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[1958] Ch 300. A fund was raised to pay for funeral expenses, etc., of a group of army cadets who had been killed in a bus crash. Since the families of the cadets had private-law actions against the bus company, the amount raised was far in excess of what was required. The question then arose how to distribute the surplus. Harman J followed the decision ofre abbott (1900), which had held that the surplus of a non-charitable benevolent fund should be held on trust for its subscribers.

Since the bulk of the money in Gillingham had been raised by donations from the public, it would clearly be very difficult to return the surplus. However, there was no doubt that in principle aresulting trust could be imposed on the surplus in favour of the subscribers. And so it was.

In re west sussex constabulary widows fund (1971), although the general principle -- that surplus funds should be returned to subscribers -- was upheld, the Court of Appeal declined to rule that funds raised from public donations should be held on trust for the public donors. The Court doubted that Gillingham should really be read as imposing such a requirement anyway. Where the contributions were from specific, identifiable bequests, then the surplus would be held on resulting trust for the donors' estates.

In the light ofwestdeutsche v islington (1996), it has to be questioned whether any of Abott, Gillingham_, or _West Sussex_ can still be regarded as correctly decided.