File containing:
Assessments from R Peters, tax collector, of 26 Northampton Street, to Mr Purchas of CPS for poor rates, paving rates and church rates to be collected on behalf of the Parish of the Holy Sepulchre, and related correspondence;
Copy of ‘An act to exempt from County, Borough, Parochial and other local Rates, Land and Buildings occupied by Scientific or Literary Societies’, 28 July 1843;
Correspondence between the Society (particularly Dr Paget) and its solicitors at 6 New Square, Lincoln’s Inn, London (variously Denton Kinderley / Denton Kinderley & Domville) concerning the case, heard in the Court of the Queen’s Bench;
Legal documents relating to the case (including many background documents touching on the Society’s activities and finance, including copies of the charter; bye-laws; Reading Room regulations; abstracts of receipts and disbursements 1849-52; list of scientific institutions to which the Transactions of the Society are sent; list of magazines, periodicals and newspapers supplied to the reading room of the Society; and regulations for the attendance of the Curator in the Society’s house);
Certificate of exemption from rates 14 July 1854.
[The Society was made exempt, in 1843, from the payment of local rates and enjoyed that exemption until 16 April 1852 when it was assessed to the poor rate. The resulting dispute concluded that the Society remained exempt from rates in respect of the whole house but ‘it would be well to have a separate assessment in respect of the reading room since possibly the actual use of that room may render the Society rateable in respect of it alone’.]
The file also contains a note by a ‘Committee appointed - - - to consider the Fine for the renewal of the Lease of the Society’s house’, which considers that ‘the Fine asked by St John’s College is too high’, 26 November 1846.