C1I A KIT IK* 



113 



, mocure the llece-,>,ir\ Ul'jtlilV W;i> in 17S(i, when 



Under Mr (Jilltert's Act (26 (Jeo. III. chap. M) in- 



.lion had \> i obtained on oath from the 



hial clergy, churchwardens, and overseers; but 

 tin -e received no direct authority from the Charity 

 Trusties to make sucli inquiry, and their know- 

 \\ as therefore found to be unreliable and 

 Inadequate. According to the returns then made 

 i< ] Mil lament, the endowed charities amounted to 



7K>, 19s. 3d. a year a sum, as was after- 

 \\ard> -dinwn, greatly below their actual value. In 

 IM'J Mr Lockhart, who was strenuously opposed 

 by the city companies, succeeded in passing an 



'_' ( leo. III. chap. 102) which required that par- 

 ticulars of the income, capital, object, and trustees 

 of every existing charity, together with the names 

 of i he persons holding the deed of endowment, 

 should be registered with the clerk of the peace for 

 the county within six months of the passing of the 



and a similar provision was made for all 

 future charities. A copy of each registration was 

 aUo to be enrolled in Chancery. Four years later 

 commenced the memorable investigations with 

 which the name of Lord Brougham is so closely 

 connected. In 1816 he moved for the appointment 

 of a Committee of the House of Commons on 

 the subject, and as a result of its deliberations 

 tin- Committee recommended that an inquiry 

 into the condition of the endowed charities should 

 be undertaken. The first commission for this 

 purpose was appointed by the crown, under an 

 Act of 1818, and further commissions of inquiry 

 were issued and prosecuted under that and sub- 

 sen uent acts until 1837. In the words of Lord 

 .John Russell, these successive inquiries 'destroyed 

 many Hagrant abuses, detected the perversion of a 

 larue amount of charitable funds, and led the way 

 t" those further inquiries and those remedial 

 measures of which we have seen the commence- 

 ment and the progress, but of which the consumma- 

 tion is yet to come.' As showing the magnitude 

 and extent of these investigations, it may be men- 

 tioned that the printed reports occupy no fewer 

 than 38 folio volumes, consisting of some 25,000 

 jages, describe 28,880 charities with an aggregate 

 income of 1,209,395, and were compiled at a cost 

 of upwards of half a million of money. The result 

 of the wide attention thus drawn to the subject 

 was that in 1853, after much parliamentary and 

 private agitation, the great Charitable Trusts Act, 

 for the public supervision of public endowments, 

 was passed. The powers placed in the hands of the 

 commissioners and inspectors appointed under the 

 act, however, were at first exceedingly limited. 

 Beyond a veto on suits by any one but the Attorney- 

 general, the commissioners had only rights of in- 

 quiry, of advice, and of rendering assistance in a 

 few cases where the trustees themselves might 

 desire such aid. The act enabled the Lord Chan- 

 cellor to appoint two persons to be, jointly with the 

 secretary for the time being, ' the official trustees 

 of charitable funds ; ' and those officers were con- 

 Btituted in 1854. In 1855 another act empowered 

 the lioard to apportion parish charities under 30 a 

 year; but in regard to the remodelling of these 

 i'utions, or in any way making new schemes 

 tor their extended usefulness, its operations were 

 si ill subordinate, not only to Chancery, but to the 

 county courts. A further act, passed in 1860, for 

 the first time gave the commissioners judicial power 

 over charities of 50 a year, and like power, with 

 the consent of the trustees, over larger charities ; 

 but being judicial, the authority of the com- 

 missioners can only be called into operation at the 

 s.i it of persons interested in each case. The powers 

 formerly exercised by the Court of Chancery still 

 exist in the High Court of Justice, but are very 

 rarely called into execution. Should trustees prove 

 112 



, or in other way* refuse tit apply for 

 new schemes in relation to their inntitutiorm, de- 

 \eloping combative tendencies with which the 

 commissioners have a difficulty in dealing, then 

 the aid of the High Court of Justice u in 

 \oked. Otherwise the whole administration of 

 charitable endowments, under such conditions an 

 above mentioned, lies in the hands of the Charity 

 Commissioners. Under the jurisdiction t hu- given 

 various improved schemes have been established, 

 and trustees numbering upwards of 400 annually 

 appointed. By the Act 37 and 38 Viet. chap. 87, the 

 powers previously exercised by the Endowed Sch*K)ls 

 Commissioners were transferred to the Charity 

 Commissioners for a period of five years, and the 

 two bodies have since been amalgamated. The 

 commissioners have also an important power under 

 the Municipal Corporations Act, 1883, of framing 

 schemes for the application of the property of the 

 corporations dissolved under that act. Since the 

 year 1854 the amount of stock transferred to the 

 official trustees of charitable funds has amounted 

 to 16,139,017 (of which sum 674,212 was handed 

 over in 1887), and 2,853,815 has been retransf erred, 

 leaving the total sum held by the trustees at the 

 end of 1886, 13,285,202, divided into 14,729 separate 

 accounts. 



THE CHARITY ORGANISATION SOCIETY, founded 

 in 1869, took its rise in a sense of the evil of tem- 

 porary relief, which manifestly tends to lower the 

 self-dependence of the recipient and to encourage 

 pauperism. Previous to the advent of the society, 

 many attempts had been made to cope successfully 

 with the dangers that attend the bestowal of 

 thoughtless charity. Amongst others, Edward 

 Dennison and Octavia Hill had been especially 

 noticeable for their efforts to raise the condition, 

 both morally and physically, of the struggling poor, 

 and for some time district visiting committees and 

 several societies for the relief of distress through 

 the agency of unpaid almoners had been at work. 

 Attention, too, had been powerfully directed to the 

 method of poor-law administration carried on at 

 Elberfeld and other continental towns. It was felt 

 that some scheme for uniting the charities of Lon- 

 don in friendly business sympathy, so as to utilise 

 their efforts more effectively and prevent imposition, 

 was needed. This impression gaining ground may 

 be said to have originated the Charity Organisation 

 Society. The object of the society, as stated in its 

 report, is the improvement of the condition of the 

 poor ( 1 ) by bringing about co-operation between 

 the charities and the poor-law, and amongst the 

 charities; (2) by securing due investigation and 

 fitting action in all cases ; and ( 3 ) by repressing 

 mendicity. At least one representative committee 

 is formed in each of the poor-law divisions of the 

 metropolis, and the society itself may be said to 

 consist of a federation of those committees, at 

 present numbering forty. Each committee apjMunte 

 one or more charity agents to act under its institu- 

 tions, and an important part of their duties is to 

 collect particulars as to the actions of the charitie> 

 of the district and the relief given by them ; to 

 receive applications from persons referred to the 

 office, ana to investigate their claims ; and to keep 

 up communication with the relieving-officers of tin- 

 guardians. That there is great need for organisa- 

 tion in the matter of charitable relief is amply 

 evidenced by the fact that the society computes 

 that in London alone from four to seven millions 

 sterling are annually dissipated in indiscriminate 

 almsgiving, thus not only encouraging systematic 

 mendicants and impostors, but recklessly wasting 

 money which, if directed into the right channel, 

 would go far to relieve the poverty and distress 

 that exist. 



The number of affiliated or corresponding institu- 



