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60
CITY OF LONDON PAROCHIAL CHARITIES ACT, 1883.
North London Technical and Recreative Institute.
The subject of a Technical Institute for Islington was referred to
in the last annual report.
In October, 1889, the attention of the Vestry was called to the fact
that in the scheme about to be submitted to Parliament for the distribution
of the City Parochial Charity Funds and the provision of
Technical Institutes, the claims of the parish of Islington had been
ignored. The Vestry accordingly directed its Clerk to lodge a petition
against the schcme, and this was done. This scheme, which was
shortly afterwards published, provides inter alia for the allocation
of a capital sum of about £150,000 and an endowment of £22,500 per
annum among certain institutions, either in existence or to be erected,
for the purpose of technical instruction.
These institutes when erected will be mainly in the centre of the
metropolis, although the requirements of the south and east are
liberally dealt with. The only consideration shown for the claims of
the north is a somewhat vague reservation of a capital sum equal
to £5,000 per annum for the endowment of "such other institutes of a
"like nature ... as may be established in the metropolis for the
"benefit of the poorer classes by schemes to be framed by the Corm"missioners
under the City of London Parochial Charities Act, 1883."
A deputation from the central executive Committee of the North
London parishes (referred to in the last annual report) subsequently
waited on the Charity Commissioners, and urged upon them the claims
of Hackney, Islington, and St. Pancras to this residue, and was
informed that the Commissioners were still anxious to assist North
London but that the persons representing those boroughs must decide as
whether they would proceed with one large Institute for the whole
area, or three smaller ones—one in each borough.
This North London Committee, it will be remembered, origfnallv
represented the borough of Finsbury as well as the boroughs of Hackney,
Islington and St. Pancras. The claims of Finsbury had already bsen amply
satisfied by the proposal contained in the scheme to assist in the erection
of and to endow a large Institute on a, site to be given by the Marquis
of Northampton in St. John Street Road; and the correspondence now