Charities constitute a marked feature of English life. There are also many excellent institutions in Germany and France. The Deaconess House at Kaiserwerth, founded by Pastor Fliedner, Father Zeller's School at Benggen, near Basel, the Asylum for Poor Neglected Children at Dusseldorf, the Blind School at Illzack, the Evangelical Asylum for Discharged Male Prisoners at Lintorf, the establishments of Mr J. Bost at Laforce—these with many others recur to the mind, and forcibly testify to the amount of philanthropic work being done on the Continent; while in the United States the splendid medical and kindred benevolent institutions of New York and other great towns bear witness to the sympathy and beneficence of that large-hearted nation. But in no country are so many charities of such wide and far-reaching influence to be found as in Great Britain. Taking as an example London alone, there are no less than 1025 institutions of various kinds. This does not include the different bequests under the control of the opulent city companies, which if counted separately would amount to as many as 300 more, or the smaller semi-religious missions of which each parish, as a rule, possesses two or three. Of the 1025 charities, 813 have been established in the nineteenth century, and 58 since the year 1879. The oldest institution is St Bartholomew's Hospital, Smithfield, founded in 1123. Next to this comes St Katharine's Hospital, instituted 1145, though the present building was erected in 1827. The educational charities are mostly of ancient origin, and the majority were founded in the 16th century—during the reigns of Edward VI. and Elizabeth; but some of less importance, in the gift of the city companies, for the making of small school grants and so on, are even still older. In the 16th century such well-known institutions as St Paul's School (1509), Christ's Hospital (1553), St Peter's College, Westminster (1560), Merchant Taylors' School (1561), and Sir Roger Cholmley's School, Highgate (1565), were founded. There are upwards of 80 different almshouse buildings connected with the metropolis, affording shelter to more than 2000 inmates. Many are of great age—some indeed, as land rose in value, have been abolished, and the money thus gained devoted to pensions; the oldest are the Salters' Company's Almshouses at Watford, founded in 1454. The hospitals and dispensaries number 135. The longest established are the general institutions; those devoted to special forms of disease are of more recent origin, a remark that applies with additional force to the provident dispensaries. A curious feature is to be noticed in the principal lying-in charities. These were all founded between the years 1749 and 1765. For the missionary societies, see MISSIONS. The institutions for the blind number 29; in the majority of cases, the benefit conferred takes the form of a small annuity or pension. A few of the orphan asylums date their existence from the middle of the last century, but the greater proportion have been founded since 1850. It is to this form of charity that the present generation seems especially prone. Whereas in 1850 there were only 17 institutions of this kind, there are now 58. A great increase has also taken place in the number of convalescent homes, reformatory institutions, night refuges, and societies for the relief of the destitute. Following the example so admirably set at Kaiserwerth, various nursing and philanthropic sisterhoods have been established, and within the last five years no fewer than three prominent charities have been formed to provide poor city children with the means of getting away for a limited period to the country or seaside. Finally, it may be mentioned that the receipts of the metropolitan charities for the year 1887 amounted to upwards of £4,500,000.
See Low's Handbook to the London Charities (annual), and Fry's; De Liefde, The Charities of Europe (1865); Cammann and Camp, The Charities of New York (1868); Kenny, Legislation with regard to Property given for Charitable Uses (1880).
CHARITY COMMISSIONERS were first appointed in 1853, under an act for the better administration of charitable trusts. For many years previous to this the subject of the endowed charities had been gradually growing in interest. The old Court of Chancery, with its slow, cumbrous, and ruinously expensive procedure, was felt to be out of date, a new order of things was required, and in especial some investigation into the condition of the charitable funds was needed. By an act dating so far back as 1601 (43 Eliz. chap. 4), the Lord Chancellor was empowered under certain conditions to appoint commissioners of inquiry, but these commissions had fallen into disuse, and action was now taken in the person of the Attorney-general—a method that was at once calculated to give rise to many abuses, and prove infinitely vexatious. The first endeavour to procure the necessary inquiry was in 1786, when under Mr Gilbert's Act (26 Geo. III. chap. 58) information had been obtained on oath from the parochial clergy, churchwardens, and overseers; but these received no direct authority from the Charity Trustees to make such inquiry, and their knowledge was therefore found to be unreliable and inadequate. According to the returns then made to parliament, the endowed charities amounted to £258,710, 19s. 3d. a year—a sum, as was afterwards shown, greatly below their actual value. In 1812 Mr Lockhart, who was strenuously opposed by the city companies, succeeded in passing an Act (52 Geo. III. chap. 102) which required that particulars of the income, capital, object, and trustees of every existing charity, together with the names of the persons holding the deed of endowment, should be registered with the clerk of the peace for the county within six months of the passing of the act; and a similar provision was made for all future charities. A copy of each registration was also to be enrolled in Chancery. Four years later commenced the memorable investigations with which the name of Lord Brougham is so closely connected. In 1816 he moved for the appointment of a Committee of the House of Commons on the subject, and as a result of its deliberations the Committee recommended that an inquiry into the condition of the endowed charities should be undertaken. The first commission for this purpose was appointed by the crown, under an Act of 1818, and further