Trust deed — Construction — Land held on charitable trusts — Construction of deed — Whether deed permitting use of land for new school — Claimant opposing such use — Claim dismissed
The first, third and fourth defendants held land in the precincts of a Roman Catholic parish church upon charitable trusts that were contained in a deed of 1851. The claimant was the successor of an advisory group that had been established to represent the congregation of the church. The defendant trustees approved a scheme under which the trust land was to be used to build part of a “learning village” that the diocese was promoting. The project aimed to integrate Roman Catholic primary, secondary and sixth-form schools into a single campus. The claimant brought proceedings to challenge the trustees’ decision, contending that the project fell outside the terms of the trust and that the decision-making process had been flawed.
The trust deed stated that the land was conveyed “upon the trusts… hereinafter expressed”. These included a power to erect on the land “a Church Chapel and also Priest’s House and Schools” to be used “for the purpose of bringing up and educating poor children according to and in the doctrines and tenets of the Roman Catholic Church”. The deed also required that the “duly officiating or Head Priest” for the time being of the church should be a trustee and should “have and be entitled to the management and superintendence of all matters relating… to the said school”.
The claimants submitted that: (i) the trusts were for the benefit of the parish in which the land lay, whereas the school was designed to serve the wider community; (ii) the schools would not, because of the proportion of non-Catholic pupils, be Roman Catholic schools; (iii) the decision was void because the head priest had not been appointed a trustee. On the first point, the defendants argued that, inter alia, the claimant’s contention was anachronistic, because, as at the date of the trust deed, no Roman Catholic parishes had yet been established in England, which was still regarded as a mission territory.
Held: The claim was dismissed.
(1) There was no limitation requiring use of the trust land for the purposes of the parish. The trusts upon which the land was held were those “expressed” in the 1851 trust deed, and did not impose the suggested limitation. Moreover, the claimant’s formulation could not be reconciled with the position in 1851, when no parish had existed.
(2) The doctrines and tenets of the Roman Catholic church did not contain any element that restricted the children whom it taught to baptised Catholics. Catholic schools were defined by their Catholic ethos, worship and religious education syllabus. The question of “how Catholic” a school was did not fall to be determined by how many pupils were Catholics, although the church did give first priority to Catholic pupils in its admission criteria. On that approach, the project fell within the trust purposes.
(3) The failure to appoint the head priest as a trustee did not invalidate the decision. The trust deed did not provide for trustees’ powers to be suspended if the head priest was not a trustee. In the absence of an express provision to that effect, the non-appointment of the head priest was an irregularity that could be corrected but did not render void decisions of the actual trustees: Attorney-General v Cowper (1785) 1 Bro CC 439 applied.
Leolin Price QC and Owen Rhys (instructed by Davies Arnold Cooper) appeared for the claimant; Paul Morgan QC and Gregory Hill (instructed by Winckworth Sherwood) appeared the defendant trustees; the second defendant, the Attorney-General, did not appear and was not represented.
Sally Dobson, barrister
