The struggle for power

This appeared in the Hull Daily Mail on 30 October 1901.  The timing is strange; but it sums up a battle which had been going on for years, and which was, at that point, already lost.

Throughout the 19th century the respective roles of the Master and the City Council, embodied in the committee of Advisers, had not been clearly defined.  The Council hired the Master and theoretically had the power to fire him.  But some Masters had been in the habit of by-passing the committee on matters as important as property transactions.  As early as 1879 the committee had put forward a proposal to downgrade the role to that of Chaplain, reducing the salary and turfing him out of the Master's house.  They argued that the job of Master should be part-time, a pastoral post only.  They agreed to put this scheme off until the current Master, Henry Kemp, died, which he did in 1888.  However, the Council had to get the agreement of the Charity Commissioners, and this was not forthcoming.  A new Master, J T Lewis, was appointed under the old terms and for ten years no response from the Charity Commissioners is recorded.  When Lewis died, in 1898, the Council tried again.  They advertised the job on the same terms as 10 years earlier, and all candidates had to agree to use their “best efforts to effect alterations in the government of the charity and the stipend of the Master” as they had set out. The new Master was William Hay Fea.  In December the Committee was still trying to get an answer from the Charity Commission. The following July the Town Clerk reported that he had sent another application to them, signed by the Master, Fea, and the Mayor and Aldermen.

It was more than a year before they received the Charity Commission’s response, which agreed that a new scheme was desirable and enclosed copies of a draft scheme of their own.  At this point Fea, told that he would have to support whatever the Council decided to do, fell out with the Advisers and no longer attended their meetings.  In November 1900 it was reported that the Commission intended to give "more power to the clergy".  Early in 1901 a detailed scheme was put forward by the Commission.  It proposed that a group of trustees would manage the property and “be the ultimate authority in matters of discipline affecting the inmates”. The Master’s stipend would be reduced by £50. The Town Clerk expressed the Council’s objections; the Master would have more powers, not fewer, because he would be able, for example, to appoint the doctor, matron, nurse and porter; the £50 they would save on his stipend would not cover the cost of employing a clerk and a surveyor. If there had to be trustees, he said, they should all be members of the Council.

It is difficult now to understand why the Council was so opposed to the scheme.  Perhaps they felt that it should follow the same model as the Hull Municipal Charities.  This was (and is) an amalgamation of a number of smaller almshouse charities which were no longer viable and were brought together under one roof in a new building.  This was run entirely by the Council.  

At a meeting of the Committee on 27 July 1901 the Council was still refusing to accept the proposed scheme, and claiming that they had the support of bodies such as the Hull Board of Guardians and the Hull Co-operative Society. At this point the minutes of the Charterhouse (Special) Committee end.  By October, as we see from the cutting, Councillors were still maintaining their opposition and arguing that the charity would be better managed by them.  However, the Charity Commissioners got their way, as the local paper reported.  The new scheme came into effect on 5 November.  

The lengthy document setting out the new "scheme" shows that the Council still had most of the power.  These are the main points:

• The Charterhouse would be run by 9 trustees, 5 of them appointed by the City Council, one by the Archdeacon of the East Riding of Yorkshire, and 3 co-optees, who had to live or work in or near Hull. One of these co-optees had to be a woman. It was stated that the first co-opted member had to be the Rev. Joseph Malet Lambert, because he was first on the council’s list of potential members of committee.  
• The Master had to be a Church of England clergyman aged over 30. He would be appointed by the City Council from a list of 3 submitted by the Trustees. He could be removed by the Trustees for misconduct or infirmity, subject to appeal to the Archbishop of York. The Master would get £250 p.a., a free house and £15 p.a. fuel allowance.
• The Master’s duties were: to perform divine service in the Chapel on Sundays and at least twice during the week; to look after the interests of the inmates, including paying their allowances and enforcing discipline; and to appoint the doctor, matron, nurse and porter.
• Vacancies in the hospital would be filled by the City Council from a list of six submitted by the Trustees. A detailed procedure for selecting the six was laid down.

The scope of the Master's work was now clear.  The Trustees were to handle the property and the money, but inevitably they delegated this, and much else, to the Clerk to the Trustees, who was also the Town Clerk.  It was to be many years before the power of the Council was relinquished.