Definition
A statute restricting the period during which income or profits from settled property may be directed to accumulate rather than be distributed. The paradigmatic example is the English statute 39 & 40 Geo. III, c. 98 (1800), commonly called the Thellusson Act, enacted in response to the will of Peter Thellusson, who directed that the income from his estate accumulate for the benefit of remote descendants over multiple generations. Parliament responded by forbidding such accumulation directions beyond defined maximum periods. Under the Act, a settlor or testator could direct accumulation only for one of several specified periods — typically the life of the grantor, twenty-one years from the grantor's death, or the minority of a living or en ventre sa mère person. Any direction to accumulate beyond the permitted period was void as to the excess, and the income fell into the immediate gift or passed under the residuary disposition.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is almost entirely a term of English property law history. Researchers encountering it in American legal materials prior to the mid-twentieth century will typically be reading sources that treat it as an English doctrine of interest for comparative or persuasive purposes, not as binding domestic authority. The Thellusson Act itself was never received as part of American common law, though several U.S. states enacted their own accumulation statutes modeled loosely on it — most notably New York, whose Real Property Law and later the Estates, Powers and Trusts Law addressed accumulations. Researchers working with trusts, wills, or settled estates in American jurisdictions should look to the specific state statute rather than assuming the English rule applies.
The term also intersects with the rule against perpetuities. The two doctrines are related but distinct: the rule against perpetuities limits the vesting of future interests, while accumulation statutes specifically restrict the direction of income accumulation regardless of vesting. Historical sources sometimes blur this distinction, and pre-twentieth-century treatises on future interests treat both doctrines together. Researchers should be alert to this overlap when working with older materials on trust administration or testamentary disposition.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary gives a compressed but accurate entry: the statute is defined as the English law forbidding accumulation of settled property beyond a certain period. This is consistent with its role in English equity practice. What Black's does not supply — and what researchers need — is context: the Act was a parliamentary reaction to a specific, notorious testamentary scheme, and its structure (permitting accumulation during enumerated periods but voiding excess directions) became the template for subsequent drafting in England and influenced American statutory reform. Later English legislation, including the Law of Property Act 1925 and the Perpetuities and Accumulations Act 1964 (and its successor, the Perpetuities and Accumulations Act 2009), substantially revised the accumulation rules, so sources depending on the original 39 & 40 Geo. III framework may be outdated even for English law questions.
No American historical legal dictionary consulted treats this as a term of domestic American law, which itself signals the proper scope of the entry: it is a term of art for identifying English statutory authority, encountered primarily when American courts or treatise writers cite English chancery practice for persuasive purposes.
Jurisdictional Note
In England, the original Thellusson Act has been superseded by subsequent legislation; the current framework is the Perpetuities and Accumulations Act 2009. In American jurisdictions, there is no uniform rule: some states enacted accumulation restrictions by statute, others address accumulations only through rule-against-perpetuities doctrine or trust law reform, and the Uniform Trust Code and Uniform Statutory Rule Against Perpetuities do not reproduce the English framework directly. Research in any specific American jurisdiction requires consulting that state's trust and property statutes independently.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Statutes of Repose vs. Statutes of Limitation — civpro_133, The Law Mind Civil Procedure & Evidence Encyclopedia (contextual background on how time-limiting statutes are analyzed and distinguished; limited relevance to accumulation doctrine specifically, but useful for understanding the general legislative technique of imposing durational restrictions on legal arrangements).