Charity - 1849- 1899

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This page lists 22 cases, and was prepared on 27 October 2012.

Re: Shrewsbury Grammar School (1849) 1 Mac & G 324
1849	Charity	Casemap 1 Citers
	Trustees of the school had accumulated income in excess of what was required to achieve the objects of the charitable trust, and asked the court how to apply them. Having upheld the contention that what was described as Sir S. Romilly's Act conferred sufficient jurisdiction to deal with the matter, the Lord Chancellor continued: "...it is of constant occurrence that the court is asked to inquire whether an Act of Parliament shall be applied for. If it is in regard to such a matter as this court has no jurisdiction to alter, or which is already provided for by Act of Parliament, it is obvious it requires the authority of Parliament in such cases to enable the trustees to depart from that which is their prescribed duty, according to the rule existing."

Ashton -v- Langdale (1851) 4 De G & S 402
1851	Charity	Casemap 1 Citers
	Inference of charitable purposes.

In The Matter Of Nightingale's Charity [1853] EngR 368 (A); (1853) 10 Hare App 39
21 Mar 1853	Charity
	Link[s] omitted

Forbes -v- Forbes (1854) 18 Beav 552; (1854) Kay 341
1854	Charity	1 Citers
	General Forbes died. It became necessary to decide what was his domicile at the date of death. He had been born in Scotland, but then served for 35 years in India, before retirng to live in London. Held: The domicile in India was a domicile of choice, and it was easier to show a change of domicile of choice than for a domicile of origin. The court declined to make an order with respect to a case of a gift to build a bridge over the River Don in Scotland. This was in effect an issue of Scottish charity law, and the Scottish courts would have jurisdiction.

Attorney-General -v- Sturge (1854) 19 Beav 597
1854 Sir John Romilly MR	Charity, Wills and Probate	Casemap 1 Citers
	The testatrix had left funds to support a school in Genoa. Held: The courts have no authority to make a scheme where the trustees would not be within the jurisdiction of the English courts.

The Vestryman of The Parish of St Marylebone In Middlesex -v- The Zoological Society Of London [1854] EngR 566; (1854) 3 El & Bl 807; (1854) 118 ER 1343
31 May 1854	Charity, Rating
	The zoological Society was incorporated by Charter "for the advancement of Zoology and Animal Physiology, and the introduction of new and curious subjects of the animal kingdom." They occupied land on which were buildings appropriated as receptacles for housing animals and birds, and as a museum for stuffed specimens. Three acres, not so appropriated, were cultivated as a flower garden. Refreshment rooms on the premises were occupied for the purpose of supplying refreshment to visitors, by M, who paid to the Society a rent for this privilege. The public were admitted, to the grounds, either by paying money upon each admittance, or by ticketa given to them by the fellows. Once in the weeks for three months in tbe year, the Society procured the attendance of a musical band. Held: The Society was not exempt from rate, under stat. 6 & 7 Vict. c. 36, s. 1, the premises not being occupied exclusively for the purposes of science. The Society was supported in part by annual contributions from the fellows and subscribers. Each fellow was entitled to personal admission, with a specified number of companions on, every day, and could also give admission at oertain times by written orders and tickets, to which he was entitled: and fellows were also entitled to purchase tickets giving free admission to the bearer. Subscribers also were entitled to purchase annually an ivory ticket, admitting a named person of their family, with a companion,. Semble: that the annual contributions by the felloes were not voluntary contributions within the meaning of sect 1, inasmuch as the fellows and subscribers obtained a benefit not purely scientific, in consideration of the payments. [S. C, 2 €2. L. It. 766 ; 23 11. J. M, C. 139; 18 Ju
	Link[s] omitted

Spurgin -v- White [1860] EngR 1302; (1860) 2 Giff 473; (1860) 66 ER 198
21 Dec 1860	Charity
	Link[s] omitted

The Berkhamstead School Case (1865) LR 1 Eq.102
1865 Page-Wood V-C	Charity	Casemap 1 Citers
	The school was regulated inter alia by a statute of Edward VI. Held: The court approved a scheme for its further regulation which permitted the charging of fees for all pupils, notwithstanding that the statute provided that some boys should be educated entirely gratuitously. While the scheme so approved was contrary to the provisions of the founding statute the variation was justified because the original purposes of the statute had become impractical.

