Page:Prerogatives of the Crown.djvu/150

1 30 Franchises. — Corporations, [Ch. VIII. The powers of the Crown as to visiting of corporations also demand attention. A visitor is a person appointed by law to inspect the proceedings of corporations, and to secure their adherence to the purposes of their institution, and to settle in general, without appeal from his decision (a), any disputes respecting their management. The founder of a corporation is naturally its visitor. In the case of eleemosynary or charit- able institutions, a private person is in general the visitor as founder. The founder of all corporations in the strictest and original sense is the King alone, for he only can incorporate a society; and in civil incorporations, such as mayor and com- monalty, &c. where there are no possessions or endowments given to the body, there is no other founder but the King; but in eleemosynary foundations, such as colleges and hospitals, where there is an endowment of lands, the law distinguishes and makes two species of foundation; the one fnndatio incU j)iens, or the incorporation, in which sense the King is the general founder of all colleges and hospitals ; the other fund atto perficiens, or the dotation of it, in which sense the first gift of the revenues is the foundation, and he who gives them is in law the founder, and it is in this last sense that we generally call a man the founder of a college or hospital {b). It is said by Sir Edward Coke, that the foundership is so inseparably incident to the blood of the founder, that it cannot be granted over, and that if a subject founder should grant his foundership to the King by deed inroUed, it would be a void grant (c). But here the King has his prerogative; for if the King and a private man join in endowing an eleemosynary foundation, the King alone shall be the founder of it (d). And in general the King being the sole founder of all civil corporations, and the en- dower the perficient founder of all eleemosynary ones, the right of visitation of the former results, according to the rule laid down, to the King; and of the latter to the patron or endower. Where the founder of a college or eleemosynary corporation has appointed no special visitor,- if his heirs become extinct, or if they cannot be found, the right of visitation de- («) 1 Burr. QOO. (r) 11 Co. 77, a. 78, a.- lb) 10 Rep. 33. V,n;ere no express (rf) 50 Ass. 6. 1 Kol. 514. 9 Co. visitor of a royal endowment is ap- 129, b. 2 Inst. 68, cites 44 Edw. 3. pointed, the Crowa is visitor by impli- 24, 25. cation, 2 P. W. 325. volves