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HOUSE TO HOUSE CHARITABLE COLLECTIONS ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1952

HOUSE TO HOUSE CHARITABLE COLLECTIONS ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1952 -
LONG TITLE

An Act to provide for the regulation of house to house collections
for charitable purposes; and for matters connected therewith.
[6th May 1952]
Charitable collections from house to house to be licensed.

HOUSE TO HOUSE CHARITABLE COLLECTIONS ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1952 -
SECT 1

1.(1) Subject to the provisions of this Act, no collection for a
charitable purpose shall be made unless the requirements of this Act
as to a licence for the promotion of such collection are satisfied.

(2) If a person promotes a collection for a charitable purpose, and
a collection for that purpose is made in any locality pursuant to
such promotion, then, unless there is in force, throughout the
period during which the collection is made in that locality, a
licence authorising him, or authorising another person under whose
authority he acts, to promote a collection therein for that purpose,
he shall be guilty of an offence.

(3) If a person acts as a collector in any locality for the
purposes of a collection for a charitable purpose, then, unless
there is in force, at all times when he so acts, a licence
authorising a promoter under whose authority he acts, or authorising
the collector himself, to promote a collection therein for that
purpose, he shall be guilty of an offence.

(4) If the county inspector of police for the area comprising a
locality in which a collection for a charitable purpose is being or
is proposed to be made is satisfied that that purpose is local in
character and that the collection is likely to be completed within
a short period of time, he may grant to the person who appears to
him to be principally concerned in the promotion of the collection
a certificate in the prescribed form, and, where a certificate is
so granted, the provisions of this Act, except the provisions of
sections five and six thereof and the provisions of section seven
thereof in so far as they relate to those sections, shall not
apply, in relation to a collection made for that purpose within
such locality and within such period as may be specified in the
certificate, to the person to whom the certificate is granted or to
any person authorised by him to promote the collection or to act
as a collector for the purposes thereof.

HOUSE TO HOUSE CHARITABLE COLLECTIONS ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1952 -
SECT 2
Licences.

2.(1) Where a person who is promoting, or proposes to promote, a
collection in any locality for a charitable purpose makes to the
county inspector of police for the area comprising that locality an
application in the prescribed manner specifying the purpose of the
collection and the locality within which the collection is to be
made, and furnishes such county inspector with the prescribed
information, the county inspector shall, subject to the following
provisions of this section, grant to him a licence authorising him
to promote a collection within that locality for that purpose.

(2) A licence shall be granted for such period, not being longer
than twelve months, as may be specified in the application, and
shall, unless it is previously revoked, remain in force for the
period so specified:

Provided that, if it appears to a county inspector of police to be
expedient to provide for the simultaneous expiration of licences to
be granted by him in respect of collections which in his opinion
are likely to be proposed to be made annually or continuously over
a long period, he may, on the grant of such a licence, grant it
for a period shorter or longer than that specified in the
application therefor, or for a period longer than twelve months (but
not exceeding eighteen months), as may be requisite for that
purpose.

(3) A county inspector of police may refuse to grant a licence,
or, where a licence has been granted, may revoke it, if it appears
to him that

(a)the total amount likely to be applied for charitable purposes as
the result of the collection (including any amount already so
applied) is inadequate in proportion to the value of the proceeds
likely to be received (including any proceeds already received);

(b)remuneration which is excessive in relation to the total amount
aforesaid is likely to be, or has been, retained or received out
of the proceeds of the collection by any person;

(c)the grant of a licence would be likely to facilitate the
commission of an offence under paragraph (f) of section four of the
Vagrancy Act, 1824, or that an offence under that section has been
committed in connection with the collection;

(d)the applicant or the holder of the licence is not a fit and
proper person to hold a licence by reason of the fact that he has
been convicted in the United Kingdom or in the Republic of Ireland
of any of the offences specified in the Schedule to this Act, or
has been convicted in any part of Her Majesty's dominions of any
offence conviction for which necessarily involved a finding that he
acted fraudulently or dishonestly, or of an offence of a kind the
commission of which would be likely to be facilitated by the grant
of a licence;

(e)the applicant or the holder of the licence, in promoting a
collection in respect of which a licence has been granted to him,
has failed to exercise due diligence to secure that persons
authorised by him to act as collectors for the purposes of the
collection were fit and proper persons, to secure compliance on the
part of persons so authorised with the provisions of regulations
made under this Act, or to prevent prescribed badges or prescribed
certificates of authority being obtained by persons other than
persons so authorised; or

(f)the applicant or holder of the licence has refused or neglected
to furnish to the county inspector of police such information as
the inspector may have reasonably required for the purpose of
informing himself as to any of the matters specified in the
foregoing paragraphs.

