The Independent Turner Society (www.jmwturner.org) has drawn up an Address to the Parliament of the United Kingdom calling for a public inquiry into JMW Turner's art bequest to the nation. The failure to honour the terms of the artist's bequests and to provide an adequate building to house "Turner's Gallery" has been the subject of complaint ever since it was received in 1856 and hung, 1856-7, in a makeshift way at Marlborough House, London. Since then there has been one shift after another resulting in the division of it between the National Gallery and Tate Britain, the latter opening in 1987 a wing for its part, named after its donor Sir Charles Clore, which has generally been regarded as hopelessly unsuitable.

The Address follows earlier petitions made since 1975 and is likewise signed by people distinguished in the arts and public life as well as having the support of many ordinary art lovers. The initial reactions have included favourable ones from members of Parliament.

The last inquiry was in 1861, and, though its report was then accepted by the government and National Gallery, its recommendations and Turner's wishes have step by step been ignored since 1883.

What had been thought to be the legal position of the bequest in 1861 - that it had been accepted in 1856 with Turner's conditions remaining binding - has recently been temporarily overturned by a decision made by the Charity Commission of England and Wales. The Commission sat in private and has refused to make public the grounds for that decision.

Now, taking an opposite view, is the opinion of Mr Leolin Price, CBE, QC, of Lincoln's Inn, who has endorsed the opinion taken by a former Lord Chancellor of Great Britain in 1861. In 1906 Turner's heir-at-law took the matter up, and now the heirs of the artist's next of kin are doing so in their turn, and are considering whether they might sue to reclaim the £7 billion collection (a valuation made by Douglass Montrose-Graem, founder of the Turner Museum of Sarasota, Florida). Efforts are being made to trace descendants in America. The Artists' General Benevolent Institution, a charity of which Turner was chairman for a while, and the Royal Academy of Arts might also lay claim to shares.