A dispute over a small piece of land on the South Atlantic island of St Helena has brought together an unusual combination of history, property law and a question about the limits of government ownership. The land was associated with a former dairy belonging to Napoleon Bonaparte, who spent the final years of his life in exile on the island. At the centre of the case was a man named Francis, who argued that his long occupation of the plot gave him a legal claim to it. His application raised a question that had not previously been tested in court on St Helena: could someone acquire government-owned land simply by occupying it for 15 years?
How Francis used a 15-year possession rule to claim two Crown-owned units
According to The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the case concerned four industrial units identified as numbers 240, 241, 242 and 249. Francis had entered into a lease with the Governor of St Helena on 25 March 1995, covering units 240 and 242. After taking possession of those premises, he also occupied unit 241. He later took possession of unit 249 in 2006.His claim centred on units 241 and 249, which he said he had occupied for long enough to acquire ownership under the island’s land legislation. The relevant provision was section 135 of the Registered Land Ordinance 1980. It allows ownership to pass to someone who has possessed land openly, peacefully and without interruption for 15 years, provided the occupation was without the permission of the person legally entitled to possess it.In July 2023, Francis approached the Registrar of Lands to have the register amended to recognise his claimed ownership. The Crown objected, arguing that government-owned land could not be acquired in this way. The Registrar then referred the legal question to the Supreme Court of St Helena, leaving the individual circumstances of Francis’s claim to be considered separately.
1833 law that became central to the Crown’s land ownership argument
The Crown’s objection rested partly on a provision of the Saint Helena Act 1833, originally the Government of India Act 1833. Section 112 transferred St Helena, along with specified properties and government-related assets on the island, to the Crown.The government also relied on section 159 of the 1980 Registered Land Ordinance. This provision protects interests, rights and powers given to the Crown or government under other written laws. Its argument was that allowing someone to acquire land through 15 years of occupation would interfere with the Crown’s rights under the older legislation.Reportedly, a separate constitutional provision, section 31, also featured in the proceedings. It gives the Governor, or someone authorised by the Governor, the power to make grants and other dispositions of Crown property. The government argued that the rules allowing ownership to pass through long-term possession could not override this arrangement.The question was therefore not simply whether Francis had occupied the land for long enough. The courts had to consider how an older law governing the island’s transfer to the Crown fitted alongside a much newer system for registering land ownership.
The former dairy gave the land its historical connection
Francis’s legal team argued that the disputed land formed part of the former dairy associated with Longwood House, where Napoleon Bonaparte lived during his exile on St Helena from 1815 until his death in 1821.His lawyers referred to a historical map held at the National Archives in London. They argued that it showed the land being used by the East India Company for commercial purposes by 1830, with parts of it leased or intended for sale. If that account was correct, they said, the property might not have fallen within the category of land used for government purposes under section 112 of the 1833 Act.The Crown disputed this interpretation. Its lawyers pointed to New Longwood House, a building constructed between 1818 and 1821 as a possible replacement for Napoleon’s original residence. Napoleon never moved into it. According to the government’s account, the building subsequently became the residence of Governor Dallas, the last East India Company Governor of St Helena.The Crown cited historical publications referring to Dallas moving into the property in 1832 and a report from 1834 describing the new house as the Governor’s residence.The Privy Council did not settle this historical disagreement. It was not necessary to decide whether the disputed property had actually passed into Crown ownership under the 1833 legislation to resolve the principal legal question.
The case produced different answers in the island’s courts
The first ruling came from Chief Justice Rupert Jones in the Supreme Court of St Helena in 2024. In Francis v Attorney General of St Helena [2024] SHSC 6, he concluded that there was no legal prohibition on acquiring Crown land through prescription.His reasoning included the distinction between a government grant and a transfer of ownership that occurs through the operation of law. He considered that the constitutional provision governing the Governor’s power to dispose of Crown property did not prevent ownership from passing through the statutory possession rules.The Attorney General appealed. Later that year, the Court of Appeal reached a different conclusion in Attorney General of St Helena v Francis [2024] SHCA 5. It agreed that section 31 of the Constitution did not prevent the acquisition of Crown land through prescription. However, it accepted the government’s argument about section 159.The appeal court reasoned that, assuming the 1833 Act had vested the disputed property in the Crown, its ownership was protected by the savings provision in the 1980 Ordinance. It therefore answered the Registrar’s question in the negative.
The land registration system behind the Privy Council’s ruling
The appeal was heard on 16 July 2026 by a panel including Lord Reed, Lord Burrows, Lady Rose, Lord Snowden and Sir Anthony Smellie. Lord Reed delivered the judgment on 16 September 2026.A significant part of the Board’s reasoning concerned the land registration system established by the 1980 Ordinance. St Helena uses a system based on the Torrens model, under which a public register records ownership and other interests affecting each parcel of land.The system is intended to give people a reliable way of establishing who owns a property without having to reconstruct its entire history through old deeds and records. The register is treated as authoritative, subject to certain interests that the legislation allows to exist without being recorded.The Privy Council considered that the Crown’s interpretation of section 159 would undermine this arrangement. If government land could only be acquired through prescription when the Crown had obtained it by a particular means, anyone making such a claim would first have to establish how the government originally acquired the property.The Board also questioned why land acquired by the Crown under an Act of Parliament should receive different treatment from land obtained through a purchase or another route. It found no convincing reason for such a distinction within the legislation.
Why the 15-year rule could apply to government land
The Privy Council examined the wording of section 159 alongside the wider provisions of the Ordinance. It accepted that a literal reading might appear to support the government’s position. However, it concluded that the provision had to be interpreted in the context of the legislation as a whole.The savings clause was intended to protect statutory rights and powers held by the government, including certain rights to enter, regulate or carry out activities on privately owned land. It was not intended to give the Crown’s ownership of land a blanket exemption from the registration system.The distinction mattered because the Ordinance already contained provisions dealing with the registration of Crown property. Section 121, for example, provides for the registration of land to which the Crown becomes entitled under written law or through specified legal procedures.
