(1)Any funds for the time being held in the joint names of the Clerk of the Council of the Duchy of Lancaster, the registrar of any district of the Court of Chancery of the County Palatine of Lancaster and the Comptroller of the said court, being funds held in trust for any charity subject to the jurisdiction of the Charity Commissioners or of the Minister of Education, or in trust for any ecclesiastical corporation in the Church of England may, if the Vice-Chancellor, on an application made in that behalf to the registrar, as the case may be, either by the Charity Commissioners or the Church Commissioners, thinks fit so to direct, be transferred to the official trustees of charitable funds or the Church Commissioners respectively in trust for the charity or ecclesiastical corporation upon the trusts upon which the funds were held before the transfer.
(2)Notwithstanding anything in the enactments relating to the said court or in any rule or order made thereunder, no fees shall be payable under those Acts or any such rule or order in respect of a transfer of funds made under this section.
(3)In this section—
" ecclesiastical corporation " means any ecclesiastical corporation within the meaning of the Episcopal and Capitular Estates Act, 1851, and includes the incumbent of a benefice;
" benefice " means a benefice with or without cure of souls, and includes rectories and vicarages, perpetual curacies and endowed public chapels, parochial chapelries and chapelries or districts belonging or reputed to belong, or annexed or reputed to be annexed, to any church or chapel.