★ Keep up to date with the latest news - subscribe to the Transcribe Bentham newsletter; Find a new page to transcribe in our list of Untranscribed Manuscripts
TAKEN BEFORE FINANCE COMMITTEE: 1828 5
John W. Warren,
Esq.
18 March,
1828.
In cases where abuses have been discovered, what course have the commis-
sioners taken to put an end to those abuses?—The commissioners have in fact no
remedial powers; they are only to inquire and report; but they have, where it
appeared that the abuse could be remedied in that way, endeavoured to do so by
representation to the parties, and pointing out to them in what manner their duty
ought to be performed, Rectified abuses no reported and in very numerous cases their representations have been
attended to, the misconduct has been corrected; that is a good resulting from the
labours of the commissioners which does not always appear from their Reports; it
has been silently performed, and will so have escaped public notice ; where the
abuse has been such as it was out of their power to correct, they have, under the
directions of the Act, submitted those cases to the attorney-general, that he might
decide whether they should be brought before the Court of Chancery in the shape
of an information. Attorney-General
decides whether to
prosecute
Has it occurred to you and the other commissioners that any board of controlling
authority could be established locally in each county, with a view of preventing the
abuses in the future occurring?—No idea of that kind has been under consideration;
among the commissioners it has been very much under consideration with them
what methods could be adopted for preventing some of the mischiefs that have
arisen in the management of the charities, such as some mode of appointing trus-
tees where all the former trustees are dead, or there is likely to be such a failure;
For trust deeds
no registration.
from such failures in past times we find many charities lost, or in a state of obscu-
rity, which we have with difficulty developed: we have also considered what means
there might be of depositing documents respecting charities in some safe place,
where they might not be liable to destruction or loss, which they are frequently by
remaining in private ands; but though we have thought of it much, we have
never been able to come to any satisfactory opinion as to the best way of attaining
either of those points
Power of appeal
proposed by com-
mittee.
Will you take the trouble of consulting, at the first meeting of the commissioners,
whether any suggestions might be offered for those purposes, the guarding of the
documents, and an immediate check, by a power of appeal given to local
authority?—I will certainly do that.
Previous notice for
examinee's attend-
ance none.
Have you been in the habit of preparing the matter for your visits to different
counties, by sending circulars of the heads of inquiry which you should wish to
enter into, to any of the resident gentlemen or clergy?—No, not exactly that; the
course we pursue before we enter any county is, to write circulars to the clergyman
of each parish, requesting a return of the charities in those parishes, and the names
of the trustees.
Do you not think it would be practicable to make your previous inquiries
a little more full, so as to shorten your inquiry at the place?—I do not see how
we can shorten the inquiry more than we do, by requiring them to bring all their
deeds and all their documents which can apply to the inquiry; we should not be
content to have a statement made out by the parties, we should still require to see
the documents.
State of progress
Have you a statement of the counties in progress?—I have; the counties are
Berks, Essex, Gloucester, Hereford, Kent, Lancaster, London, Middlesex,
Northampton, Nottingham, Salop, Suffolk, Sussex, Warwick, Worcester, Hert-
ford; three of the counties not finished, Berks, Kent and Sussex, were examined
under the first commission, which related only to charities for education; all the
charities for education in those three counties have been examined, but no other;
they cannot, perhaps, be strictly considered in progress, because we have put them
aside for the present, and have directed our attention to other counties, which, for
their general charities, appeared to require it; some of the counties mentioned
here as not finished will be soon finished, perhaps in the course of this spring;
others are about half finished; there are two or three in which only some partial
inquiries have been made; those can hardly properly be considered as actually in
progress, still they fall under the description of counties begun, but not finished;
the greater number of those are in a state of considerable forwardness.
Have you reason to suppose that in any of those counties where, about ten
years ago, you made the beginning of your inquiries, any fresh abuses have subse-
quently crept in?—We have no knowledge of any such case, nor any reason to
form an opinion, one way or the other, upon the subject.
From the nature of the case, have you left the districts where your inquiries have
been completed in a state to make it improbable that any subsequent abuse should
creep in?—We have, so far as this, that we have corrected every abuse that we
225 B
|
Identifier: | JB/004/068/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 4.
|
|||
|---|---|---|---|
|
1829-06-24 |
|||
|
004 |
lord brougham displayed |
||
|
068 |
|||
|
001 |
charities inquiry / evidence / taken before the finance committee, and the return laid before the committee in 1828, which were presented to the house upon the 24th day of june 1829 |
||
|
printed material |
8 |
||
|
recto |
(2-6) |
||
|
1989 |
|||