Chapter 10

The voting (recorded on cards) resulted in favour of the Rev. William Elitto Rosedale, M.A., Rector of Canton, Cardiff, for whom there were 265, as against 26 given for the Rev. W. L. Ward, of St. Anne's, Willenhall. The Churchwardens consistently directed the procedure at this public election as nearly as possible along the lines which would be followed by private patronage; they declined to take any active part in the circulation of testimonials, or afford facilities for any candidate to preach in the church, to the possible prejudice of the others, but they passively acquiesced in each one approaching the electors in any way which seemed fitting and proper to himself.

The votes recorded on this occasion were:--

Rev. W. E. Rosedale (Canton, Cardiff) 199 Rev. W. L. Ward (St. Anne's, Willenhall) 157 Rev. J. E. Page (Binfield) 28 Rev. F. W. Ford (London) 1

At four o'clock, Mr. Page (who was the son of a local iron-master) and Mr. Ford retired in favour of Mr. Ward. The Returning Officer was Mr. R. N. Hearne, Steward to the Lords of the Manor of Stowheath, the Duke of Sutherland and Mr. W. T. C. Giffard; and the poll was taken by open voting, each voter recording his vote orally and within the hearing of all present.

The result having been forwarded to the Lords of the Manor, they formally nominated the one at the head of the poll to the Bishop for appointment and induction to the living. The successful candidate was a native, being the son of the Rev. D. Rosedale, to whose exertions the building of Holy Trinity Church was largely due, and in the Vicarage House attached to which the said candidate was born. But he possessed other than local claims, though these, no doubt, prepossessed many Willenhall folk in his favour.

There can be little doubt the election of 1894 was conducted with far more tact and discretion than ever had been exercised on similar occasions previously. There was still the old risk of serious public disturbances; but perhaps more than ever there was, as must generally be the case in such methods of conducting a controversial matter of this description, the danger of unseemly and acrimonious squabblings in public. It reflects the highest credit upon the Churchwardens and all others concerned in the election, that not only was nearly all this avoided, but the possibility always present, of long and embittered litigation to follow, was also reduced to a minimum. It required some firmness and decision to weed down 23 formal applications, and more than twice that number of business-like inquiries, to workable limits for taking a poll.

The litigation of 1834 had arisen through the manufacture of "faggot votes," which were eventually disallowed, and had to be struck off. A difficulty arose in 1894 as to the interpretation of an Act of 1844--would Lord Blandford's Act debar from taking part in the voting the residents in the newly-created ecclesiastical districts of St. Stephen's, St. Anne's, and Holy Trinity, Short Heath? Although at first dubious on the question, the authorities answered it in the negative.

* * * * *

As previously stated, the earliest record of the Advowson is of the year 1408. In the Salt Collections, Vol. XI., p. 218, we find that by a final concord recorded "on the morrow of St. Martin, 10 Henry IV., William Bysshebury and Joan, his wife, acknowledged that seven messuages, eight tofts, one mill, sixty acres of land, ten acres of meadow, and 24s. 6.5d. of rent in Wolverhampton, and the Advowson of the Chapel of Willenhall to be the right of Richard Hethe and William Prestewood, chaplain, and the latter granted them to William Bysshebury and Joan for their lives, with remainder to John Hampton, of Stourton, and Harvise, his wife, and to the heirs of John for ever."

Exactly two centuries later, as we shall learn in the next chapter, the endowments of, and the right of presentation to, the living were placed upon a definite and legal foundation. Suffice it here to say that at the present time there are Trustees appointed by the Charity Commissioners for the purpose of holding the Trust property belonging to the said living, and, with the assistance of an official representing the Commissioners, managing affairs connected therewith.

The Trust, to which Mr. Samuel Mills Slater is solicitor, is under the full control of the Charity Commissioners, who have to be regularly supplied with certified copies of all the Trust accounts.

As we shall see presently, the original Feoffees of the Trust property were appointed in 1608 by a Commission of local magnates and landowners, consisting of William Overton, Bishop of Lichfield; William, Lord Paget, of Beaudesert; Sir John Bowes, of Elford; Sir Edward Littleton, of Pillaton Hall; Sir Edward Leigh, of Rushall; Sir Simon Weston, of St. John's, Lichfield; Sir Robert Stanford, of Perry Hall; Sir Walter Chetwynde, of Grendon and Ingestre; Sir William Chetwynde, of Grendon (half-brother of Sir Walter); Zachary Babington, Doctor in the Civil Law; Raphe Snead, of Keele; Walter Bagott, of Blythfield; William Skeffington, of Fisherwick; Roger Fowke, of Brewood and Wyrley; John Chetwynde, of Rudge, parish of Standon, and Walter Stanley, of West Bromwich--most of them justices for the county of Stafford.

