WHEREAS by letters patent under the Great Seal bearing date the 13th day of November 1849, certain persons therein named were constituted a body corporate with perpetual succession and a common seal by the name of the Canterbury Association for founding a Settlement in New Zealand; and by such letters patent the said Association were made able and capable in law to purchase, receive, possess, and enjoy to them and their successors any goods and chattels whatsoever and wheresoever, and any messuages, lands, tenements or hereditaments in New Zealand and its dependencies, and also to sell, alienate, mortgage, charge or otherwise dispose of such property as they should think proper, and also to act in all the concerns of the said body corporate for the purposes and objects mentioned in the said letters patent as fully and effectually to all intents and purposes whatsoever as any other of Her Majesty's subjects could or might do in their respective concerns: and the purposes and objects of the said Association were in such letters patent declared to be (amongst other thins) for the establishment and maintenance of ecclesiastical arid educational institutions in the Settlement so to be founded as aforesaid in connection with the Church of England as by law established; AND WHEREAS in pursuance of the said letters patent the said Association founded a settlement in New Zealand called the Canterbury Settlement within the Province of Canterbury; AND WHEREAS under and by virtue of the said letters patent and of an Act of Parliament made and passed in the 13th and 14th year of the rein of her present Majesty intituled “An Act Empowering the Canterbury Association to dispose of certain lands in New Zealand” and of a certain other Act of Parliament made and passed in the 14th and 15th year of the reign of Her said Majesty, intituled “An Act to alter and amend an Act empowering the Canterbury Association to dispose of certain lands in New Zealand”, and under and by virtue of divers acts, deeds and things made, done and executed in pursuance of the said letters patent and Acts of Parliament, the said Association, or some person or persons in trust for them, has or have become possessed of or entitled to divers goods, chattels and personal estate, and divers messuages, buildings, lands, tenements, hereditaments, and real estate for the ecclesiastical and educational purposes mentioned in the said letters patent; AND WHEREAS the said Association are desirous that Trustees should be appointed within the said Settlement for the management of the said real and personal property, and that such property should be transferred to and vested in such Trustees accordingly for the ecclesiastical and educational purposes mentioned in the said letters patent in the manner hereinafter mentioned AND it is expedient that such property should be so transferred and vested accordingly, but such objects cannot be effected without the aid of sonic competent legislative authority.