LONDON:

Printed by W. CLOWES and SONS, Stamford Street,
For Her Majesty's Stationery Office.

FIRST REPORT

OF

THE COMMISSIONERS

"For Inquiring into those Cases which were Investigated, and Reported upon, by the Charity Commissioners, but not Certified to the Attorney-General.”

Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET,
FOR HER MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE.

[ 3

FIRST REPORT.

TO THE QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.

WE, the Commissioners appointed by Your Majesty's Royal Commission, bearing date the 18th day of September 1849, to inquire into those cases which were investigated by and reported upon by the Charity Commissioners, but not certified to the Attorney-General, and to report what proceedings, if any, should be taken thereupon

Do humbly report as follows:

We have, in obedience to Your Majesty's commands, proceeded to inquire into the subject referred to us.

regulation.

Although our inquiries have been necessarily limited to a comparatively small Cases reported as portion of this extensive subject we have decided to report upon a certain number requiring immediate of selected cases, which appear to us to require immediate interference or regulation. These cases, with the information we have obtained respecting them, are contained in the Schedule annexed to this Report, and we recommend that they should be laid before Your Majesty's Attorney-General, in order that he may proceed to deal with them in such manner as he may judge to be expedient. The number of Charities on which reports were made by the late Commissioners is 28,840; of these, about 400 were certified to the Attorney-General, and about the same number have been, subsequently to the year 1838, the subject of proceed ings before the Court of Chancery at the instance of relators or petitioners. We have only a very partial and imperfect record of the cases coming under this last description, between 1819 and 1838, owing to the destruction by fire of the papers. The 28,840 Charities reported by the late Commissioners, if classified according Classification of to income as nearly as can be ascertained from the printed reports, will stand Charities according

thus:

Number of Charities reported by the late those which have been already the subject of proceed

Commissioners, and

ings before the

Court.

to Income.

Charities, the incomes of which do not amount to £5 per annum, 13,331

£

£

Of these Charities it appears that the aggregate income at the time of the Total Income of inquiry by the late Commissioners was 1,209,3951., and although in some of the Charities. smaller Charities the income may probably be lost, it has in other cases been so much increased as to render the present aggregate considerably greater than the

sum above stated.

inquiries.

We proceed to lay before Your Majesty some further results of our inquiries, Further results of and some suggestions which arise from a more general view of the whole matter referred to us.