Article: Public Trusts, 1750-1850

Charles Mitchell (University College London) recently published a paper titled, Public Trusts, 1750-1850, Faculty of Laws University of London Law Research Paper No. 10/2023. Provided below is an abstract to the paper:

The paper discusses the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century history of English public trusts, meaning trusts of property that was held not for the benefit of any person or group of persons as private individuals, but for public purposes, the accomplishment of which would benefit the community at large. Trusts of this kind were frequently used as a legal form through which money and other property was held and spent on for the purposes of local government. Four types of trust are considered: town trusts, statutory trusts for building and maintaining roads, bridges, docks, harbours, etc, charitable trusts,, and trusts of ‘public money’ owned by borough corporations. Among other matters, the paper considers the nature of ‘public trusts’ during this period and whether they were thought to be substantially different from ‘private trusts’.