The Trustees of Bristol Charities

1. Introduction

Bristol Charity Trustees was formed as a result of the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act. As described below, the Lord Chancellor was obliged to appoint the first Trustees. Those Trustees assumed responsibility for the administration of the charities that had formerly been managed by the Corporation of Bristol. The oldest charity administered by the Trustees was Trinity Hospital (Barstaple almshouse), whose foundation can be traced to 1395.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century the organisation became known as “Bristol Municipal Charities.”

“The Trustees of Bristol Municipal Charities” was incorporated under the terms of the 1963 Charities Act, on 3 August 1993.

In April 2002 the incorporated body became known as “the Trustees of Bristol Charities.”

Each of the three endowed schools, described below, is a registered charity in its own right. Up to 1875 the Trustees administered the schools directly. Separate governing bodies were established at that time, although the governing body consisted of all the Trustees, plus six nominated individuals.

The Trustees remained the Trustees of the endowed funds.

Selection of Trustees

The 1993 Certificate of Incorporation refers to the fact that the “number of Trustees and the mode of appointing new Trustees shall be prescribed by the document for the time being governing the Charities.”

Since 1973 the appointment of Trustees has been by Deeds of Appointment. The first such deed is dated 23 January 1973. Prior to that date appointments were made under section 18 of the Charities Act 1960.

The Deed of Appointment appoints Trustees under the provisions of the 1925 Trustee Act. The selection and appointment of Trustees is at the discretion of Trustees.

The following is an extract from the Standing Orders:

2. The role of the Corporation of Bristol prior to 1835

In order to assure the perpetuity of the endowed charities, the trustees had to be a permanent body, typically a parish vestry, a town corporation or a trade guild. Historically the municipal corporations do not appear, initially, to have been prominent as the administrators of endowed charity but in Bristol, the Corporation is stated to have received land as early as 1292, for the creation of an almshouse (Burton’s almshouse).

In the fifteenth century the Corporation assumed the administration of the Trinity Hospital almshouse (see below), and the endowments and control of the almshouse and chapel of the Three Kings of Cologne, founded by John Foster (see below), was transferred to the Corporation, by his executor, in 1506.

Over the centuries the Corporation, or in some cases the Mayor and aldermen, had been designated as trustees of numerous charities, their endowments producing an annual income of £13,000. Many charities involved nothing more than the disbursement of money to deserving citizens; others, principally the schools and the almshouses, were functioning institutions.

The entangling of endowed charity with local electoral politics was always likely. This led to accusations, particularly by failed candidates, that the opposing party had bribed electors with the benefits of the Corporation charities. This became a recurrent feature of Bristol’s elections. The use of charity as a political weapon had a long history and can be traced back to 1673. A century later, in 1775, a booklet entitled, “An account of the hospitals, almshouses and public schools in Bristol,” made barely concealed criticism at the Corporation’s management of the charities.

3. The Corporation’s charities

The charities under the administration of the Corporation, that were eventually transferred to the Trustees of Bristol Charities were as follows:

The Corporation and the charity accounts were intertwined, and the latter were never published. As all Corporation proceedings were transacted in private, and under an oath of secrecy, nothing was known of the financial position surrounding the charities until the Charity Commissioners examined the accounts in 1821.

4. Reform

4.1 1831 Reform Bill

Throughout the period of agitation surrounding the Reform Bill it had been understood that one of the first objectives of a reorganised House of Commons would be to reconstitute the municipal corporations. For more than a century they had been the subject of wide spread complaint. This was certainly the case in Bristol.

Although the causes of the Bristol Riots in October 1831 are unclear, it was apparent that the fate of the Corporation was one of the real issue of the time, and not the House of Lords’ rejection of the Reform Bill. The unprecedented failure of the law-abiding middle-classes to police the City during the Riots was an indication of their rejection of a form of City government from which they had become alienated. The immediate effect of the Riots was to completely discredit the Corporation.

4.2 1833 Royal Commission

Parliamentary reform had lent an added urgency to the cause of municipal reform. A Royal Commission was established. Its task was “to inquire into the existing state of the Municipal Corporations in England and Wales, and to collect information respecting the defects in their constitution.”

The commissioners allotted to Bristol, E.J. Gambier and J.E. Drinkwater, opened their formal proceedings at the Council House (a shrewd move by the Corporation as the Quarter Sessions, and other interruptions, allowed only 15 days of hearings) on 7 October.

