Scottish Court of Session Decisions

This was a petition by John Ord Mackenzie and others, trustees of the Portobello Female School, to have a scheme settled and approved for the future administration of the trust.

The petition set forth that the object of the trust was to provide a school for girls of the lower classes, which had been established prior to 1823, and that owing to the

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existence of board schools this had now become impracticable and unnecessary. The trustees lodged a draft scheme, in which they proposed to apply the funds of the trust in, inter alia, “paying to Miss Jemima Sinclair, late headmistress of the school, a retiring allowance of £10 per annum, to take effect from the date when her salary as headmistress ceased.”

The petition was remitted to Mr James Fleming, advocate, to report on the regularity of the procedure and the merits of the proposed scheme.

Mr Fleming reported, inter alia, as follows:— “The petitioners further ask that the scheme for the future administration of the trust should include a power to award a retiring allowance of £10 perannum to Miss Jemima Sinclair, late headmistress of the school. Miss Sinclair became a mistress in the school in 1849, and excepting for a break of five years, in 1880–1885, remained there until the school was closed in 1898. Her salary at the latter date was £60. She had been awarded a pension of £25 by the Scotch Education Department. This seems to me a suitable case for granting a small pension, but I think it right to direct your Lordships' attention to the case of the Dollar Institution, 18 R. 174. In that case, as here, the application was not for a general power of awarding pensions, but only for the purpose of enabling specific payments to be made to particular individuals, which otherwise there was no power to make. In that case the application was for alteration of a scheme under the Educational Endowments Act 1882, while the present is an appeal to the nobile officium of the Court, but I venture to think it is a matter for consideration whether the principle there laid down does not apply to the present case.”

Argued for the Petitioner—The case of the Governors of Dollar Institution, Petitioners, Nov. 28, 1890, 18 R. 174, was decided on the terms of the Education Endowments (Scotland) Act 1882 (45 and 46 Vict. c. 59), sec. 20, and was a proposal to grant retiring pensions to masters of a school which was still being kept up. It was not an authority on the present application, where the nobile officium of the Court was appealed to, and where the proposed allowance was of the nature of compensation to Miss Sinclair for being deprived of her employment. In all the cases compensation to teachers whose offices were abolished had been sanctioned— Governors of Logan and Johnston School, Dec. 5, 1890, 18 R. 190; Governors of Heriot Trust, Nov. 17, 1897, 25 R. 91; Shaw Stewart, Petitioner, July 18, 1899, 36 S.L.R. 924.

In other points of the proposed scheme certain amendments were agreed to.