Note 318 — Chapter IX

Under the School Sites Acts, 1841, 1844 and 1851 (4 & 5 Vict. c. 38, 7 & 8 Vict. c. 37, 14 & 15 Vict. c. 24), land may under certain restrictions be conveyed to the minister and churchwardens and overseers of the poor, or to the ministers and churchwardens, of a parish, for the purpose of the education of the poor, and when so conveyed will remain vested in them and their successors as if they were a corporate body; but, except where authorised by a special local Act, it cannot be conveyed to the incumbent and churchwardens, or to the churchwardens alone, in perpetuity for any other purpose. (In the City of London, however, churchwardens can, by custom, acquire and hold land as a corporation for ecclesiastical or parochial purposes.) The Bodies Corporate (Joint Tenancy) Act, 1899 (62 & 63 Vict. c. 20), does not give any further power to an incumbent to hold property as a corporation jointly with another corporation or with individuals upon any ecclesiastical or charitable trusts; since the holding authorised by the Act is to be subject to the same conditions and restrictions as attach to its holding by a body corporate in severalty; and an incumbent as above mentioned could not, without a licence in mortmain, hold as a corporation by himself any property upon similar trusts, unless empowered to do so by express statutory authority.