Queen Anne's Bounty and the Augmentation of Leicestershire Livings in the Age of Reform by Simon Barratt

In 1827 Francis Merewether, writing on the duties of the nobility and gentry towards the church, stated that Queen Anne's Bounty had 'done more for Religion and the Church in this kingdom, within the last twenty years, than any that can be named'; 1 the purpose of this paper is to estimate the overall effect of Queen Anne's Bounty in the augmentation of Leicestershire's poor livings. Augmentation progress is examined against the background of contemporary dissatisfaction with the Established Church and the role of the Bounty, both with respect to this criticism and to its effectiveness as an agency of reform and improvement.

Recent historians have generally favoured an optimistic account of the Bounty's early progress, Dr Green attributes what he calls the 'the success of the scheme' to the fact that the Governors 'struck just the right note'2

, indeed, its very success fuelled Whig alarm, hastening the Mortmain Act of 1736. 3 Historians have quite naturally concentrated on the administrative procedures of the Bounty, paying little attention to the local context; the broad conclusions which emerge from an analysis of the Bounty's own statistics tending to be rather more optimistic than the regional evidence will sometimes allow. In South Wales argues John Guy, augmentations gave independence to a needless number of inadequately endowed perpetual curacies.4 In the West Riding of Yorkshire, however, where large parishes with poor dependant chapelries abounded augmentations were successfully promoted under the auspicies of a general act of enclosure, much to the delight of Arthur Young. 5 The case is not closed, but at present there is slim evidence to support the view that the 'creation of perpetual curacies created more problems than it solved. 6 The difficulties of curacies in far-ranging parishes were familiar to contemporaries; in Wales and Yorkshire, noted John Bacon in 1776, 'instances of this kind' were all too numerous for comfort. 7 If perpetual curacies were held in plurality it was a pluralism of necessity as the enabling legislation of 1796 suggests, 8 none were prize plums for the delection of pluralists. 9 Whatever the truth, after 1790 Bounty secretaries were well acquainted with the detrimental effects of unconsidered augmentations, Christopher Hodgson, in particular, made it perfectly plain that the Governors would only separate a chapelry from its mother church under exceptional circumstances. 10 In 1794 Hodgson's predecessor, Richard Burn, painstakingly explained to the bishop of Lincoln the likely prejudicial effect of a too hasty augmentation of the curacies of Thurmaston and Birstall; Burn was clearly well acquainted with the Bounty's limitations and the danger of 'increasing ye number of poor cures for the purpose of augmenting them' .11 The fact that so many Leicestershire curacies, like Easton Magna for instance, were set aside or declined augmentation substantiates this point. 12 Despite the 'considerable Advances' noted John Bacon in 1776, there was certainly no room for complacency about the progress of augmentation: even with the assistance of private benefactions, 'it will be the Work of Ages' 13 before every living could be raised to even a 'Competency of Maintenance'. 14

From the outset augmentation progress was minimized by the intrinsic 'internal

Transactions LXI 1987

QUEEN ANNE'S BOUNTY AND THE AUGMENTATION OF LEICESTERSHIRE LIVINGS 9

weakness' 15 of the church. The irrational continuity of a frozen ecclesiastical framework more suited to the population densities of a medieval past, than to the needs of the first industrial nation, dogged the Bounty's effectiveness, for it was precisely this network of parishes and chapelries which the Bounty sought to underpin in the struggle to improve the value of the poorest livings, John Wade, the author of the Extraordinary Black Book, drew specific attention to the 'unequal extent of benefices' producing statistics to underline his point. 16 Contemporaries, particularly in the early nineteenth century, came to appreciate the sheer magnitude of the Bounty's undertaking and moreover that the battle was slowly being lost. William Selwyn, the rector of Branstone, spoke in 1834 of the 'physical inadequacy' of the Church; the pace of augmentation was slow and far from complete but above all the church was 'manifestly incommensurate with the population of the country'. 17