commissions of inquiry were issued and prosecuted under that and subsequent acts until 1837. In the words of Lord John Russell, these successive inquiries 'destroyed many flagrant abuses, detected the perversion of a large amount of charitable funds, and led the way to those further inquiries and those remedial measures of which we have seen the commencement and the progress, but of which the consummation is yet to come.' As showing the magnitude and extent of these investigations, it may be mentioned that the printed reports occupy no fewer than 38 folio volumes, consisting of some 25,000 pages, describe 28,880 charities with an aggregate income of £1,209,395, and were compiled at a cost of upwards of half a million of money. The result of the wide attention thus drawn to the subject was that in 1853, after much parliamentary and private agitation, the great Charitable Trusts Act, for the public supervision of public endowments, was passed. The powers placed in the hands of the commissioners and inspectors appointed under the act, however, were at first exceedingly limited. Beyond a veto on suits by any one but the Attorney-general, the commissioners had only rights of inquiry, of advice, and of rendering assistance in a few cases where the trustees themselves might desire such aid. The act enabled the Lord Chancellor to appoint two persons to be, jointly with the secretary for the time being, 'the official trustees of charitable funds;' and those officers were constituted in 1854. In 1855 another act empowered the board to apportion parish charities under £30 a year; but in regard to the remodelling of these institutions, or in any way making new schemes for their extended usefulness, its operations were still subordinate, not only to Chancery, but to the county courts. A further act, passed in 1860, for the first time gave the commissioners judicial power over charities of £50 a year, and like power, with the consent of the trustees, over larger charities; but being judicial, the authority of the commissioners can only be called into operation at the suit of persons interested in each case. The powers formerly exercised by the Court of Chancery still exist in the High Court of Justice, but are very rarely called into execution. Should trustees prove obstinate, or in other ways refuse to apply for new schemes in relation to their institutions, developing combative tendencies with which the commissioners have a difficulty in dealing, then the aid of the High Court of Justice is invoked. Otherwise the whole administration of charitable endowments, under such conditions as above mentioned, lies in the hands of the Charity Commissioners. Under the jurisdiction thus given various improved schemes have been established, and trustees numbering upwards of 400 annually appointed. By the Act 37 and 38 Vict. chap. 87, the powers previously exercised by the Endowed Schools Commissioners were transferred to the Charity Commissioners for a period of five years, and the two bodies have since been amalgamated. The commissioners have also an important power under the Municipal Corporations Act, 1883, of framing schemes for the application of the property of the corporations dissolved under that act. Since the year 1854 the amount of stock transferred to the official trustees of charitable funds has amounted to £16,139,017 (of which sum £674,212 was handed over in 1887), and £2,853,815 has been retransferred, leaving the total sum held by the trustees at the end of 1886, £13,285,202, divided into 14,729 separate accounts.
THE CHARITY ORGANISATION SOCIETY, founded in 1869, took its rise in a sense of the evil of temporary relief, which manifestly tends to lower the self-dependence of the recipient and to encourage pauperism. Previous to the advent of the society, many attempts had been made to cope successfully with the dangers that attend the bestowal of thoughtless charity. Amongst others, Edward Dennison and Octavia Hill had been especially noticeable for their efforts to raise the condition, both morally and physically, of the struggling poor, and for some time district visiting committees and several societies for the relief of distress through the agency of unpaid almoners had been at work. Attention, too, had been powerfully directed to the method of poor-law administration carried on at Elberfeld and other continental towns. It was felt that some scheme for uniting the charities of London in friendly business sympathy, so as to utilise their efforts more effectively and prevent imposition, was needed. This impression gaining ground may be said to have originated the Charity Organisation Society. The object of the society, as stated in its report, is the improvement of the condition of the poor (1) by bringing about co-operation between the charities and the poor-law, and amongst the charities; (2) by securing due investigation and fitting action in all cases; and (3) by repressing mendicity. At least one representative committee is formed in each of the poor-law divisions of the metropolis, and the society itself may be said to consist of a federation of those committees, at present numbering forty. Each committee appoints one or more charity agents to act under its instructions, and an important part of their duties is to collect particulars as to the actions of the charities of the district and the relief given by them; to receive applications from persons referred to the office, and to investigate their claims; and to keep up communication with the relieving-officers of the guardians. That there is great need for organisation in the matter of charitable relief is amply evidenced by the fact that the society computes that in London alone from four to seven millions sterling are annually dissipated in indiscriminate almsgiving, thus not only encouraging systematic mendicants and impostors, but recklessly wasting money which, if directed into the right channel, would go far to relieve the poverty and distress that exist.
The number of affiliated or corresponding institu- tions throughout the three kingdoms is upwards of eighty. A society based on similar lines to the English Charity Organisation Society was founded at Buffalo, U.S., in 1877; and Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Boston, Newport, Detroit, Baltimore, Washington, New York, and many other American towns have since followed the example.