Reference
X174/112
Title
Contemporary Copy of X174/111 19th century (Orig. 1695?) Fragment only.
Trustees V Grant and Gilbert.
Date free text
1823
Production date
From: 1800 To: 1823
Scope and Content
In brief, the story of the disputes from which the following documents arose (X174/113-120) seem to have been as follows, though events about the year 1808 are by no means clear.
In 1800, the Trustees drew up a mem. of agreement to lease a wharf at Linslade to Grant, a Leighton Buzzard coal merchant. In 1805 Gilbert, a Staffs. Colliery owner agreed to lease an adjoining site and to built a wharf etc. thereon. Grant countered this by offering to buy all the coal of Gilbert; to which the latter agreed. Having no further use for the site he had leased Gilbert, sub let to a local man until 1807, when Grant obtained the sub-lease of the site for the purpose of storing timber there.
In 1805 however, the trustees had required Grant to replace the mem. of agreement of 1800 by a regular Lease as the title of the Coal Merchants original site. Grant claimed that the terms of the written agreement of 1800 had been superseded by a verbal agreement which altered the boundaries of the lands leased in such a way as seems to have given him control of ingress and egress to the rest of the frontage of the wharf. In this case, with his agreement with Gilbert above and with his own land, he would be able to prevent anyone setting up rival business on the trustees land. The trustees denied the verbal agreement and insisted that any lease must be based on the terms of the written agreement. In 1806 they appealed to law; and were upheld; they then claimed that the whole agreement with Grant was void, and eventually applied for and obtained an Ejection, which Grant countered by filing an injunction to prevent the writ being issued. It was not until 1813 that the trustees obtained posession of their premises.
Meantime in 1808, Gilbert the Staffordshire Coal Owner claiming that the proceedings against Grant made the continuance of his lease uncertain had ceased to pay rent, and in 1815, the trustees once more went to law, this time against Gilbert's executors to obtain the payment of their back rent. In 1816, Gilbert's executors surrendered their lease.
These two cases cost the trustees some £800 and as the Charity Commissioners reported in 1823 diminished the Charitable work of the Trustees for some years because revenues were devoted to pay legal fees.
Reference
Level of description
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