The complaints against the Corporation were laid before the commissioners by prominent members of the Liberal Party, including Harman Visger (future Trustee) and Thomas Manchee (former editor of the Bristol Mercury and first Secretary to the Trustees.)

In the case of Bristol Corporation it was alleged that it was constituted on the “closest principles” of self-election and that the members were irresponsible in administering the large public revenues entrusted to them.

With regard to the charity funds, it was stated that large sums of money were distributed under the recommendation of the parish church wardens (themselves chosen by self-elected vestries) who acted as canvassers and local managers at election time, for the benefit of the Corporation’s majority party (Conservative). Much dissatisfaction was expressed at the management of Bristol Grammar School and Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital.

The report of the Municipal Corporations’ Commission, occupying five bulky volumes, was laid before Parliament. Even before its production, the irresistible proof of corruption, extravagance and inefficiency had become public knowledge, and had extorted a statement from Sir Robert Peel, Prime Minister and leader of the Tory party, that it would be impossible to resist the reform of municipal affairs

In the case of Bristol, the commissioners found no improper appropriation of public funds but the Corporation “could not be acquitted of mismanagement and profusion.” In fact the commissioners’ report on Bristol did not mention the administration of the charities at all. This can be contrasted with the report on Coventry, where half the contents dealt with charity infractions.

However the report observed that the Corporation of Bristol “offered a very unfavourable specimen of the results of self-election and irresponsibility.” The repeated theme was the declining port trade and the Corporation’s failure to try and arrest that decline.

The creation of the Royal Commission, by a Whig administration, has been described as a blatantly political act, intended to eliminate the unreformed corporations. However, the new Conservative government accepted the report’s irresistible proof of corruption, extravagance and inefficiency and decided that it would be impossible to resist municipal reform.

4.3 Municipal Corporations Act 1835 (5 & 6 William IV)

The Municipal Corporations Bill was introduced on 5 June 1835. The legislation applied to all 183 corporations, which had been investigated.

Section 71, stated that:

“That in every borough in which the body corporate, or any one or more of the members of such body corporate, in his or their corporate capacity, now stands or stand solely, or together with any person or persons elected solely by such body corporate, or solely by any particular number, class, or description of members of such body corporate seized or possessed for any estate or interest whatsoever of any hereditaments or any sums of money, chattels, securities for money, or any other personal estate whatsoever, in whole or in part in trust or for the benefit of any charitable uses or trusts whatsoever, all the estate, right, interest, and title, and all the powers of such body corporate, or of such member or members of such body corporate, in respect of the said uses and trusts, shall continue in the persons who at the time of the passing of this Act are such trustees as aforesaid, notwithstanding that they may have ceased to hold any office by virtue of which before the passing of this Act they were such trustees, until the 1st of August 1836, or until Parliament shall otherwise order, and shall immediately thereupon utterly cease and determine: Provided always, that if any vacancy shall be occasioned among the charitable trustees for any borough before the said 1st of August, it shall be lawful for the Lord High Chancellor or Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal for the time being, upon petition, in a summary way, to appoint another trustee to supply such vacancy; and every person so appointed a trustee as last aforesaid shall be a trustee until the time at which the person in the room of whom he was chosen would regularly have ceased to be a trustee, and he shall then cease to be trustee; Provided also, that if Parliament shall not otherwise direct, on or before the said 1st of August 1836, the Lord High Chancellor or Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal shall make such orders as he or they shall see fit for the administration, subject to such charitable uses or trusts as aforesaid, of such trust estates.”

The legislation stated that the former corporations ceased to be charity trustees on 1 August 1836, and it provided for petitions to be submitted proposing replacements.

This piece of legislation was the signal for a bitter party dispute between the Conservatives and the Liberals. The Liberals had long held a grievance about charitable awards being made for political purposes. In a recent case involving the Peloquin gift for poor lying-in women, 35 of the 45 recipients had Conservative spouses and only 3 Liberal.

In response to the legislation the Liberals put forward a petition to the Lord Chancellor, suggesting a board of Charity Trustees eighteen strong, half Tory, half Liberal. This consensus approach was upset by the Master in Chancery, who wished to have an uneven number, whereupon the promoters requested the Conservatives to increase their number to 10, and the Liberals proposed to increase their number to 11.

This re-opened old partisan wounds and after a heated debate, about which party should have a majority on the board, the Conservatives resolved that they would take no further part in the formation of the new board of trustees. They anticipated that this would stall the proceedings, but they miscalculated.

