Queen Bounty. councillors, and judges, were incorporated by letters patent. Any five of the governors, of whom three at least shall be archbishops and bishops, shall be a quorum, and sufficient at any court for the despatch by majority of votes of all business (1). The Interpretation Act, 1889 (52 & 53 Vict. c. 63), provides "that the expression Queen Anne's Bounty, shall mean 'the Governors of the Bounty of the Queen for the augmentation of the maintenance of the poor clergy.'" Under 17 Geo. 3, c. 53 (known as Gilbert's Act), s. 12, the governors may lend money to incumbents to repair and rebuild their residence houses to the amount of £100, on which no interest is to be paid, where the annual value of the living 18 under £50; and to the amount of two years' value of the living in other cases, on which interest at 4 per cent. is to be paid (2). The duties of the board have from time to time been considerably extended. In addition to the collection and distribution of the first-fruits and tenths and the acceptance of private benefactions for poor benefices, they have had numerous other duties cast upon them by the Legislature, such as the important duties under the Ecclesiastical Dilapidations Áct, 1871 (3), the receipt and management, as trustees, of endowment funds (4), proceeds of redemption of ecclesiastical tithe rentcharge (5), consideration money for enfranchisement of copyholds held of manors attached to benefices (6), proceeds of sale of parsonages (7), old buildings (8), and glebes in certain cases (9), and numerous other funds. CONVOCATION. Lastly, in connection with the subject of ecclesiastical persons and bodies, a brief allusion must be made to Convocation, which is defined by Sir Travers Twiss (10), as an assembly of the spirituality of the realm of England, which is summoned by the metropolitan archbishops of Canterbury and York respectively, within their ecclesiastical provinces. The two Convocations of Canterbury and York are summoned at the same time as Parliament, pursuant to a royal writ issued (1) 28 & 29 Vict. c. 69, s. 5. (2) Amended by 1 & 2 Vict. c. 23, 8. 4. (3) 34 & 35 Vict. c. 43. (4) 2 & 3 Vict. c. 49, ss. 12, 13; 3 & 4 Vict. c. 20, s. 5. (*) 9 & 10 Vict. c. 73, s. 8. () 1 & 2 Vict. c. 23, s. 17. (8) 2 & 3 Vict. c. 49, s 17. (9) 2 & 3 Vict. c. 49, ss. 15, 16; 8 & 9 Vict. c. 70, s. 20; 9 & 10 Vict. c. 164, ss. 19, 20. (10) Article on Convocation, Enelyclopædia Britannica to which the reader is referred. See also Cripps' Ecclesiastical Law, 6th ed. p. 21, et seq. tion. by the Sovereign as head of the Church. They are in the Convocanature of a parliament, and all the lower orders of clergy have representatives. The Convocation of York consists of one house, and that of Canterbury of two; the archbishop and bishops forming the upper, and the lower consisting of deans, archdeacons, and the proctors for the chapters and for the parochial clergy (1). The position of Convocation was much considered by the Queen's Bench Division in a recent case in which a rule for a mandamus was obtained, calling upon the Archbishop of York, as president of the convocation of the province of York, to show cause why a mandamus should not issue directing him to admit into convocation a canon as a proctor duly elected to represent the clergy of the archdeaconry of Durham in the Lower House. The Archbishop argued the case in person, and those who desire to understand the past history and present position of convocation will do well to peruse with care the arguments and judgment. Lord Coleridge in delivering the judgment of the Court to the effect that they had no jurisdiction to grant the mandamus commanding the archbishop to admit the candidate to Convocation, after reviewing at some length the history of the subject, expressed himself as follows: "What we are asked to do is to interfere in the internal affairs of an ancient body as old as Parliament and as independent, to control the action of its president, and to revise or reverse his decision on a matter relating to the constitution of the body itself. For 700 or 800 years it is conceded that no precedent for such an interference can be found. Such an interference would not only be without a shadow of precedent, but would be inconsistent with the character and constitution of the body with which we are asked to interfere” (2). Thus far we have considered the law as to ecclesiastical persons and bodies. The next subject for our consideration is things ecclesiastical, under which head we shall first consider parishes, and then notice briefly some of the principal classes of ecclesiastical property. (') Dale's Clergyman's Legal Handbook, 6th ed. p. 1, et seq. The right