By virtue of a provision in the Decree or award of these Commissioners, the surviving Feoffees were enabled to appoint new Feoffees in the places of the deceased ones. In later times, however, by virtue of the Charitable Trusts Acts, the Board of Charity Commissioners acquired the power of making appointments of new Trustees, and also of removing Trustees.

In the year 1889, the number of Trustees had become reduced to one--Mr. John Davies, then residing at Warwick. By an Order dated 23rd July, 1889, the Board removed Mr. Davies, at his own request, from the office of Trustee, and appointed the following gentlemen to be new Trustees:--

John Clark.

Wm. Henry Hartill.

John Thomas Hartill.

Joseph Johnson.

David Wm. Lees.

Jas. Carpenter Tildesley.

Henry Vaughan.

Henry Hartill Walker, junr.

Of these gentlemen only Messrs. J. T. Hartill, Vaughan, and Walker are now living.

It might be necessary under certain conditions (as, for instance, in any action connected with the sale of the Advowson) to constitute a body of elected Trustees (as distinct from the aforementioned nominated Trustees) of not more than eleven, nor less than five members, duly elected at a statutory meeting of the town's inhabitant freeholders.

As a matter of fact, a public meeting of the owners of the Advowson, convened on the requisition of a memorial to the Incumbent (Rev. W. E. Rosedale), signed by a number of them, was held in the month of June, 1900, to consider a proposal for the sale of the said Advowson. A similar proposal had been discussed in 1898 at a public meeting attended by some 200 owners, when it was suggested that half the sum realised should be handed over to the town authorities, while the other half should be spent on the church and schools.

At this second meeting, over which Mr. T. Nicholls, chairman of the District Council, presided, the sale value of the Advowson was variously estimated at sums ranging from 1,100 to 3,000 pounds. The minister's income was stated by one speaker to be 539 pounds per annum nett--508 pounds derived from a sum of 20,974 pounds 13s. 11d. invested in Consols, and with other sources making a gross revenue of 641 pounds 18s. 9d., from which deductions amounting to 102 pounds 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.

(b) A Deed of the 23rd September of the 6th Year of James the 1st (1608), entered into between the Lords of the Manor of Stowheath on the one hand, and Sir Walter Levison and others, on behalf of themselves and the rest of the Inhabitants of Willenhall, on the other hand.

(c) A Memorandum entered on the Court Rolls of the Manor of Stowheath, dated the 10th October in the 6th Year of James the First (1608).

Reference to Chapter VII. of this work will recall how a Chantry Chapel had been founded and endowed in Willenhall by the Gerveyse family. This Chantry Chapel would be a "separated place" within the Chapel-of-Ease specially used to celebrate masses for the departed souls of certain persons. Now, one of the earliest signs of the approaching Reformation was a decline in the belief in Purgatory; and presently Henry VIII. was empowered by Act of Parliament to seize all lands, tenements, rents, &c., which had been given for the maintenance of Chantry Priests, with all their lamps, candles, torches, and other expensive appointments for what were declared to be "superstitious" uses. But a right was reserved to the King, as head of the Church, to direct such properties to uses which could be regarded as truly "charitable." What became of the Willenhall Chantry endowments?

It is the opinion of Mr. A. A. Rollason, no mean authority on the subject--vide his recondite articles in the "Dudleian," having special reference to a similar Commission of Inquiry held in 1638 as to the alienation of lands belonging to Dudley Grammar School--that the Willenhall Inquisition, or Commission of Inquiry, was brought about, as was that at Dudley, in consequence of the uncertain state of the law as to whether the lands, and the income therefrom, came within the Charitable Uses Act; or whether the gifts were absolutely void.

For while Magna Charta declared "that if any one shall give lands to a religious house, the grant shall be void, and the land forfeited to the lord of the fee"--the abbots of old took care to be "lords of the fee," usually holding their lands direct from the King--there was a Statute of Edward III. by which the King was empowered to grant a Royal licence affording relaxation of lands held under the Statutes of Mortmain.

It seems almost impossible to doubt that the freehold lands belonging to the Willenhall Chantry had escaped confiscation to the Crown under the Statute, I Edward VI., if they had been held solely for performing obits and singing masses for the dead. Yet it is just possible they may have been re-granted to aid in the maintenance of the Curate of the Chapel-of-Ease, in which case they would be recognised as a "charitable use," and were consequently safe.