(4) When a county inspector of police refuses to grant a licence
or revokes a licence which has been granted, he shall forthwith
give written notice to the applicant or holder of the licence
stating upon which one or more of the grounds set out in
sub-section (3) of this section the licence has been refused or
revoked and informing the applicant or holder of the right of
appeal given by this section, and the applicant or holder of the
licence may thereupon appeal to the Minister of Home Affairs (in
this Act referred to as "the Minister") against the refusal or
revocation of the licence as the case may be and the decision of
the Minister shall be final.

(5) The time within which any such appeal may be brought shall be
fourteen days from the date on which notice is given under
sub-section (4) of this section.

(6) If the Minister decides that the appeal shall be allowed, the
county inspector of police shall forthwith issue a licence or cancel
the revocation as the case may be in accordance with the decision
of the Minister.

HOUSE TO HOUSE CHARITABLE COLLECTIONS ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1952 -
SECT 3
Exemptions in the case of certain collections.

3.(1) Where the Minister is satisfied that a person pursues a
charitable purpose throughout the whole of Northern Ireland and is
desirous of promoting collections for that purpose, the Minister may
by order direct that he shall be exempt from the provisons of
sub-section (2) of section one of this Act as respects all
collections for that purpose, and whilst an order so made is in
force, the provisions of this Act shall have effect in relation to
the person exempted, to a promoter of a collection for that purpose
who acts under the authority of the person exempted, and to a
person who so acts as a collector for the purposes of any such
collection, as if a licence authorising the person exempted to
promote the collection had been in force.

(2) Any order made under this section may be revoked or varied by
a subsequent order made by the Minister.

HOUSE TO HOUSE CHARITABLE COLLECTIONS ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1952 -
SECT 4
Regulations.

4.(1) The Ministry of Home Affairs may make regulations for
prescribing anything which by this Act is required to be prescribed,
and for regulating the manner in which collections, in respect of
which licences have been granted or orders have been made under the
last foregoing section, may be carried out and the conduct of
promoters and collectors in relation to such collections.

(2) Without prejudice to the generality of the powers conferred by
the foregoing sub-section, regulations made thereunder may make
provision for all or any of the following matters, that is to say:

(a)for requiring and regulating the use by collectors, of prescribed
badges and prescribed certificates of authority, and the issue,
custody, production and return thereof, and, in particular, for
requiring collectors on demand by a police constable or by any
occupant of a house visited to produce their certificates of
authority;

(b)in the case of collections in respect of which licences have
been granted, for requiring that the prescribed certificates of
authority of the collectors shall be authenticated in a manner
approved by the county inspector of police for the area in respect
of which the licence was granted, and that their prescribed badges
shall have inserted therein or annexed thereto in a manner and form
so approved a general indication of the purpose of the collection;

(c)for prohibiting persons below a prescribed age from acting, and
others from causing them to act, as collectors;

(d)for preventing annoyance to the occupants of houses visited by
collectors;

(e)for requiring the prescribed information with respect to the
expenses, proceeds and application of the proceeds of collections to
be furnished, in the case of collections in respect of which
licences have been granted, by the person to whom the licence was
granted to the county inspector of police by whom it was granted,
and, in the case of collections in respect of which an order has
been made, by the person thereby exempted from the provisions of
sub-section (2) of section one of this Act to the Ministry of Home
Affairs, and for requiring the information furnished to be vouched
and authenticated in such manner as may be prescribed.

(3) Any person who contravenes or fails to comply with the
provisions of a regulation made under this Act shall be guilty of
an offence.

(4) Any regulations made under this Act shall be laid before
Parliament as soon as may be after they are made, and if either
House of Parliament, within the statutory period next after any such
regulations have been laid before it, resolves that the regulations
be annulled, the regulations shall thereupon become void, without
prejudice, however, to anything previously done thereunder or to the
making of new regulations.

HOUSE TO HOUSE CHARITABLE COLLECTIONS ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1952 -
SECT 5
Unauthorised use of badges, &c.

