COPYHOLDS BILL. (Hansard, 18 July 1853)

The LORD CHANCELLOR

said, the Copyholds Act provided, that when any money was paid for the enfranchisement of copyhold land it should be either paid into the Bank of England in the name of the Accountant of the Court of Chancery, or else should be placed in the hands of some trustees, and the interest of it paid to the party whose manor had been enfranchised. In the case of ecclesiastical corporations in the possession of manorial rights, whether corporations sole or aggregate, they had in this way received the interest of the moneys so paid for enfranchisement. Under the Act passed the year before last, enabling the Episcopal and Capitular Commission to enfran- 376 chise, the same process took place, but with this difference—that, though the money was paid in, as in the other case, instead of the whole of the interest going to the ecclesiastical corporation, so much only was paid as was an equivalent on a fair calculation for what had been received in respect to the manor as it stood before enfranchisement, and the surplus, if any, went to the Commissioners for ecclesiastical purposes. The object of this Bill was to regulate the enfranchisement with respect to these corporations, and to provide that for the future, with respect to any enfranchisement entered into by the Capitular Commissioners, the money should be paid over to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, to be applied according to the provisions of the Act.