Legislation

School Sites Act 1851

This was the fourth of five School Sites Acts passed between 1841 and 1852, which facilitated the purchase of land for school buildings and allowed for 'Parliamentary Grants for the Education of the Poor'.

They were the School Sites Acts 1841, 1844, 1849, 1851, and 1852

In the printed version the sections are numbered using Roman numerals (I, II, III etc).

Terms used in the School Sites Acts

entail: land settled on a number of persons in succession

fee simple: belonging to the owner and heirs in perpetuity

fee tail: a type of tenure in land with restrictions (entailments) regarding the line of heirs to whom it may be willed

hereditament and heritage: property that can be inherited

messuage: a dwelling house with outbuildings and land assigned to its use

seisin: possession of land by freehold

tenant in tail: a person entitled to an entailed interest (see entail above)

The text of the School Sites Act 1851 was prepared by Derek Gillard and uploaded on 14 October 2019.


School Sites Act 1851

© Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.


[page 237]

VICTORIA

School Sites Act 1851

1851 CHAPTER 24

An Act to amend the Acts for the granting of Sites for Schools. [24th July 1851.]

WHEREAS by the Statute Fourth and Fifth Victoria, Chapter Thirty-eight, Power is given to divers Persons therein mentioned to grant, convey, and enfranchise a certain Portion of Land for the Purpose of a Site for a School for the Education of poor Persons, or for the Residence of a Schoolmaster or Schoolmistress, or otherwise for the Education of poor Persons in religious and useful Knowledge, and Provisions are contained therein for facilitating the Conveyance of such Sites and perpetuating the Trusts of the Deeds: And whereas the Persons therein mentioned having been authorized to grant any Number of Sites for distinct and separate Schools, and Residences for the Master or Mistress thereof, it is provided that the Site of each School and Residence should not exceed the Extent of One Acre, and it is also provided that not more than One such Site should be in the same Parish: And whereas by the Twelfth and Thirteenth Victoria, Chapter Forty-nine, it is declared and enacted, that nothing in the last-recited Act contained should prevent any Person or Corporation from granting any Number of Sites for separate and distinct Schools in the same Parish, provided the aggregate Quantity of Land granted by such Person in the same Parish should not exceed the Extent of One Acre: And whereas by


[page 238]

reason of the great Extent of some Parishes, wherein the Population is very large, this Limitation is found to be productive of Inconvenience, and to prevent the Extension of the Education of the Poor; and it is desirable to make further Provision in this Behalf: Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the Authority of the same, as follows:

1 The Word Parish in the 4 & 5 Vict. c. 38 s. 9 and 12 & 13 Vict. c. 49 s. 3 to signify an Ecclesiastical District in any divided Parish

The Word Parish in the Sections of the Statutes herein referred to shall, in the Case of any Parish which has heretofore been or shall hereafter be divided by lawful Authority into Two or more Ecclesiastical Districts, whether confined to such Parish, or comprising also any Part of another Parish, be construed with reference to such Parish to signify each such Ecclesiastical District.

2 Incorporation of this Act with recited Acts

This Act shall be construed as and be deemed to be a Part of the said recited Acts, except so far as it amends the same.