was variously estimated at sums ranging from £1,100 to £3,000. The minister’s income was stated by one speaker to be £539 per annum nett—£508 derived from a sum of £20,974 13s. 11d. invested in Consols, and with other sources making a gross revenue of £641 18s. 9d., from which deductions amounting to £102 7s. 6d. had to be made.
Another speaker gravely cautioned the meeting against over-estimating the capitalised value of this living by remarking that the present incumbent was then a comparatively young man of only forty-two, and healthy at that.
It was given as the opinion of another speaker that the existing method of electing their parson was undesirable in the best interests of the church, and ought to be forthwith discontinued. Also it was contended that if a sale could be effected, any sum that resulted therefrom might very advantageously be expended in the town for the benefit of the inhabitants generally.
One stalwart stickler for “the eternal fitness of things” upheld the sound principle of the members of every church exercising the right to choose their own minister, and he deprecated generally the practice of trafficking in advowsons.
In the end, although those in favour of selling almost threatened to apply for an Act of Parliament for effecting a sale compulsorily, the meeting finally resolved by a very substantial majority: “That it was not advisable at the present time to sell the Advowson.”
So that two well-conducted public meetings, held within a brief space of each other, were unable to come to any definite decision by which the position of things would be materially altered.
XXI.—Willenhall Church Endowments.
By the courtesy of Mr. S. M. Slater, of Darlaston, a summarised, but fairly comprehensive account of the Willenhall endowments, and the somewhat exceptional parochial privileges connected therewith, may be given here.
The foundation of the Endowment of the Benefice and the establishment of the right of the Parishioners, or rather the Parishioners of the Township “having lands of inheritance there,” may be said to rest upon, or at all events to have been defined and regulated by, three documents, namely:—
(a) A Decree dated the 27th March in the 5th Year of James the 1st (1607), made in pursuance of an Inquisition, or Commission, issued by the King on the 12th February of the previous (regnal) year.