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Correspondence respecting the Parochial Charities. 61
From tiie Charity Commissioners to the Eev. J. Mee, Incumbent of St. Jude's, a Parish
for Ecclesiastical purposes within the Parish of St. George the Martyr, Southwark.
Charity Commission,
8, York Street, St. James's Square, S. W.,
22nd June, 1866.
Hob. Ha. The Charities of St. George the Martyr, Southwark.
13459.
Eev. Sir,
1. The Commissioners have now considered the question of apportioning
the Charities of St. George's Parish which was raised in the year 1862 and has now been
raised again.
2. They think that great weight is due to the reasoning of the Yestry who urge that
the Charities are under the administration of officers and of trustees who represent the entire
original parish and who have no motive to favor one portion rather than another.
3. Indeed it seems to the Commissioners that a careful administration of the Charities
from one centre is more likely in such a place as Southwark to lead to beneficial results
than an administration from five different centres and that the former system should be
continued unless it is at variance with the constitution of the Charities or unless it is found
in fact to lead to maladministration.
4. You appear in the first place to think that there is something in the constitution of
the Charities adverse to the present system.
In your letter of the 13th Deer. 1865 you say "we hold it to be practically impossible
" that the Eector and Churchwardens of the mother district can be personally acquainted
"with the most deserving cases in the new districts, and we deem it our 'imperative duty to
" the poor in our respective parishes to ask that the Incumbents of the new parishes and
"their "Wardens, who must of necessity know more of their own districts than the Eector
" of the old parish and his Wardens, should distribute under certain regulations, apportionments
of the Charities in each parish.
Again in your letter of the 4th instant you say "We respectfully but most earnestly
" enter our protest against the proposed administration of the Charities by such a corpora"
tion as the Yestry inasmuch as the Charities were for the most part to be administered
"by Clergy and Churchwardens. We deeply regret to observe from the letter of the 21st
" February how much the Eector cf the Parish Church has been ignored and trust the
''Commissioners will feel the necessity for an administration more in accordance with the
"intentions of the donors."
5. It appears to the Commissioners that you cannot know to how slight a degree the Clerical
and even the Ecclesiastical element enters into the administration of the Charities. One
Charity alone consisting of 30s. a year is committed to the administration of the Eector;
one alone of £4 10s. 0d. a year to that of the Eector and Churchwardens : two amounting