Re Duncan (1867) 2 LR Ch App 356
1867 CA Turner LJ and Lord Cairns LJ	Charity	Casemap 1 Citers
	The court was asked whether the consent of the Charity Commissioners was necessary to petition the Court to appoint a new trustee of a charity established in England to promote Christian education in Jamaica. Held: In the 1853 Act, "Charity" was defined as "every endowed foundation and institution taking or to take effect in England and Wales and coming within the meaning, purview and interpretation of the statute of 43 Eliz c.4, or as to which, or the administration of the revenues or property whereof, the Court of Chancery has or may exercise jurisdiction". The authority of the Charity Commissioners extended to charities which were founded and endowed in England or Wales, even though the revenues were applied to benefit those abroad. It was not necessary for the court to decide whether the Charity Commissioner's powers extended to charities founded and endowed abroad who applied their revenues in England and Wales. (Obiter) that it might well be said that the institution, even though located abroad, takes effect here if it applies its property here. Lord Cairns LJ: "... I see no reason to doubt that, as a general rule, where there is the application and expenditure of money in England under a charitable endowment, there also the jurisdiction of the Charity Commissioners attaches, to the extent, at all events, of that application and expenditure, even though the constitution of the charity, or the corpus of the property, should be abroad."
	Charitable Trusts Act 1853

In re Sir Robert Peel's School at Tamworth (1868) 3 Ch App 543
1868 CA	Charity	Casemap 1 Citers
	Income under a trust was, until exercise of a power of revocation, if valid, subject to a mandatory trust for expenditure on the maintenance of a school. Held: Unless and until the power of revocation was exercised, the trust was a valid charitable trust. Any revocation would not be retrospective, and pending revocation the income was to be devoted to exclusively charitable purposes. The judge had therefore, been wrong to conclude that the fact that the capital of the trust is held in trust for a non-charitable purpose (the "stakeholder function") deprived the Trust of charitable status quoad the income of the Trust.

National Society -v- School Board of London (1874) 18 Eq 608
1874	Land, Charity	Casemap 1 Citers
	The National Society raised large sums by subscription and made grants in favour of schools in which children were to be instructed (in addition to reading, writing and arithmetic) in holy scripture and in the liturgy and catechism of the established church. Former owners of land conveyed under the 1841 Act had only the remedy of complaint to the Educational Board.
	School Sites Act 1841

Attorney General -v- Webster (1875) LR 20 Eq 483
1875	Charity, Trusts	Casemap 1 Citers
	A trust expressed to be for the benefit of a fluctuating body of individuals, such as the inhabitants of a locality, can only take effect as a charitable trust, if it has effect at all.

Re Camden’s Charity [1881] 28 ChD 310
1881	Charity	Casemap 1 Citers

Goodman -v- Mayor of Saltash (1882) 7 App Cas 633
1882 HL	Charity, Land	Casemap 1 Citers
	A gift was made of a right to fish to the freemen of the Borough of Saltash. Held: The gift was as valid as a charitable gift as would be a gift to the inhabitants of the locality in general. The law may infer a lawful origin from long possession. A profit à prendre by prescription cannot be claimed by an undefined and fluctuating body of persons, not incorporated for the purpose of taking the grant.

Andrews -v- Barnes (1888) 39 Ch D 133
1888 Fry LJ	Costs, Charity	Casemap 1 Cites 1 Citers
	The parish vicar and his churchwardens brought an action to recover a small sum paid to the members of a local committee for charitable purposes, saying the gift had been made subject to a condition which it proved impossible to fulfil. Held: The plaintiffs failed. The action was unjustified because of the need not to spend funds in this way, and they were ordered to pay the defendants' costs. The court related the practice as to costs in Chancery.

Rendall -v- Blair (1890) 45 Ch D 139
1890 Bowen LJ	Litigation Practice, Charity	Casemap 1 Citers
	Where a statute requires leave to commence proceedings to be granted, a failure to obtain such consent does not automatically render the proceedings a nullity: "this section is not framed in the way in which sections are framed when it is intended that some preliminary steps should be taken before the action is maintainable at all" and "It directs what ought to be done. Unless the duty is complied with by the litigant the court must hold its hand. But it does not oblige the court to close the gates of mercy upon the applicant, but enables it to stay proceedings until that consent, which as a matter of duty ought to be obtained in the first instance, is obtained at last."
	Charitable Trusts Act 1853 17

Institution of Civil Engineers -v- Forrest [1890] 15 AC 334
1890 Lord Macnaghten	Charity	Casemap 1 Citers
	Lord MacNaughten considered how the purpose of an institution should be considered: "It cannot, I think, be doubted that the Institution has raised the standard of the profession, and that to a civil engineer it is of advantage and probably of pecuniary advantage to be a member. But is that result the purpose of the Society, or is it an incidental, though an important and perhaps a necessary, consequence of the way in which the Institution does its work in the pursuit of science?"

