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the bishops' charges. Thus of 620 churches and chapels in the diocese of Chester, there were but sixty in 1826 which had only one service on Sunday; and Bishop Marsh in 1831 said that there were sixty churches in the diocese of Peterborough which a few years earlier had one service and now had two.

Peel's Commissioners to draw up a scheme of reform for bishoprics, cathedrals, and parochial livings were appointed on February 4, 1835. They had before them the statistics compiled, but not yet published, by Grey's Church Revenues Commission, and were thus able to present their First Report—which was confined to bishoprics as early as March 19.1 Some curious anomalies were shown on an accompanying ecclesiastical map. Parts of several dioceses were embedded in others. York owned an island, so to speak, in the midst of Durham; so did Lincoln in York, and Bangor in St. Asaph; Canterbury bisected Chichester and mutilated Rochester; and London seemed really to have sprayed itself over Lincoln. A Bill to abolish these "peculiar jurisdictions' had been contemplated by Brougham; and the Commissioners disposed of them by recommending that all detached parishes should be subject to the jurisdiction in which they were situated. The dioceses were very unequal both in population and extent, and in some cases very ill arranged-the county of Dorset, for example, being separated by Somerset from its see of Bristol; and a general shuffling of territories was proposed with a view to contracting the larger divisions and expanding

"

1 A fact which ought to have astonished those writers who are evidently not aware of the earlier Commission. See Walpole, iv. 404, and the Political History, xi. 355. Canon Perry (iii. 202) says that this Commission was renewed by Peel. We shall find that there were four Commissions during this period: The Ecclesiastical Courts Commission (Wellington), 1830; the Church Revenues Commission (Grey), 1832; the Ecclesiastical Duties and Revenues Commission (Peel), usually called the Commission of Inquiry, 1835; and the Ecclesiastical Commission (statutory and permanent), 1836.

• Hansard, xix. 932.

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the smaller. Three dioceses were to be unchangedExeter, Bath and Wells, and Chichester; Llandaff, which had no episcopal residence, was to be merged in Bristol; Bangor and St. Asaph were to be united;1 the huge diocese of Lincoln was to take over Nottinghamshire from York, but otherwise was to be greatly reduced, ceding Buckinghamshire to Oxford, Leicestershire to Peterborough, Huntingdonshire and Bedfordshire to Ely; and, in order to relieve the great industrial dioceses of Chester and York, two new sees were to be created at Manchester and Ripon. Not equality, but a lesser degree of inequality, was the object aimed at by the Commissioners. They recommended that Canterbury, York, London, Durham, and Winchester should retain in some measure their present superiority of income; and that the other sees should not be reduced where the income was no more than £5500, and should not be augmented where it was as much as £4500. On this basis at least a dozen sees would have to be provided for; and if the total episcopal revenues were really £158,000, as returned for 1829-1831, their requirements could be met; but a decrease of about £9000 was anticipated; and the Commissioners therefore proposed that some of the poorer sees should be supplemented from cathedral endowments, preferably in St. Paul's and Westminster.

On April 8, 1835, about three weeks after the presentation of this Report, Peel resigned. On June 6 the Melbourne Government issued a new Commission in identical terms and except for the necessary change in Ministerial members-to the same persons; and the Commission, thus reconstituted, presented its Second Report on March 4, 1836. The see of Bristol, instead of absorbing Llandaff, was now to be suppressed, the city and suburbs falling to Bath and Wells, and the country districts to Gloucester; and Sodor and Man,

1 This suggestion, though not withdrawn, was never carried out.

with only eighteen parishes, was to be united to Carlisle.1 In this Report the average income of a bishop was reduced by £500, and the suggestion of preferments in commendam was consequently withdrawn. Four sees were to be financially unchanged-York, Bath and Wells, Norwich, and Salisbury; six sees-Canterbury, London, Durham, Winchester, Ely, and Worcester-were to be reduced. The total surplus would be £30,800, and this would suffice to provide the remaining sees with incomes varying from £4000 to £5000.

