Charity land: A mortmain confusion

Stebbings, Chantal

doi:10.1080/01440369108531025

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…It made it illegal to give real estate and the rents from it for charitable purposes, unless it was transferred by deed rather than will and executed before two witnesses at least 12 months prior to the death of the donor and then enrolled in Chancery within six months of its execution. In other words, one could not on one's deathbed as part of a last will and testament devise land or bequeath a rent charge to a charity (Stebbings 1991). Somewhat misleadingly, contemporaries labeled this law of George II the ‘Mortmain Act’ and it is often referred to as such in the Reports , even though it had nothing to do with the earlier royal edicts bearing the name that prohibited or granted that privilege.…”

Section: IVmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tracking the growth of government securities investing in early modern England and Wales

Shammas

2020

Financial History Review

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Interest in the growth of tradeable securities in early modern Britain, especially its relationship to economic development and the funding of government debt, has centered mainly on the borrowerwhether it be trading company, industrial enterprise, or the state. This article directs attention to the investor, using Charity Commission Reports for England and Wales that document a dramatic mideighteenth-century shift by donors and trustees from investments in real estate and rent charges to perpetual government annuities, mainly  percent Consols. The heavy investment in this public debt product is what ultimately prompted the creation of the London Stock Exchange in .In analyzing this shift, which occurred among the propertied in all regions of the nation, not just the metropolis or among corporate entities and the mercantile community, I consider both what made the annuities increasingly attractive for charitable trusts and the alternativesreal estate and private loans secured by mortgage or other meansmore problematic. Legal changes, I argue, played a role in the transformation, especially the Charitable Uses Act of , which made charitable devises of real estate very difficult and probably resulted in reduced investment in human capital and less wealth redistribution. Regions varied, however, in the degree to which they switched from real estate in the latter part of the eighteenth century; they also differed in the extent to which the switch resulted in more gifts of interest-bearing loans as well.Admittedly, the changes documented in this article concern only one type of depository for assets, charitable trusts. The appeal of these annuities, however, could extend to investments needed for other purposes such as postmortem payments to dependents. Moreover, the fall-off in demand for real estate in trusts correlates with GDP estimates showing a steady decline in income from real assets after  and what some have noted in this period as a puzzlethe lack of an increased rate of return on rents and private loans at a time of robust investment in government debt. Most importantly, though, the transition demonstrates the ability of the government to induce a broad spectrum of the propertied population to invest in securities, if the vehicle they offered had the right characteristics, which were not necessarily highest yield or liquidity without loss in value.

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Section: IVmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tracking the growth of government securities investing in early modern England and Wales

Shammas

2020

Financial History Review

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“…Accordingly, over time those who wanted to endow the church had to find an alternative method: would-be donors turned to the charitable trust. 205 In response, the Mortmain and Charitable Uses Act 1736 invalidated any dispositions of land by will to charitable trusts and those made inter vivos within the year preceding the donor's death. 206 Although originally concerned with preventing the avoidance of feudal incidents, the aim of the law of mortmain after the 1736 Act was to stop potentially perpetual charitable trusts acquiring title to all land in the country, thereby locking it up forever, and, more specifically, to quash the fear that clerics would 'terrorise [the dying] into making death-bed devises ad pias causas to the ruin of their heirs'.…”

Section: How Change Was Made: Borrowing From the Law Of Mortmainmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Development of the Public Benefit Requirement for Charitable Trusts in the Nineteenth Century

Mills

2016

The Journal of Legal History

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The development of the public benefit requirement for charitable trusts in the nineteenth century MATTHEW MILLS The first express judicial reliance on the public benefit requirement for charitable trusts to conclusively determine charitable validity seems to occur in 1862, although implied references to similar ideas are seen up to a century previously. With limited exceptions, the origin of the public benefit requirement has been under-examined. This article argues that a multi-factorial and contextual approach best explains its adoption in the nineteenth century. Three developments in nineteenth century law and society encouraged judges to broaden charity law: (1) increasing religious pluralism, (2) increasing state education, and (3) regular income taxation. These changes, combined with the formalisation of the doctrine of precedent, required both some limit on the scope of charity law and a new substantive justification for novel decisions on charitable validity. This article argues that judges and lawyers, whether intentionally or subconsciously, borrowed ideas of public benefit from closely-related mortmain cases to develop the public benefit requirement.

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ChineseTongas British Trust: Institutional Collisions and Legal Disputes in Urban Hong Kong, 1860s–1980s

Chung¹

2010

Mod. Asian Stud.

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By the nineteenth century, with the advance of British colonial activities, British corporate laws had been transplanted to maritime Asia with varying degrees of vigour. In British Hong Kong, these laws often clashed with native customs. Through a reconstruction of the legal disputes found in urban Hong Kong, this paper discusses how British and Chinese business traditions interacted with each other during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Before assessing the historical implications and consequences of these legal decisions, this paper will also explore whether the Chinese institution of tong is compatible with British law in urban Hong Kong.

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Charity land: A mortmain confusion

Cited by 4 publications

References 2 publications

Tracking the growth of government securities investing in early modern England and Wales

Tracking the growth of government securities investing in early modern England and Wales

The Development of the Public Benefit Requirement for Charitable Trusts in the Nineteenth Century

ChineseTongas British Trust: Institutional Collisions and Legal Disputes in Urban Hong Kong, 1860s–1980s

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