Income Tax Special Commissioners -v- Pemsel [1891] AC 531; [1891] UKHL 1
20 Jul 1891 HL Lord Macnaghten, Lord Watson, Lord Morris, Lord Herschell	Charity, Scotland, Income Tax	Casemap 1 Citers
	The House was asked whether, in a taxing statute applying to the whole of the United Kingdom and allowing for deductions from and allowances against the income of land vested in trustees for charitable purposes, the words "charitable purposes" should be understood according to their meaning in English law, or whether they should be given a meaning which was common to the law of England, Scotland and Ireland. Held: (majority) The deduction should be allowed. The House defined what is meant at law by a charity. Lord Macnaghten said: "'Charity' in its legal sense comprises four principal divisions: trusts for the relief of poverty; trusts for the advancement of education; trusts for the advancement of religion; and trusts for other purposes beneficial to the community, not falling under any of the preceding heads. The trusts last referred to are not the less charitable in the eye of the law, because incidentally they benefit the rich as well as the poor, as indeed, every charity that deserves the name must do either directly or indirectly." Lord MacNaghten contrasted the systems of administrative law in England and Scotland: "By expounding the Act by analogy, and if you will apply your usual penetration to this point, you will find that there is often no other possible way of making a consistent sensible construction upon statutes conceived in general words, which are to have their operation upon the respective laws of two countries, the rules and forms whereof are different. These general views will probably always be taken from the language or style of one of these countries more than from the other, and not correspond equally with the genius or terms of both laws. You must then, as in other sciences, reason by analogy, or leave at least one-half of the statute without effect." It was argued that, although the words "charity" and "charitable" had a definite legal meaning in England, they could not be applied in the same way in Scotland unless they had a definite legal meaning there too: "That was not Lord Hardwicke's view. He seems to have thought reflected light better than none." The words " charity " and " charitable " in the Income Tax Act, 1842 must be construed in their technical meaning according to English law. The House discussed also the interpretation odf statutes having effect both in England and Wales and in Scotland: "But in some cases certainly . . the statute proclaims its origin and speaks the language of the English lawyer, with some Scottish legal phrases thrown in rather casually. How are you to approach the construction of such statutes? We are not, I think, without a guide. It seems to me that there is much good sense in what Lord Hardwicke said in his well known letter to an eminent Scottish judge 'you must' he says 'as in other sciences reason by analogy' - that is, as I understand it, you must take the meaning of legal expressions from the law of the country to which they properly belong, and in any case arising in the sister country you must apply the statute in an analogous or corresponding sense so as to make the operation and effect of the statute the same in both countries. Thus you get what Lord Hardwicke calls 'consistent, sensible construction'". Lord Macnaghten discussed the development of the law of charity, saying of the 1601 Statute: "The object of that statute was merely to provide new machinery for the reformation of abuses in regard to charities. But by a singular construction it was held to authorize certain gifts to charity which otherwise would have been void. And it contained in the preamble a list of charities so varied and comprehensive that it became the practice of the Court to refer to it as a sort of index or chart. At the same time it has never been forgotten that the "objects there enumerated," as Lord Chancellor Cranworth observes, "are not to be taken as the only objects of charity but are given as instances"." and "I have dwelt for a moment on this point, because it seems to me that there is a disposition to treat the technical meaning of the term "charity" rather as the idiom of a particular Court than as the language of the law of England. And yet of all words in the English language bearing a popular as well as a legal signification I am not sure that there is one which more unmistakeably has a technical meaning in the strictest sense of the term, that is a meaning clear and distinct, peculiar to the law as understood and administered in this country, and not depending upon or coterminous with the popular or vulgar use of the word."
	Statute of Charitable Uses 1601
	Link[s] omitted

In re Clergy Orphan Corporation [1894] 3 Ch 145
1894 CA	Charity, Land	Casemap 1 Citers
	The court considerd the extent of the prohibition on restrictions on the sale of land by a charity to land forming part of the endowment of the charity.

Re Nottage [1895] 2 Ch 649
1895	Charity	Casemap 1 Citers
	The law does not regard the promotion of any particular sport, for its own sake, as charitable.

In re Macduff; Macduff -v- Macduff (1896) 2 Ch 451
1896 CA Lindley LJ	Charity	Casemap 1 Cites 1 Citers
	Lindley LJ qualified the judgment of Lord Macnaghten in Pemsel: "Now Sir Samuel Romilly did not mean, and I am certain Lord Macnaghten did not mean, to say that every object of public general utility must necessarily be a charity. Some may be, and some may not be." Applications of monies for public philanthropic or benevolent purposes would be for the public good but would not necessarily be legally charitable.

Attorney-General -v- Governors of Christ's Hospital [1896] 1 Ch 879
1896 Chitty J	Charity	Casemap 1 Citers
	The Attorney-General proposed a scheme to except certain endowments from the 1869 Act. They would be made over to another governing body in augmentation of the endowments held by them subject to the provisions of that Act. Held: The court declined: "I hold that it is beyond the jurisdiction of the Court to sanction the Attorney-General's scheme in the face of the opposition of the existing governing body. Their title is founded on Royal Charter, and is established by Act of Parliament. To whatever lengths the Court may have gone, it has never assumed legislative authority: it has never by a stroke of the pen at one and the same time revoked a Royal Charter and repealed an Act of Parliament. It has never ousted from its rights of administering the charitable trusts of such a body as the present governors against their will, and that, too, in a case where no breach of trust is charged." To establish such a scheme as that submitted by the Attorney-General nothing less than an Act of Parliament would suffice.
	Endowed Schools Act 1869