The Willenhall Inquisition of 1607 was addressed by the King (as stated in the last chapter) to "The Reverend Father in God, William, Bishopp of Coventrie and Lichfield And to our right trustie and well beloved William Lord Pagett and to our trustie and well beloved Sir John Bowes, Sir Edward Littleton, Sir Edward Leigh, Sir Simon Weston, Sir Robert Stanford, Sir Walter Chetwynde and Sir William Chetwynde, Knights, Zacharie Baington (Babington), Doctor of Lawe, Chancellor of Lichfield, Raphe Sneade, Walter Bagott, William Skevington (Skeffington), Roger Fowke, John Chetwynde, and Walter Stanley, Esquires."

It set forth that the King, for the due execution of a certain Statute of 43 Queen Elizabeth, intituled an Act to "redress the misimployment of landes goods and stocks of money theretofore given to charitable uses," and having special trust and confidence in their approved fidelities, &c., had appointed the persons named "to be our Commissions," and thereby gave to them and to any four or more of them full power and authority to enquire "as well by the Oathes of twelve lawful men or more of the County of Stafford as by all other good and lawful waies and meanes accordinge to the purporte and true meaninge of the said Statute, What landes, etc., have at any tyme or tymes been given by us or any of our progenitors or by any other well disposed pson or psons, bodies politique or corporate, for the reliefe of aged impotent and poore people etc.--And of all and singular the abuses misdemeanors breaches of trusts negligences misimployments notimployinge, concealinge, defraudinge, misconvertinge or misgovernment of the same landes tenements rents anuyties pffits hereditments goods chattels money or stocks of money or any of them heretofore given lymitted appointed or assigned to or for any charitable and godlie uses before rehearsed accordinge to the purporte and true meaninge of the said Statute. And upon such enquirie hearinge and examyninge thereof accordinge to the said Statute to sett downe such Orders Judgments and Decrees as the said landes tenements rents anuyties pffits hereditaments goods chattels money and stocks of money may be dulie and faithfullie employed to and for such of the charitable uses and intents before rehearsed respectively for which they were given limited assigned or appointed by the donors and founders thereof accordinge to the purporte and true meaninge of the said Statute."

The Commission then proceeds:--

And therefore we commande you that at cteyne days and places which you or any foure or more of you shall appoint in this behalf ye or any foure or more of you doe make diligent Inquirie and Inquiries upon the pmisses and all and singuler the same and all other things appointed by the said Statute for you or any foure or more of you to doe and execute that ye or foure of you at the least pforme doe and execute that effecte in all points and in everie respect accordinge to the said Statute. . . . And the same Inquisicon and Inquisicons and everie of them togeather with all decrees Judgments orders and proceedinges which you or any foure or more of you shall accordinge to the said Statute thereupon make or sett downe that you or foure or more of you have before Us in our Chancery with all convenient speede . . . under the hands and seals of any foure or more of you. . . And we also command by authoritie hereof our Sheriffe of our said County of Stafford that at such times dayes and places as you or any foure or more of you shall appoint to him he shall cause to come before you or any foure or more of you such and as many honest and lawful men of the said County as well within the liberties as without by whom the truth in the pmisses may best be known to inquire of the pmisses upon their Oathes as you or any foure or more of you shall require and command him.

The Decree before referred to was signed by Sir Edward Leigh, Dr. Zacharie Babington, William Skeffington, John Chetwynde, and Walter Stanley, and was addressed to the Right Honourable Thomas, Lord Ellesmere, Lord Chancellor of England. It set out the Commission and then proceeded as follows:--

