Contents
Background
The Ecclesiastical Commissioners had been set up in 1840 with the aims of
- Eliminating the disparities of clergy salaries;
- Putting an end to clergy holding multiple posts (known as pluralities);
- Putting an end to clergy not living in their parishes.
The last point, relevant to Deopham, was taken up by Lord Robert Henley Henley in a report addressed to the King in 1832:
The most grievous of these Evils, Sire, is the Non-residence of the Beneficed Clergy. This is so extensive, that, it appears from the last Parliamentary Returns, out of 10,533 Livings in England and Wales, there are only 4413 Residents: — more than 4000 Livings are insufficient to maintain a Minister:— more than 4800 have no fit Residence upon them.1
The most prominent Evil in the Church, is the Non-Residence of the Beneficed Clergy and the System of Pluralities.
To what extent the system of Non Residence prevails in our Church it is sufficient to observe: that by the Parliamentary Return of 1827, out of 10,533, the total number of Benefices in England and Wales, the number of Residents is only 4413, and the total number of Non Residents doing their duty is 1590. By a Return of the same year of the number of Resident and licensed Curates, it appears that of the Livings where the Incumbents are Non Resident, there are 1223 which are of the annual Value of £300 and upwards.
This Non-Residence is of two sorts, that which is voluntary and that which is involuntary. The former exists where two or more pieces of preferment, of which one is sufficient for the decent support of a minister, are held by the same individual. The latter is caused by the insufficiency of the value of Benefices, or by the want of a proper Residence, or, as is too often the case, by both united.2
Having been created, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners took several years to investigate courses of action and to prepare legislation. The outcome as far as Deopham was concerned was that
- The arrangement that had persisted with the Rev. Richard Adams who lived in Edingthorpe and hardly ever, if at all, visited Deopham came to an end. (The Rev. Henry Spencer was his curate who managed church matters in the village until the death of the Rev. Richard Adams.) For the first time in several years, Deopham had its own vicar with the appointment of the Rev. George Turner in 1850;
- The Ecclesiastical Commissioners topped up the salaries of clergy in parishes with more than 2000 parishioners: this would not have included Deopham;
- The Ecclesiastical Commissioners were given powers to acquire, manage and redistribute the assets of the Deans, Chapters and Cathedrals. This meant that the Manor of Deopham of the Dean & Chapter of Canterbury was acquired by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. This transfer of ownership was formally publicised in the London Gazette of August 8th 1862, as shown below.
Announcement in the London Gazette of 1862
The following is a partial extract from this announcement. The various schedules to which reference is made in this document do not include Deopham – meaning that the Manor of Deopham of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury was definitely in the scope of those assets transferred to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The most relevant sections are highlighted.
Now, therefore, with the consent of the Dean and Chapter of the cathedral and metropolitical Church of Christ, Canterbury, and of the Right Honourable and most Reverend John Bird, Archbishop of Canterbury, as Visitor of the said Dean and Chapter, testified by their having hereunto affixed their respective corporate seals, we humbly recommend and propose that all the manors, lands, tithes, tenements, and hereditaments which now belong, either in possession or reversion, to the said Dean and Chapter (excepting any right of ecclesiastical patronage, the cathedral church, and the precincts thereof, and the lauds, tenements, and hereditaments particularly described in the schedule hereunto annexed, marked B), together with the benefit of the perpetual land-tax charged thereupon, which has been redeemed, subject nevertheless to the liabilities and claims upon or in respect of the same manors, lands, tithes, tenements, and hereditaments of, or to which the said Dean and Chapter are now liable, and subject also to the special liabilities and payments set forth in the schedule hereunto annexed, marked C. And all the estate and interest therein of the said Dean and Chapter shall, upon and from the day on which any Order of Your Majesty in Council ratifying this scheme shall be duly published in the London Gazette, and without any conveyance or assurance in the Law, other than any such duly published Order, become and be transferred to and vested in us and our successors, and that we and they shall thereupon become absolutely seized of the same in fee, and shall be entitled to the rents, profits, and proceeds thereof as from the twenty-ninth day of September now last past, and that in consideration of, and for such transfer and conveyance, the lands, tenements, and hereditaments particularly set forth in the schedule hereunto annexed, marked A, together with the benefit of the perpetual land-tax charged thereon, which has been redeemed, and all our estate and interest therein shall, upon and from the day on which any order of Your Majesty in Council ratifying this scheme shall be duly published in the London Gazette, and without any conveyance or assurance in the Law, other than any such duly published Order, become and be transferred to and vested in the said Dean and Chapter for ever, in as full and ample a manner as if such estates had formed part of the ancient possessions of the said Dean and Chapter, subject to any liabilities to which the said lands, tenements, and hereditaments are now subject or legally liable; and that they, the said Dean and Chapter, shall be entitled to the rents, profits, and proceeds thereof as from the said twenty-ninth day of September last, and, that in further consideration of, and for such transfer and conveyance, we shall surrender all right and be excluded from all participation in respect of the said suspended canonries, to and in the estates and property to be retained by the said Dean and Chapter, or to be hereby or hereafter transferred to them as part of their permanent endowment, and in the rents and profits thereof, or in the money payments hereinafter mentioned, and that there shall be paid by us on the first day of April and the first day of October in every year to the said Dean and Chapter, until they shall have been put into possession of real estates, as hereinafter mentioned, in respect of the half year then last past, the sum of two thousand eight hundred and fifty pounds, which annual money payments, or the rents, profits, and proceeds of the estates to be hereafter assigned in lieu thereof, together with the rents, profits,
and proceeds of the property to be retained by and to be hereby assigned to the said Dean and Chapter, are to be appropriated by the said Dean and Chapter to the sustentation of the fabric, and the maintenance of the services of the church, and all other the capitular expenses of the said Dean and Chapter, and also to provide the incomes intended to be secured to the Deans and Canons respectively, under the provisions of an order of Your Majesty in Council, bearing date the twenty seventh day of August, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, and duly published in the London Gazette on the first day of September following, in full substitution of, and for the arrangements for regulating such incomes by such order directed to be made.
The London Gazette published August 8th 1862; Issue: 22651; Page: 3926ff.
https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/22651/page/3926
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| Date | Change |
|---|---|
| 4/8/25 | Published |
Deopham History 