The Act provided that if trustees had not been appointed by 1 August 1836, the Lord Chancellor should appoint new trustees, on petitions from each locality. The Liberals therefore submitted a new petition and, due to the close links between local Liberals and the Westminster leadership, they secured eighteen of the twenty one places.

The administration of the charities by the old Corporation remained a political issue until 1851.

The names of the first Trustees appointed in October 1836, and their periods of office, were as follows:

Richard Ash – 1836-50. Attorney. Cotham House.
George Bengough – 1836-50. Attorney. Cornwallis Crescent, Clifton.
Samuel Brown – 1836-50.Tanner. Redcliff Crescent, Redcliff.
Thomas Carlisle – 1836-65. Wholesale haberdasher. Pen Park, Westbury.
Michael H Castle – Distiller. Stapleton Grove.
James Cunningham – 1836-63. Merchant. Kings Parade, Durdham.
(Chairman of Trustees 1836-52)
Thomas Davies - Merchant
Robert Fiske – 1836-59. Wholesale grocery merchant. Durdham.
Charles Bowles Fripp – 1836-49. Merchant. Park Row, St. Michael’s.
* Sir John Kerle Haberfield – 1836-57. Attorney. Royal York Crescent. Clifton.
William Harwood – 1836-48. Merchant. Portland Sq. St. Paul’s.
William Herapeth – 1836-68. Philosophical chemist. Old Park St. Michael’s.
Thomas Powell – 1836-72. Corn merchant/brush manufacturer.
Rockley Villa, Montpelier.
George E Sanders – 1836-51. Wholesaler. Clifton Hill, Clifton.
*John Savage – 1836-65. Sugar refiner. Wilder St. St Paul’s.
*Richard Smith- 1836-43. Surgeon. Park Street.
William L Taunton – 1836-50. Barrister. Stoke Bishop.
George Thomas – 1836-39. Wholesaler. Eagle House, Brislington.
(Chairman 1852 – 1869)
William Tothill – Manufacturing chemist. Redland Parade.
Harman Visger – 1836-67. Merchant. Brunswick Sq. St. Paul’s.
James Wood – 1836-46. Insurance. Pritchard St. St. Paul’s.

* Conservative. The remainder were Liberals (Whigs).

5. The early work of the Trustees

The first meeting of Trustees was held on 27 October 1836. At that inaugural meeting the report of the Master in Chancery was read into the minutes. The report stated that “in the matter of a petition presented by Messrs Cunningham and Sanders (subsequently Trustees) in regard to these charities of which report the master had approved of the Gentlemen now met together.........as trustees of the same charities.”

The separation of the charities from the Council necessitated a transfer of the funds, stock, accounts and property deeds to the Trustees. One of the earliest tasks of the new Trustees was to take possession of all the records held by the Corporation (now known as the Council), and to arrange for a transfer of the endowment capital and interest to their accounts. The minutes of the Trustees’ meeting held on 21 November 1836 documented the application for possession of all records and accounts, cash in hand and securities.

The Council were loath to do so, or even acknowledge the Trustees’ application for the monies. This was partly due to party politics, but mainly due to economics. This was an expensive time for the new councils, with demands for improved policing, sanitation etc. In the case of Bristol, the position was exacerbated by the results of the 1831 Riots, involving compensation claims and the building of the New Gaol.

In addition there was the question of charity money, which allegedly had been diverted into the former Corporation’s coffers. Although the Council handed over some cash, it infuriated the Trustees by refusing to part with documents, and added insult to injury by offering to discuss the debt allegedly owed to QEH.

In the case of one particular charity, the Peloquin charity, it required legal proceedings before the principal sum of £19,000 was transferred to the Trustees.

To disentangle the accounts relating to the QEH estate, an accountant, Joshua Jones, was instructed by the Trustees, in 1837, to examine the civic accounts. He found that the Council owed the charity a capital sum of £57,916, which, if simple interest were added, would increase the debt to £240,569. The Council’s accountant asserted that his clients were actually owed £21,000.

Proceedings were commenced but eventually private negotiations resolved the matter in January 1842, when the Council paid compensation of £11,000, and made good all income accrued since 1836.

By 1851 the number of Trustees had diminished, due to death. The Conservative majority in the Council, who had long regretted their hasty decision in 1836, petitioned the Lord Chancellor to appoint 9 new members, all Conservatives. The Liberal majority on the board of Trustees submitted a list of 9, all Liberals.

The Lord Chancellor selected four names from the Council’s list and five from the Trustees’ list.