Jonathan Garton

Professor

UG Exam Board Chair (Intermediate)
Director of Academic Practice

Charities; Equity & Trusts; Legal History

School of Law
S2.22, Social Sciences Building
University of Warwick
Coventry CV4 7AL
United Kingdom

024 761 51754
Office Hours on Fridays 10am-12noon

Scholarship

Jonathan's main research interests are in the law of trusts, particularly charities, and legal history. His books include The Regulation of Organised Civil Society (Hart 2009), the charities volume of the fifth edition of Halsbury's Laws of England (Lexis 2010), Public Benefit in Charity Law (OUP 2013) and Moffat's Trusts Law (7th ed, CUP 2020).

Forthcoming publications include "The Power of the Settlor" in H Gibson and N Piska (eds), Critical Trust Law: Reading Roger Cotterrell (Counterpress 2024), "Charity and the Roots of Social Welfare in Early Modern England" in Helen Carr et al (eds), Research Handbook on Social Welfare Law (Edward Elgar 2024) and "Charitable Trusts" in Mark Bennett et al (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Trust Laws (OUP 2025).

He is currently writing a monograph on commercial trusts for Edward Elgar’s Principles of Commercial Law series.

Bio Publications

Garton, Jonathan, 2014. Charitable purposes and activities. Current Legal Problems, 67 (1), pp. 373-407
Garton, Jonathan, Mitchella, Charles, 2007. Charities and the NHS : health care provision and the public/private divide. King's Law Journal, 18 (3)
Garton, Jonathan, 2007. Justifying the Cy-pres doctrine. Tolley's Trust Law International, 21, pp. 134-149
Garton, Jonathan, 2006. The judicial review of the decisions of charity trustees. Trust Law International, 20, pp. 160-179
Garton, Jonathan, 2005. The legal definition of charity and the regulation of civil society. Kings College Law Journal, 16 (1), pp. 29-50
Garton, Jonathan, 2003. The role of the trust mechanism in the rule in Re Rose. The Conveyancer and Property Lawyer, pp. 364-379

Garton, Jonathan, 2024. The Power of the Settlor. Pi?ka, Nick; Gibson, Hayley (eds.), Critical Trusts Law : Reading Roger Cotterrell, Oxford, Counterpress
Garton, Jonathan, 2024. Charity and the roots of social welfare in early modern England. Carr, Helen; Salcedo Repoles, Maria Fernanda; Kirton-Darling, Ed; Meers, Jed (eds.), Research Handbook on Social Welfare Law, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar Publishing
Garton, Jonathan, 2021. Agreements : the discovery of the market and the control of the guilds. Conte, Emanuele; Mayali, Laurent (eds.), A Cultural History of Law in the Middle Ages, London, Bloomsbury Academic
Garton, Jonathan, 2018. Principles of regulation of not-for-profits. Harding, Matthew (ed.), Research Handbook on Not-for-Profit Law, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar Publishing
Garton, Jonathan, Probert, Rebecca, Bean, Gerry, Moffat, Graham, 2015. Moffat's Trust Law : text and materials. Cambridge, United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press
Garton, Jonathan, 2014. The fault line of charity. Harding, Matthew; O'Connell, Ann (Law teacher); Stewart, Miranda (eds.), Not-for-profit law : theoretical and comparative perspectives, Cambridge, United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press
Garton, Jonathan, 2013. Public benefit in charity law. Oxford, Oxford University Press
Garton, Jonathan, 2012. National Anti-Vivisection Society v Inland Revenue Commissioners (1948). In Mitchell, Charles; Mitchell, Paul (eds.), Landmark cases in equity, Oxford, Hart, pp. 529-555
Garton, Jonathan, 2010. The future of civil society organisation : towards a theory of civil society regulation. McGregor-Lowndes, Myles; O'Halloran, Kerry (eds.), Modernising charity law : recent developments and future directions, Cheltenham, UK ; Northampton, MA, USA, Edward Elgar
Baker, Richard, Garton, Jonathan, 2010. Cavalier v. Pope (1906). Mitchell, Charles; Mitchell, Paul (eds.), Landmark cases in the law of tort, Oxford ; Portland, Or, Hart Publishing
Garton, Jonathan, 2010. Halsbury's laws of England. Volume 8. London, Lexis Nexis Butterworths
Garton, Jonathan, 2009. The regulation of organised civil society. Oxford ; Portland, Or, Hart Pub

Garton, Jonathan, 2001. Grupo Torras v Al-Sabah. Tolley's Trust Law International, Bloomsbury Professional Ltd, pp. 93-99
Garton, Jonathan, 2001. Trustee Act 2000. Tolley's Trust Law International, Bloomsbury Professional Ltd, pp. 34-40

Teaching Impact

Policy

Jonathan has advised various public bodies, including the Charity Commission, the Cabinet Office, and the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit. In 2012-13 he was Special Adviser to the UK Public Administration Select Committee, advising on its review of charity regulation. His work has been cited in the Australian Parliament and the New Zealand Supreme Court, and in policy documents produced by, amongst others, the Jersey Charity Commissioner, the Cypriot Office of the Commissioner of Volunteerism and NGOs, and the Council of Europe.

Research Supervision

Jonathan welcomes enquiries from prospective PhD supervisees. (Please ensure that you have a research proposal which corresponds with the University of Warwick School of Law requirements.) Previous topics supervised include:

The role of CSOs in the democratisation of Ethiopia
Community organisations in England and Ukraine
Nonprofits in Italy and the UK
Corporate governance of co-operatives

Current PhD students:

Yang Guo