Charity in UK Law

In such cases the relief granted often takes the form of an Order approving a scheme for the administration of the charity which has been laid before the Court, but this is not the only way in which the Court can exercise jurisdiction in respect of a charity or over charity trustees.

My Lords, there are, I think, two propositions which must ever be borne in mind in any case in which the question is whether a trust is charitable. The first is that it is still the general law that a trust is not charitable and entitled to the privileges which charity confers, unless it is within the spirit and intendment of the preamble to the Statute of Elizabeth, ( 43 Eliz. c. 4), which is expressly preserved by S. 13(2) of the Mortmain and Charitable Uses Act, 1888.

The sum, in my opinion, is in no different position from a sum (having the requisite quality of recurrence) paid without conditions or counter stipulations out of taxed income under a covenant by a private individual to any charitable body. The Crown would neither admit nor deny that such a payment would be an annual payment to the charity within the meaning of Case III, or that the party paying it would be entitled to retain the tax, or that the charity would be entitled to recover it.

"Charity", says Lord Macnaghten at p. 583, "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." I cannot, however, find that such a contention has been put forward.

In the first two of these cases it seems to me that it was assumed, rather than decided, that a corporate charity was in the position of a trustee of its funds. Re Finder 's Will Trusts turned upon a question of whether or not a bequest to a charitable corporation, which ceased exist in the testatrix's lifetime, demonstrated a general charitable intention capable of permitting a cy-pres application.

In order to come within the Act the grant has to be for one or more of the three purposes mentioned in section 2 i.e. for the education of poor persons, or for the residence of a schoolmaster or schoolmistress, or otherwise for the purposes of the education of such poor persons in religious and useful knowledge.

As the argument before us proceeded, it became increasingly evident that there are insuperable difficulties in attempting a comprehensive definition. We accept that there may be cases where an actual or potential beneficiary under a nationwide charity will qualify as a person interested in that charity. But we do not accept that an actual or potential beneficiary will always qualify.