The parties disputed interests in a sum of andpound;3053 paid by the Midland Railway Company for the acquisition in 1866 of common land. The right of common was vested in resident freemen as a result of an award of the Inclosure Commissioners in 1797 made under an Inclosure Act of 1795. The resident freemen sought division of the fund between them under section 104 of the 1845 Act and sections 15 to 17 of the 1854 Act.
Held: Freeman had no fee simple right (that is, they did not own the land) and therefore the money should be held in trust for the freemen resident from time to time. After referring to the award in 1797, the court said: ‘What I should suppose would be the right of the parties under that would be, that whoever these trustees might be, whether a corporation or not, they became trustees for the resident freemen for all time, and not for those only who at the time when the Act passed (1795) had become and were resident freemen. It would be just as reasonable to say that at that moment all those resident freemen would have had a right to file a bill to have the land divided amongst them, as to say that the present resident freemen have the right contended for. Their rights are simply shifting rights. A body is attempted to be constituted – either a corporation or a body of persons – who were named trustees, and as trustees their trust was for the resident freemen of the borough for all time….It is a trust given to them to hold in lieu of the rights of common, so that all they had to do was to regulate the mode in which it should be enjoyed. The Legislature has simply indicated that this land is available for any purpose to which the trustees and freemen like to put it. Suppose it turned out very valuable for building purposes, possibly they might have had to have recourse to this Court before applying it to those purposes, regard being had to the particular nature of the trust, but I apprehend that they could use the land in any way most agreeable to the resident freemen.
These existing resident freemen say they are the only persons interested in the land, and that the money which has been paid for the fee simple, ought to be divided between them….A person who has only got an interest every year that he resides has not got a free simple interest. Take the case of the owner of an enclosed farm who has a commonable right attached to the occupation of the property. If he is only tenant for life the committee who are ‘to pay the amount to the persons interested according to their respective interests’, ought not to pay him the whole value of the land. It must be invested, so that tenant for life and tenant in remainder shall get their proper shares…..[T]he Legislature thought, rightly or wrongly, that as to commonable interests, when they were found to be trifling, they might be apportioned to the holders of them, whoever they might be, and however small or however precarious the existing interest might be. But there might be a case where the land would be valuable for building purposes when this right of feeding cattle was disposed of. In such a case the interest might be considerable in the different persons who had rights, and I cannot hold that it was intended to hand over the whole fee simple interest in the property to persons having only this temporary and fluctuating interest….What I propose, therefore, to do is to declare that the money paid into Court ought to be re-invested in land, to be held on the same trusts as those upon which the lands taken by the railway company were held, viz., in trust for the freemen of the borough of Bedford from time to time residing within the limits of the ancient borough, and in the meantime the same ought to be invested, and the dividends paid (subject to payment of costs) to the trustees, and divided by them amongst such resident freemen at the same time or times as such freemen have been accustomed in each year to enter upon the enjoyment of their rights of common.’
Judges:
Sir William Page Wood VC
Citations:
(1868) LR 6 Eq 5
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – H M Attorney General v Hyde and others ChD 5-Dec-2001
Land had been acquired by the trustees’ predecessors under the 1882 Act. The question was now whether it was subject to charitable trusts. Money having been received from the acquisition of the rights, a meeting had been held to determine the trusts . .
Cited – Hitchin Cow Commoners Trust, Re ChD 5-Dec-2001
Land was registered as a common. Rights had been created over the land under the 1882 Act after the Inclosure Acts. Were these rights in the nature of charitable trusts? No use of the land as a cow common had taken place with living memory, and most . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Land
Updated: 09 December 2022; Ref: scu.179826
