St Philip's School Some people may have heard that there has been a recent court case in the High Court about St Philip's School which may well go to the Court of Appeal. It is a very complicated matter and I may well have misunderstood elements of it, but this is my present understanding. In the 1840's the government wanted to encourage new schools but without being prepared to spend any money on them. So they provided for wealthy persons to give land to the church on which a church school might be built on the condition that when that land was no longer required for a school, the land would revert to the estate of those who originally gave the land. Over the years the law about this has been changes, court decisions have been made and alas there is a degree of uncertainty about the matter. When St Philip's School was closed the understanding I had was that the Diocesan Board of Education was the trustee of the property and that there were no reverter rights so the proceeds of the sale went to the Board of education for use in new or enlarged schools in the diocese. In the event, I believe that St Philip's was sold by auction for some £120,000 about twice as much as the estimated value. In the meantime a partnership approached those they considered to be the descendants of those who had originally given the land and bought their rights to any reverter. (As these people were not aware they had such rights and as at the time they sold them whether or not there was any value in them, there rights were sold for a modest sum.) Then, after the sale, this partnership which had bought these rights asked the Diocesan Board of education for the £120,000. The board of Education believing there was no reverter in this case was taken to the High Court who decided against them. The matter seems to have turned on the rather obscure fact that in the 1920's and 1930's some children at the school came from outside the area around St Philip's. I do not fully understand all the finer points of the law. I do think it very sad that our cash strapped education service is deprived of resources and if this decision is upheld then on many occasions when a school is built on a new site, funds, may be lost from the education service. We hope that as there will be a direct successor school to All Saints and St Stephen's and as the Earl of Romney gave the land for both of these schools, funds will not be lost to education . Christopher Morgan-Jones |