,084,458, with shares going to six charities: The Order of St John of Jerusalem; the British Red Cross Society; The Cancer Research Campaign; Barnardo's; The Weizmann Institute Foundation; and the Impact Foundation.

She also left legacies to friends and family and £15,000 to St Mary's Church, Littlehampton, where she attended regularly.

The Haywards Heath-based Impact Foundation was staggered at news of its £100,000 bequest.

Staff at the foundation's Western Road headquarters, said they were delighted and extremely grateful for their unexpected windfall.

The charity uses modern technology to alleviate disability in developing countries, with projects including converting a train into a hospital which travels throughout India and a riverboat hospital in Bangladesh.

In the UK the charity aims to find imaginative ways to cut NHS waiting lists for cataract surgery.

Chief executive Claire Hicks said: "Mrs Pearson was a supporter of our work and worked as a volunteer in the Eighties.

"Her bequest will make an enormous difference to us as a small charity.

"In our work overseas, every £25 represents the cost of restoring someone's sight.

"She was a very thoughtful and generous person."

Despite her age and failing health, Mrs Pearson continued to indulge her love of travel until shortly before her death in hospital in March.

Her travelling companion and close friend Peggy Faulkner said although Mrs Pearson spent her later years in Littlehampton, at heart she was always a Londoner.

Mrs Faulkner said: "She loved travelling and we went to many places including China, Canada and, although she wasn't very well, Tunisia last Christmas.

"For her 90th birthday we went on a cruise on the Aurora because she wanted to celebrate on board.

"She was a very determined lady and I think she thought she would go on forever.

"She wasn't always well off - she inherited the family home some years ago - but she was always the first to give to charity.

"Both our husbands died in 1989 and eventually we both moved into flats at Beach Crescent.

"We were very close and her death really has left quite a void."

Mrs Pearson, who had no children or surviving immediate family, went to boarding school then secretarial college and was a commandant in the Red Cross during the war. Her husband, Nicholas, worked for John Lewis.

Mrs Faulkner said: "She never had a bad word to say about anybody, she was a real lady. She just lived a happy life."