Meanwhile it is well to remember with regard to existing faculty pews that:—
1. The form of appropriation in old faculties varies considerably. In order to ascertain the wording of a particular faculty
application should be made to the Diocesan Registrar.
2. With regard to pews annexed by prescription to certain messuages the right to the pew passes with the messuage, the tenant of which for the time being has also de jure for the time being the prescriptive right to the pew. [46a]
3. No faculty can be legally granted entitling a non-parishioner to a seat in the body of the Church. [46b] Any faculty so worded as to allow this is void as far as that particular point is concerned.
4. No faculty gives power either to the owners and occupiers of the house in respect of which the faculty has been issued to let such seats apart from the houses, or to appropriate them to other persons.
No Churchwarden should ever allow a parishioner to repair the pew which he may
temporarily occupy. Such an act, if done with the sanction of the Churchwardens, may in after years seem to give a claim to proprietorship in that particular pew. Too great care cannot be taken to avoid any future misunderstanding.
The matter is too often looked upon as a party question. The great Duke of Wellington was no party man, and I cannot forbear from quoting in connection with this subject an extract from a letter written to my father, the Bishop of Winchester, in 1836, in response to an application to him to support a Diocesan Church Building Society, which was then in course of formation. The Duke writes concerning providing accommodation in country Churches as follows:—
“It has frequently occurred to me that when Church room is required the first thing to do is to prevail upon individuals to give up the pews which they cannot use . . . If more space was required I should propose that all pews should be given up, that the whole space of the Church should be laid open for the accommodation of all the parishioners indiscriminately, separate chairs of a cheap description being provided for their accommodation. This being done, and space being still required for the accommodation of the parishioners in their attendance upon Divine Service, I would propose to consider the mode of enlarging the Church, or if that could not be effected, of building another Church or Chapel. It must never be forgotten that another Church or Chapel would require the attendance of another Clergyman, who must live and must be remunerated. He can be remunerated only by the sale or hire of the pews and places in the new place of Divine worship; and here again would commence the evil which has in my opinion been the most efficient cause of the non-attendance at Divine worship of the lower classes of the people of this country.” [48]