Wee therefore by verteue of the said Commission dyd award a pcept to the Sheriffe of the said Countye to somon foure and twentye good and lawfull men of his Baylywicke to be before Us at Lichfeilde the xxijth day of Marche laste paste and did also send a precepte to one Jane Lane Widdow and to Thomas Lane Esquire that claymed intereste in the pmisses to bee before Us att the same day and place to sett forth theire and either of theire tytles (yf they had anie) to the said pmisses att wch daye and place by virtue of the said pcepte to the sayde Sheriffe dyrected as aforesaid a full Jury dyd appeare and Councell on the behalfe of Mrs. Lane and the said Thomas Lane dyd alsoe appear before Us and thereupon wee pceeded to sweare the Jurye who bringe sworne and chardged to inquire of the pmisses after long evidence and examinacon of many witnesses on both pts the said Jurors gave up theire verdicte in such sorte as by an Inquisition hereunto annexed Sealed and subscribed (wch wee doe herewith all ctyfye unto yor Lordshippe into the highe Courte of Chancery) maie appear; that is to say that a pcell of pasture or land called Marchyhills alias Bessalls in Bentley aforesaid, of ye yeerlie value of fyve pounds, was before the fourth yeere of Kinge Edward the Sixth given to Nicholas Hellyn and Richard Whorwood gent., John Podmore Willm Greene Willm Whitmore and William Podmore and their heires to bee Imployed to saye devine service in the Chappell of Willenhall aforesaid for the ease of the Inhabyants there being farre remoote from their prshe Church of Wolverhampton in the said Countye that the pffits of the said lands were from Anno quarto of Kinge Edwarde the sixte so imployed as aforesaid by the space of dyvers yeeres of the said Jane Lane and Thomas Lane and their Tenants And that the same have been misemployed by the space of one whole yeere now laste paste and more all wch pmisses considered wee doe order and decree at Lichfeilde aforesaid by verteue of the said Comission in manner and form followinge That is to saie that the said pcell of groundes and all ye rents revenues yssues and pffitts thereof shall for ever hereafter bee imployed and bestowed upon and towards the maynetaynance of a Curate or Chaplyne for the tyme being to saie devine service in the said Chappell for the ease of the Inhabitants there and that John Wilkes of Willenhall in the said Countye gent, Willm Flemynge als Greene of Willenhall in the said Countye yeoman, Leonard Tomkis of Willenhall in the said Countye yeoman, John Bate of Willenhall in the said Countye yeoman, Richard Bate of Willenhall in the saide Countye yeoman, Willm Baylie of Willenhall in the said Countye yeoman, and Willm Brindley of Willenhall in the said Countye yeoman, theire heires and Assignes shall have and hold the said pmisses to the use and entente aforesaid according to a former feoffm't thereof made and shewed forth to the said Jury at the tyme of the same Inquisicon taken and shall from tyme to tyme and at all tymes hereafter yeerelie Imploye and bestowe the full value thereof upon and towards the maynetaynance of a Curate or Chaplyne to saye devyne service in the said Chappell.

As will be seen, the Decree states clearly that the yearly income of the Bentley lands was to be used towards the maintenance of a Curate to say Divine Service in the Chapel; this at once brought it under the Charitable Uses Act, and removed it from liability to be confiscated under 23, Henry VIII., c. 10., for perpetuating practices regarded as superstitious and contrary to Reformation doctrines. It will be noted that a "former feoffment" is mentioned--may not this have been a re-grant by the King, which has been hinted at? The grant to Nicholas Hellyn and others in 4 Edward VI. has all the appearance of being a gift from the Crown to the purposes of the newly constituted Church of England.

The Decree then proceeds, as mentioned in the last chapter, to make provision for the filling up of vacancies in the number of Feoffees whenever the number may be reduced to three.

It will be noticed that the Inquisition and Decree, as given above, deal only with the title to and the application of the income of certain freehold lands at Bentley. The Deed of the 23rd September of the 6th Year of James the 1st (1608), and the Memorandum of the 10th October of the same year, however, appear to deal with what seems to be the remainder of the endowment of the Curacy, and with the status of the Priest or Curate. The Deed and the Memorandum set forth, in effect, the same set of facts; and the former may be described as the Contract out of Court between the parties interested, and the latter as being the Official Record of the Contract entered upon the Rolls of the Manor. The Deed is stated to be made between the Right Worshipful Sir John Levison, Knight, of Lilleshall, in the County of Salop, and John Giffard, of Chillington, in the County of Stafford, Esquire, on the one part, and Sir Walter Levison, of Wolverhampton, Knight, Thomas Lane, of Bentley, Esquire, Richard Wilkes, and Thomas Tomkis, of Willenhall, Gentlemen, and William Brindley and William Podmore, of Willenhall, Yeomen, on behalf of themselves and the rest of the Inhabitants of Willenhall, on the other part; and after making reference to a "Commission awarded upon the Statute of 43 Elizabeth concerning Lands given to Charitable Uses," it proceeds to state that the lords consent, grant, and decree that the Copyhold lands therein referred to shall be let in the manner and for the purpose therein mentioned, and the effect of such consent, as before pointed out, is recited in the Memorandum entered on the Court Rolls.

Coming to the Memorandum of 1608, it is evident a serious difficulty had arisen with the Willenhall lands held under copyhold tenure, and which were probably dealt with by the same Commission. For there was probably but one Commission of Inquiry, though there may have been two separate Decrees.

Lands held by Copyhold tenure are usually subject to fealty to the Lord of the Manor, and this was doubtless customary in Stowheath. It seems conclusive that the King did not take these lands into his own hands, whereby matters would have been reduced to the absurdity of the lord paramount being called upon to do homage to his own tenant.

The suggestion is offered by Mr. Rollason that the tenure of the lands was not precisely a lay one, but partook of a spiritual nature--was, in fact, not feudal, but what was known as a tenure in frankalmoign or free alms.

The Memorandum commences with a recital as follows:--