ABSTRACT
The constant theme running through the voluntary school managers’ activities was that of keeping the school solvent. Attempts to secure loans or overdrafts from banks were often made in anticipation of the following year’s grant and/or subscriptions. The trust deed of the Clitheroe National School, Lancashire provided for the filling up of vacancies when the minimum number of trustees existed by vesting the premises in the remaining former trustees and the newly elected or merging trustees jointly. It was unanimously resolved at a meeting of the school managers in July, 1882, that the matter be settled by having the names of the seven existing managers placed in the deed as trustees. Trustees appointed by the deed were usually the principal officiating minister for the time being of the parish or ecclesiastic district, and the churchwardens. “It is the duty of Trustees,” stated a nineteenth-century law manual, “to get in and protect the property entrusted to their charge”.