which the clergy formerly possessed of taxing themselves in convocation was finally extinguished about 1665, in consequence of a verbal and wholly informal agreement between Archbishop Sheldon and Lord Clarendon, who was at (2) The Queen v. The Archbishop of CHAPTER IV. PARISHES. Parishes are either (1) ancient or original parishes. An ancient parish is defined by Blackstone as being that circuit of ground which is committed to the charge of one parson or other minister having cure of souls therein; or (2) statutory parishes, i.e., parishes formed either under a special Act of Parliament, or under General Acts, as the Church Building Acts and the New Parishes Act. Before 1818, when the first of that complicated series of measures known as the Church Building Acts was passed, there was no legal machinery by which a parish could be divided, but under these Acts provision has been made for the formation of the following ecclesiastical districts, viz. : 1. Distinct and separate parishes. 2. District parishes. 3. District chapelries. 4. Consolidated chapelries. 5. Particular or patronage districts. 7. Peel districts. 8. Peel parishes. 9. New parishes for ecclesiastical purposes. 10. Separate benefices. 11. United and disunited benefices. The reader will find hereafter (at p. 1156) a tabular view of the method on which the principal of these districts are formed under the various Church Building Acts, which are there particularly mentioned, and the New Parishes Act. Foremost in importance among this latter class comes Lord Blandford's Act (19 & 20 Vict. c. 104), and the 15th section of that Act, which has been justly described as the pith and essence of the whole, and the point towards which all other provisions converge, provides that “The incumbent of every new parish created, or thereafter to be created pursuant to the provisions of the Acts of 1843 and 1844, or of that Act shall, saving the rights of the bishop of the diocese, have sole and exclusive cure of souls, and the exclusive right of performing all ecclesiastical offices within the limits of the same, for the resident inhabitants therein, who shall for all ecclesiastical purposes be parishioners thereof and of no other parish, and that the new parish shall have the same rights and privileges, and be subject to the same liabilities and no other as a distinct and separate parish" (1). (1) See Fuller v. Alford, 10 Q. B. D. 418, and note, post, p. 1159. CHAPTER V. ECCLESIASTICAL PROPERTY. Ecclesiastical persons, whether rectors, vicars, or perpetual curates, are in the position of tenants for life of the lands which they hold in right of the Church (jure ecclesix) (1), and may accordingly be restrained from opening new mines or gravel pits, or cutting timber, except for repairs, unless by leave. An Act has very recently been passed to facilitate the sale of glebe lands, which is to be cited as the "Glebe Lands Act, 1888 (2)." The general idea of the Act may be indicated by saying that it to some extent applies the principles of the Settled Land Act (ante, p. 146) to glebe lands, treating the incumbent as the tenant for life. It provides that the incumbent of any benefice may from time to time, after the prescribed notices to the bishop of the diocese and the patron of the benefice, apply in the prescribed manner to the Board of Agriculture to approve the sale of the glebe land of the benefice, or any part of it, except the parsonage house and such land appurtenant thereto as hereinafter mentioned. If the Board of Agriculture think fit to entertain the application, and is satisfied that the application has been duly made, and that an objection to the sale either has not been made by the bishop or patron, or if made ought not to prevent the sale, and that the sale will be for the permanent benefit of the benefice, it may approve the sale of the land, subject to the provisions of the Act, and the incumbent, with such approval, may sell the land. The Board of Agriculture, however, is not to have power to approve the sale of any land occupied by the parsonage house, (1) Dale's Clerical Handbook, 6th ed. p. 178, citing Cruse_Dig. tit. 3, ch. i. In Sowerby v. Fryer, L. R. 8 Eq. 417, it was laid down that the expression of Lord Hardwicke in Knight v. Moseley, that 66 parsons have been indulged in selling timber and stone where the money has been applied in repairs," merely means that where the trees or the quarries are far distant from the spot where they are wanted, the timber or stone may be sold, and similar materials purchased on the spot with the proceeds. () 51 & 52 Vict. c. 20 (as altered by 52 & 53 Vict. c. 30). See rules issued under this Act, Law Journal, September, 1890. |