5. If any person, in connection with any appeal made by him to
the public in association with a representation that the appeal is
for a charitable purpose, displays or uses

(a)a prescribed badge or a prescribed certificate of authority, not
being a badge or certificate for the time being held by him for
the purposes of the appeal pursuant to regulations made under this
Act, or

(b)any badge or device, or any certificate or other document, so
nearly resembling a prescribed badge or, as the case may be, a
prescribed certificate of authority as to be calculated to deceive,

Collector to give name, &c. to police on demand.

HOUSE TO HOUSE CHARITABLE COLLECTIONS ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1952 -
SECT 6

6. A police officer or constable may require any person whom he
believes to be acting as a collector for the purposes of a
collection for a charitable purpose to declare to him immediately
his name and address, and if any person fails to comply with a
requirement duly made to him under this section, he shall be guilty
of an offence.

HOUSE TO HOUSE CHARITABLE COLLECTIONS ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1952 -
SECT 7
Penalties.

7.(1) Any promoter guilty of an offence under sub-section (2) of
section one of this Act shall be liable, on summary conviction, to
imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not
exceeding one hundred pounds, or to both such imprisonment and such
fine.

(2) Any collector guilty of an offence under sub-section (3) of
section one of this Act shall be liable, on summary conviction, in
the case of a first conviction, to a fine not exceeding five
pounds, or in the case of a second or subsequent conviction, to
imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or to a fine
not exceeding twenty-five pounds, or to both such imprisonment and
such fine.

(3) Any person guilty of an offence under sub-section (3) of
section four of this Act shall be liable, on summary conviction, to
a fine not exceeding five pounds.

(4) Any person guilty of an offence under section five of this Act
shall be liable, on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term
not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding one hundred
pounds, or to both such imprisonment and such fine.

(5) Any person guilty of an offence under section six of this Act
shall be liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding
five pounds.

(6) If any person in furnishing any information for the purposes of
this Act knowingly or recklessly makes a statement false in a
material particular, he shall be guilty of an offence, and shall be
liable, on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not
exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds,
or to both such imprisonment and such fine.

(7) Where an offence under this Act committed by a corporation is
proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or
to be attributable to any culpable neglect of duty on the part of,
any director, manager, secretary, or other officer of the
corporation, he, as well as the corporation, shall be deemed to be
guilty of that offence and shall be liable to be proceeded against
and punished accordingly.

HOUSE TO HOUSE CHARITABLE COLLECTIONS ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1952 -
SECT 8
Interpretation.

8.(1) In this Act the following expressions have the meanings hereby
respectively assigned to them, that is to say:

"charitable purpose" means any charitable, benevolent or philanthropic
purpose, whether or not the purpose is charitable within the meaning
of any rule of law;

"collection" means an appeal to the public, made by means of visits
from house to house, to give, whether for consideration or not,
money or other property; and "collector" means, in relation to a
collection, a person who makes the appeal in the course of such
visits as aforesaid;

"house" includes a place of businesss;

"licence" means a licence under this Act;

"Minister" has the meaning assigned to it by sub-section (4) of
section two of this Act;

"prescribed" means prescribed by regulations made under this Act;

"proceeds" means, in relation to a collection, all money and all
other property given, whether for consideration or not, in response
to the appeal made;

"promoter" means, in relation to a collection, a person who causes
others to act, whether for remuneration or otherwise, as collectors
for the purposes of the collection; and "promote" and "promotion"
have corresponding meanings.

(2) For the purposes of this Act, a collection shall be deemed to
be made for a particular purpose where the appeal is made in
association with a representation that the money or other property
appealed for, or part thereof, will be applied for that purpose.

(3) In the application of this Act to collections made or proposed
to be made in the county borough of Belfast references to a county
inspector of police shall be construed as references to the
Commissioner of Police for that borough.

Subs.(4) rep. by 1954 c.33 (NI) s.48 sch.

HOUSE TO HOUSE CHARITABLE COLLECTIONS ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1952 -
SECT 9
Short title.

9.(1) This Act may be cited as the House to House Charitable
Collections Act (Northern Ireland), 1952.

Subs.(2) rep. by SLR 1973Offences under sections forty-seven to
fifty-six of the Offences against the Person Act, 1861.

[Robbery, blackmail and burglary, and offences in the Republic of
Ireland substantially corresponding thereto.]

Offences in Scotland involving personal violence or lewd, indecent,
or libidinous conduct, or dishonest appropriation of property.

Offences under the Street Collections Regulation (Scotland) Act, 1915.

Offences under section five of the Police, Factories, &c.
(Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1916.

Offences under the House to House Collections Act, 1939.