THE CHARITY COMMISSION: THE FIRST MAJOR ROYAL COMMISSION OF ENQUIRY IN THE AREA OF SOCIAL POLICY By the end of the eighteenth century the administration in the numerous charitable trusts that had grown up for the benefit of the poor was in a state approaching chaos. Records of these charities, such as they were, were inadequate and incomplete. Returns under Gilbert's Act were woefully inadequate and not always honest. In May 1816 Henry Brougham induced the House of Commons to appoint a Select Committee "to inquire into the education of the lower orders of the Metropolis." When the Select Committee reported on 20 of June it concluded: "Although your Committee have not been instructed to examine the state of Education beyond the Metropolis, they have in addition to what has appeared in evidence, received communications, which show the necessity of Parliament as speedily as possible instituting an inquiry into the management of charitable donations and other funds for the instruction of the Poor in this country, especially in the larger towns: and your Committee are of the opinion that the most effectual as well as least expensive mode of conducting such an inquiry, would be by means of a Parliamentary commission." In other words, without being asked to do it, the Committee and Brougham himself linked totally inadequate education for the children of the Poor in London and elsewhere with "abuses" in the management of the innumerable private charities. Brougham believed that £70,000 was being diverted by "abuse" from the purpose of providing education for the poor. Wilberforce urged that the inquiry begin at once. Canning and Castlereagh supported it. The most potent opposition came from Eldon, the Lord Chancellor who sought to defend the trustees of charities and his own prerogative as Lord Chancellor. Despite this opposition and much manoeuvring on both sides the bill was passed in 1818 and the Commission itself was issued on 20th August. In August 1818 Brougham furthered his campaign with a pamphlet A letter to Sir Samuel Romilly... upon the abuse of charities. In this letter was the first clear sign of his underlying strategy: the reclamation of educational resources. Brougham's pamphlet stimulated a flurry of opposition notably from Lipscombe Clarke and William Lisle Bowles, champions of Winchester School, who both sought to maintain that "poor scholars" as stipulated in the various charitable bequests did not mean "poor". This skirmish had little effect and the Commission of enquiry received the support of Cabinet and was strengthened and its scope widened to include non- educational charities in 1819. The Charity Commission carried out its function as a legal research unit with consistent procedure for nearly twenty years. Its auxiliary function as an agency for reform, on the other hand, developed extensively in the same period. The basic operating unit of the Commission was the travelling board, usually two Commissioners and a clerk. At most times, one or more of these units sat in London, while the others toured the country. In thousands of sittings, the Commissioners took evidence on the past and present state of the charitable trusts. From the outset of its work the commission found that, excluding the numerous charities which had been completely lost, those that remained were on the whole well run. Certification was the only legal power of the Commission. This was used very effectively as a threat and enforced only very sparingly. In the relatively few cases in which certification was resorted to, the Commission recovered £600,000 in charity property. Certification as such was a great financial success. In other cases where the threat of certification had been used foundations were retrieved, schools re-opened, trusts re-established etc., and the benefits were considerable. With 29,000 charities investigated, the commission stopped, concluded its business in 1837, and completed the publication of its report in 1843. A further ten years elapsed before the creation of a permanent Board of Charity Commissioners was established. The work of Commissioners was costly: in all the costs totalled some £291,000 - for those days a very substantial sum. Of these costs the costs of printing the reports was by no means inconsiderable. Each volume cost between £600 and £700 to produce and in all, for the 44 volumes, printing costs were in excess of £28,000. The success and effectiveness of the Commission is open to argument. Its importance as the first major Royal Commission of Inquiry in the area of social policy is undoubted. It stands as a prototype of that careful and laborious process of gathering actual information and statistics on the ground which was a necessary precursor to action by government. In this sense it typified one of the vital processes of change in the Age of Reform. It looked forward to the work of the Factory Inspectors or the Poor Law Commissioners. The reports themselves contain an immense amount of material about the charities for the poor of Great Britain as they were actually operating in the period before the Poor Law Amendment Act. They enable the research historian to see in unprecedented detail what charities for the poor existed in the various localities and how well or badly they operated. Professor Richard Thomson called the work of the Commissioners "by any measure a highly significant social reform" and the Commission itself "the earliest and best documented body of its kind." From information taken from THOMPSON, Richard. The Charity Commission and the age of reform. London. Routledge and Kegan Paul. 1979. 248. ROYAL COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS AND RELIEF OF DISTRESS. Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and relief of distress. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of His Majesty. London. Printed for his Majesty's Stationary Office by Wyman and Sons. 1909. [Cd 4499] Folio, 718p. Rebound in cloth. ROYAL COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS AND RELIEF OF DID. [Minority Report.] Separate report by the Rev. Prebendary H. Russell Wakefield, Mr. Francis Chandler, Mr. George Lansbury, and Mrs Sidney Webb. [London. Printed for his Majesty's Stationary Office by Wyman and Sons. 1909.] [Cd 4499] Folio, pages 719-1238p. Rebound in cloth. Two volumes bound together. MINUTES AND EVIDENCE OF THE GREAT ROYAL COMMISSION ON THE POOR LAWS AND RELIEF OF DISTRESS 1909 COMPLETE SET IN 37 FOLIO VOLUMES ONE OF THE GREATEST SOCIAL SURVEYS EVER UNDERTAKEN After the Report of the Charity Commission, the reports from the Great Royal Commission of 1832, comes the Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress, 1909. Present here are the majority and the minority reports to which Beatrice and Sidney Webb were such important contributors. Also present is the complete suite (with one volume in facsimile) of the Appendix of Minutes and Evidence, in all 37 folio volumes which form one of the most extensive social surveys ever undertaken.