§ MR. BARLOW (Somerset, Frome)I beg to ask the Parliamentary Charity Commissioner if he can state the income of Booth's Charity, Salford; to what purposes this income is applied; who are the Trustees, and whether there be any public control of such Charity; and whether a portion of it can be applied to objects of public utility, such as free libraries, technical education, or old age pensions?
§ THE PARLIAMENTARY CHARITY COMMISSIONER (Mr. T. E. ELLIS, Merionethshire)(1) The Booth Charities are administered under the Booth Charities Act, 1846. (2) The gross income for the year ended March 24, 1893, was £16,177 6s. 1d. (3) After payment of rates, taxes, repairs, expenses of management, &c, the following payments were made—namely, £46 19s. 6d. in repairs, &c, of Trinity Chapel; £608 4s. in gifts in money and kind to the poor of the township of Salford; £21 to Salford Infirmary for 329 medical relief for objects of the Charity; £11,967 10s. in weekly payments to 822 poor in habitants of Salford township in the following proportions—namely, 48 at 10s. a week; 43 at 8s. a week; 343 at 6s. a week; and 395 at 5s. a week. (4) The Trustees, who are incorporated by the Act, are Messrs. Edward Hardcastle, Charles James Heywood, James Worrall, Richard Hampson Joynson, John Platt, Stewart Garnett, Percy Shelmerdine, and Hugh Cecil Birley. The Trustees are required by the Act to pay over the net income (after providing to the extent therein specified for the benefit of the Chapel of the Sacred Trinity in Salford) to the Mayor of Salford, the senior Alderman for the Crescent Ward, and the Churchwarden for the Borough or Town of Salford, to be applied in or towards the relief of poor, needy, aged, or impotent inhabitants of the township of Salford as therein mentioned. (5) In these circumstances it appears that while the Act permits of the grant of old age pensions, 'it does not point to the application of the funds of the Charity to such purposes as free libraries and technical education.