Churchwardens' Manual / their duties, powers, rights, and privilages

by George Henry Sumner

Questions are so often put to me as to the relation existing between district parishes and the mother Church, that it may be useful if a few points are mentioned with respect to which difficulties occasionally arise. The preliminaries of marriage and the solemnization of the rite itself are a fruitful source of difficulty. They have however, as a matter of fact, been set at rest by a decision in the Court of Queen’s Bench, in the case of Fuller v. Alford, before Mr. Justice Cave and Mr. Justice Day, which affects all new parishes hitherto created, or that may hereafter be created, under the Peel and Blandford Acts.

The question at issue was as to the right of the inhabitants of a district parish to have their banns published and to be married in the Church of the mother parish, and as to the right of the Incumbent of the mother parish to publish the banns, solemnise the marriage, and receive the fees for the same in the case of residents in the district parish. The case is fully reported in the Times of March 9th, 1883. Mr. Justice Cave, in giving judgment for the Plaintiff, said that the Act of 1843 as well as that of 1856 (the words of the latter being clearer than those of the former) made the district a new parish for all ecclesiastical purposes, and banns of marriage might be published and marriages solemnized, and all the laws and customs then relating to them would apply to the new parish, the effect of which was that the banns must be published in the Church of the new parish. Though recent legislation had brought into prominence the civil character of the marriage contract, and had enabled it to be entered into before a Registrar, still he had no doubt that the

solemnization of matrimony in a Church was within the words “ecclesiastical purposes.” The inhabitants therefore of a district parish have no more right to have their banns asked or their marriage solemnised in the mother Church than they have in any other Church in England, so long as they reside in that district.

District parishes, it will be observed, are separate parishes for Ecclesiastical purposes. These words affect the question as to the right of the ratepaying parishioners of a new district voting for the Churchwardens of the old parish. This they have a right to do on the following ground:—The Churchwardens of an old parish have functions to perform which are rather secular than ecclesiastical. They are in some cases ex-officio Overseers, and in many cases officially concerned in the management of endowed charities. The creation therefore of a district for ecclesiastical purposes does not deprive the inhabitants of the new district of the right which they had before of voting for Churchwardens in the old

civil parish of which they continue to be ratepayers. The ratepayers of the whole of the old parish have consequently a right to vote in vestry at the election of the Churchwardens in the old parish. The privilege, however, is not reciprocal, for the ratepayers in the old parish have no similar right of attending at the vestry and voting for Churchwardens in the new district, because they are elected “for ecclesiastical purposes” only.

It would be impossible to speak of the duties of Churchwardens without touching upon the vexed questions of pews. I suppose that if we could turn the hands of the clock back for some centuries, and were then legislating for the future of the Church with our experience of the pew system by a prophetic anachronism clearly present in our minds, we should hardly suggest for legislation such laws as would bring about the existing state of things. With the Epistle of St. James in our thoughts there are some points in our present legal system which most persons find it difficult to justify. But it is a thorny

subject, and I do not want to dogmatise. It is, perhaps, just the one very point with respect to which great caution is needed, much charity, much forbearance. You cannot ride rough-shod over old prejudices, or if you do you are sure sooner or later to suffer for it. No doubt in theory (to use the words of the Bishop of Carlisle) the Churchwardens, as the officers of the ordinary, have, subject to him, the sole appointment and arrangement of the seats. They are to act to the best of their judgment, and without favour, to the best advantage of all. [43] And for the most part, in new Churches, this arrangement works well. Either by agreement of the heads of the parish the Church is declared to be in the popular sense of the term “free and open,” which is perhaps on the whole the best of all or else by mutual forbearance and general co-operation an arrangement is arrived at by which the worshippers in Church have from time to time seats allotted to them.

It is not, however, in the case of new

Churches that difficulties arise, except when these new Churches take the place of old ones. Then it may be that the old abuses of faculty pews and of supposed exclusive rights in certain holdings have to be contended with. Cases have occurred where supposed usurpers have been kept out of faculty pews when there is plenty of room, or of locking up the pew when the so-called owner is absent. Faculty pews are an anomaly, and I wish there were none, but if the title to them can be proved they are legal and must be dealt with accordingly. I do not imagine that any new faculties are now issued by the Courts, but in the rebuilding of old Churches the dealing with existing faculties requires very tender handling. It were heartily to be wished that all legal holders of faculty pews would consent to waive their rights for the future, for the sake of peace and the avoidance of jealousies. Of course in such a case the Churchwardens would feel it an obligation which it would be their pleasure to fulfil, to provide those who give up their rights with such accommodation

as their families may require. But if, as is sometimes the case, they stand exclusively upon their rights, Churchwardens have no power to abrogate the law, and can only look forward to the future with hope, either that a short Act of Parliament may be passed enacting that at the death of the present owner of a faculty pew that particular faculty should cease, and determine, only excepting (unless with the consent of the owner) cases in which under the Church Building Acts the faculty was issued in consequence of money paid down for the building of the Church with the understanding that the faculty would be granted in consequence: or if this be not done that in the lapse of time some holder of the faculty may regard the matter from an unselfish standpoint and voluntarily resign his rights.