AOSA CENTENARY HISTORY 1841 - 1941
page thirty-two
Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Appendix
‘Mr. Langley promised to have a new order drafted to carry out this suggestion and we promised to bring such order before the Committee….
‘On the evening of the same day, I had the opportunity of seeing Henry Tuke Mennell … and he informed me:
| ‘1st: | That Mr. Langley’s interpretation of the Law was entirely incorrect. |
| ‘2nd: | That a draft order such as that proposed by him would virtually place the control of the School property entirely in the hands of the Commissioners. |
| ‘3rd: | That such control hampered Saffron Walden School and prevented it from carrying on the arrangements consequent upon its removal from Croydon. |
| ‘4th: | That we should do well to confer with Richard Smith who had managed their legal business for them and enabled them successfully to resist the attempts of the Commissioners to control the proceedings of the committee. |
I accordingly saw Richard Smith who gave me much interesting information respecting the manner in which Saffron Walden School …. had been able to act independently of the Charity Commissioners. He also referred me to the “Conveyancing and Law of Property Act 1881 (44 and 45 Vict. C.4.1) Sec. 31” which enables Trustees of any Charity to appoint new Trustees even when their Trust Deed contains no clause empowering them to do so….
‘Since my return home I have asked the School solicitor to get the Trust Deed from the Charity Commissioners and to confer on the whole subject with Richard Smith. I have also asked him to inform the Charity Commissioners that we withdraw our application and remain content (at all events for the present) with existing powers…’
So far excellent: one school had already eluded the grasp of the Charity Commissioners and had thus shown the way for the other. So once more the School advisers, and Richard Smith, laid a case for counsel’s opinion. Such opinion was obtained from J. B. Braithwaite who advised that the original foundation deed of 23rd November 1841 contained ample provision for the appointment of new trustees. The Committee forthwith would have materially decided to withdraw the application pending before the Charity Commissioners.
The two solicitors therefore drafted a letter, approved by Sir Joseph Pease, which they sent to the Commissioners stating that they withdrew the application for the amendment of the Trust Deed. But the Commissioners were not thus easily to be thwarted. A special meeting of the school Committee held in November 1883 heard the bad tidings that the Commissioners had replied objecting to and declining to accept such withdrawal. One stroke followed another. A third counsel, this time E. MacNaghton, gave a third opinion. Counsel was ‘decidedly of opinion that the application can not now be withdrawn’ The Committee, abandoning all hope once they had entered those portals, ‘concluded to adopt the draft order forwarded by the Commissioners’ and to apply for any concession which they might secure in the interests of the school.
By the end of 1884 the Charity Commissioners were pressing for the conclusion of the scheme for the appointment of an official trustee. The reason for delay was the `fear of the committee that the sales and other arrangements affecting the land made by them, especially those made since their first application to the Charity Commissioners, should not be duly confirmed.’ As these arrangements were made in good faith, questions as to their legality might have placed the Committee in a very awkward position. Richard Smith saw the Commissioners and reported that they would proceed with the order for the appointment of new trustees and added, ‘they state that it is quite clear they have no power to make an order sanctioning past sales, and this being so I apprehend the most expedient course is to say no more about them and to let the purchasers rely upon acquiring a possession title by lapse of time.’ Silence provoked no reactions and proved to be wisdom.
The wheels of the law turned slowly. By 1889
the Order of the Charity Commissioners had come from London ; fifty
copies were printed for circulation among the members of the Committee,
and at last in May 1890, the minutes recorded that an official letter
had been received stating that the transfer of the school to the Charity
Commission was legally complete ‘and appointing the committee
of the said School who are nominated year by year at the General Meeting
as Trustees for the time being’ After eleven years of labour
the mountain had produced its mouse and arrangements remained very
much as they had always been.
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