Having thus disposed of the bishoprics, the Commissioners passed to a far more controversial question— that of the cathedral and collegiate chapters. These were of two classes, known as the Old and the New Foundation, according as they had or had not existed in their present shape before the reign of Henry VIII.3 In the former case the corporate funds were divided between the dean and resident canons, each of whom had in addition a separate estate; and, outside these participants, there were non-resident prebendaries, who also, as a rule, had separate estates, and whose duties were confined to the preaching-usually by deputy— of an occasional sermon. In the latter case that of the case-that New Foundation-there were no such prebendaries, and the residents, except at Durham and Ely, were not separately endowed. The Commissioners proposed to abolish, as they became vacant, nearly all the non-residentiary prebends, only a few of the smallest being retained as marks of distinction for deserving clergymen. But the magnitude of this reform was rather apparent than

1 Not carried out.

* Durham was to be reduced from £17,800 to £8000; and this was made possible by the abolition of the Bishop's Palatine or secular jurisdiction. It was in this court that Williams (p. 30) had been prosecuted for libel. Similar jurisdictions, in so far as they were still retained by the sees of York and Ely, were also to be abolished.

3 The New Cathedrals included both those which were founded at the Reformation and those which, having previously been served by regular clergy, were then reorganised.

real; for the preferments in question were either of small value or lucrative only on the renewal of leases, so that it was possible to hold one and get nothing from it.1 Residents, whether of the Old Foundation, or— at Durham and Ely-of the New, were not in future to hold estates; and, most important of all, seventy-two residentiary prebends, or nearly half of the whole number, were to be abolished, in order that the cathedrals, one or two excepted, might be reduced to a uniform staff of four canons. Thirty sinecure rectories, not in private patronage, were also to be suppressed. It was estimated that these sweeping reforms, when complete, would yield £130,000 a year; and this sum was to be applied to parochial augmentation according to a scale which was afterwards announced by Lord John Russell -livings with less than a thousand parishioners to be brought up, where necessary, to £150, and other small livings to be raised in the ratio of population to £400. The chapters, even as at present constituted, were to lose most of their patronage, for the presentation to a vacant living, if not accepted by one of their own number or a minor canon, was to lapse to the bishop; and a similar destination was intimated for the patronage accruing to prebendal estates.

In the last section of their Report the Commissioners addressed themselves under discouraging conditions to the question of plurality. As 1926 benefices were under £100 and 3528 were under £150, as 2878 benefices had no parsonage, and in 1728 the parsonage was uninhabitable, it would have been impossible in this matter to enforce a simple prohibition. Desiring to restrict the evil "within as narrow limits as the actual state of the Church will permit," the Commissioners recommended that plurality should not be permitted within a wider radius than ten miles; that not more than two cures

1 Bishop Monk's Charge, 1838, pp. 15, 21; The Prebendary, p. 17. 2 Hansard, xxxv. 355.

BISHOPRICS REORGANISED

133 should be held by the same person, and then only if neither of them exceeded £500; and that the exemptions and licences allowed under the Act of 1803 should be curtailed. They also recommended that not more than two preferments of any kind should be held by the same person, except in the case of an archdeacon, the worst paid of all dignitaries, who, in addition to his office, might hold both a cure and a canonry. Two further Reports were issued in the summer of 1836. The Commissioners had been unfortunate in their two attempts to dispose of the see of Bristol, both being equally unpopular; and in their Third Report they proposed that it should be united with Gloucester, and that the bishop should reside alternately at the two cities.1 That certain persons must be appointed to carry out the proposed reforms, had hitherto been assumed rather than suggested; but they now definitely recommended a statutory Commission. The Fourth Report had reference mainly to the Welsh cathedrals, which, being poorer than the English, were to have no more than two canons. By way of retarding the proposed reduction of chapters in England, it was proposed that every third vacant canonry should be filled.

Melbourne, who was himself one of the Commissioners, lost no time in seeking to give effect to their decision. Three important measures with this object were brought into Parliament-an Established Church Bill, confined mainly to the reorganisation of bishoprics; an Ecclesiastical Duties and Revenues Bill, relating to the cathedrals and usually called the Dean and Chapter Bill; and a Plurality Bill. Only the first of these measures became law this session, and it was framed in a manner which caused some surprise. Nothing was directly enacted in regard to the Church. All the proposed reforms were thrown into the preamble; and, proceeding on a recital that the appointment by Parliament of Commissioners to lay schemes before the King in Council had

1 The see of Bristol was reconstituted in 1897.