Statute Law Repeals - Law Commission - Ministry of Justice

1.84 The sole purpose of the Mason’s Orphanage Act 1897 110 was to validate a
number of property transactions (sales, leases and conveyances) that the
trustees of the Sir Josiah Mason’s Almshouse and Orphanage had made without
the prior approval of the Charity Commissioners in accordance with charity law.
The effect of this failure to obtain such approval was to render all the property
transactions void. Accordingly the 1897 Act provided that every such property
transaction (and every payment made and act done on the strength of those
transactions) was to be retrospectively validated. The 1897 Act took effect when
it came into force on 3 June 1897. Having taken effect it then became spent. It is
now proposed for repeal on that basis. The repeal will have no effect on the
previous working of the 1897 Act. 111
Infant Orphan Asylum
1.85 The purpose of the Infant Orphan Asylum Act 1899 112 was to reverse the effect of
an unlawful but inadvertent encroachment of waste land in Epping Forest. In
1897 the trustees of the Infant Orphan Asylum at Wanstead started to build a
gymnasium on a strip of land adjoining their existing orphans’ school. This strip of
land had formed part of the wasteland of Epping Forest and was protected from
building encroachment by the Epping Forest Act 1878. 113 Section 15 of the 1878
Act provided that any such protected land that was built upon should
automatically revert to the Epping Forest conservators. Although the prompt
intervention of the conservators resulted in the removal of the offending building,
the conservators had no power to reverse the automatic reverter of the strip.
Legislation was needed to achieve that result.
1.86 The 1899 Act was accordingly passed to re-vest the strip in the Infant Orphan
Asylum. The Act became spent once it had taken effect at Royal Assent on 20
June 1899 and may now be repealed. 114
110 60 & 61 Vict. c.xix.
111 This is because of the general savings provision in the Interpretation Act 1978, whereby
where an Act repeals an earlier enactment the repeal does not (unless the contrary
intention appears) affect the previous operation of the enactment repealed: the 1978 Act, s
16(1)(b).
112 62 & 63 Vict. c.xlix.
113 41 & 42 Vict. c.ccxiii.
114 The Infant Orphan Asylum was renamed “the Royal Wanstead School” in 1939. The
charity is today known as the Royal Wanstead Children’s Foundation. The school itself
was closed in 1971 and the land was sold. Today it is occupied by Snaresbrook Crown
Court.
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