Will a Victorian statute prevent local councils selling off our museums & libraries to make ends meet? Paul Letman investigates
The Victorians were in many respects a public-minded lot, thus to facilitate and encourage grants of land for school sites, and for institutions promoting literature, science and the fine arts, and places of worship, they passed a number of statutes such as the School Sites Acts (SSA) of 1836 to 1844, the Literary and Scientific Institutions Act 1854 (LSIA 1854) and the Places of Worship Sites Act 1873.
SSA 1841 has already been the subject of much judicial attention, as schools established under that Act have been closed over the years. But it is LSIA 1854 that is now under the spotlight, as a result of present day austerity measures and the plans of many local authorities to sell off long established museums and libraries to make ends meet (see the Financial Times 29 March 2011 “Councils in a bind as library sell-off falls foul of Victorian law”).
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