Queen Anne's Bounty was never universally applauded as a means of relief: Professor Best long ago drew attention to the suspicious minds of country clergymen in their dealings with Bounty officials. 18 Mistrust of metropolitan ways was fuelled by ignorance: the general inaccessibility of information before the publication of Hodgson's Account in 1826 only fostered suspicion. 19 The Governors held vast reserves of capital, alleged 'Clericus' in his letter to the Gentleman's Magazine in 1785. 20 Again, the Board's caution before sanctioning landed investments smacked of forestalling in order to maintain reserves invested at five or six per cent while the clergy were fobbed off with only two per cent21

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The claims were groundless, as Bounty officials were at pains to make clear: The reasons of paying only two per cent is to induce [clergymen] to be more active in finding purchases and the remainder of interest is applied in augmenting more so that the Governors have no surplus except 2,000 or 5,000£.22

But it was always easy to sling mud and cast aspersions on the clerks and secretaries of Brick Court or Dean's Yard; the lesser clergy always had their grievances, curates in particular being beyond the pale of Bounty benevolence. 'That rapidly increasing fund, called Queen Anne's Bounty' declared 'A poor curate' in 1809, was nothing but a reserve for the wealthy clergy, especially pluralists for whom augmented small livings were 'convenient appendages'. 23 It was a familiar refrain and one grounded in some truth. 24 Yet Bounty criticism extended beyond the disgruntled murmurings of provincial clergymen; for critics like the Rev George Townsend, the Bounty was not so much partisan as inefficient, its cumbersome procedures rendering it unequal to the task of alleviating 'pressing emergencies'. Even with the Parliamentary Grant maintained Townsend the Bounty had failed, 'in the course of more than a century, to raise each of the poor livings of England to one hundred pounds a year'. 25 In 1809, Lord Harrowby, if not implicitly critical of the Governors, drew attention to the sluggish progress of augmentation, albeit against overwhelming odds. The Bounty's simple 'inadequacy'26 was not lost upon radicals; even it not corrupt27 the Bounty was an easy target for the lampoonist.

The haphazard procedures of the Board were ridiculed by Wade in the Black Book: it was farcicial that poor benefices should be augmented by lottery, especially when fortune was so often, 'not proportioned to desert or necessity'. Augmentations were misspent on benefices which would have been more rationally united; conversely larger and more populous parishes might successfully have been divided. 28 Cobbett, ever the journalist, had personal knowledge of Bounty abuse: pluralists, he claimed, misappropriated the funds intended to support the poorer clergy. 29 Cobbett' s strictures against the augmentation of impropriate vicarages, especially where impropriators contributed little or nothing from their tithe rent-rolls, was an embarrassing fact and the subject of much complaint. 30 As late as 1843 Richard Stephens complains that the bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, the

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impropriator of Belgrave, 'receives a very large revenue from these parishes without [providing]any adequate remuneration to the Vicar for doing the duty': 31 impropriators, especially those who enjoyed patronage as well as tithes, did very well by the Bounty. 32

Augmentations by lot increased at a stroke the value of their advowson 'investments'. 33

Benefactions too, channelled public money into patrons pockets, albeit indirectly; for clerical families there was every incentive to such investment. 34 Small wonder radicals claimed that 'Queen Anne's Bounty existed mainly to put public money into private putses' .35

The Bounty's ad hoe lottery system had in fact been the target of some criticism as early as 1731. 36 The lottery was far from the most rational approach to the overbearing problem of clerical poverty. Affairs were little eased by the Board's inability to see beyond the bounds of anachronistic parochial divisions, many of which had little contemporary relevance. 37 The ratiqnalization of parochial boundaries to ecompasss the scattered communities of hamlets and extra-parochial tracts, however vital to reform, was far from easy to accomplish. Reforms had been proposed by Bishop Wake in 1713 in order to spare the Bounty's resources but nothing ever came of his scheme of benefice unions. 38 There were other proposals, by agriculturalists for example, in an effort to standardise tithe payments,39 but not until 1818 was it possible to alter parish boundaries without an Act of Parliament.40 The ecclesiastical expedient of benefice unions, largely dependant upon episcopal initiatives, had little impact: in Leicestershire, for example, very few benefices were united and none between 1732 and 1807.41 Above all, however, advowsons were 'property' ,42 and might not easily be taken in hand; when conditions were favourable bishops were hesitant, fearing either a reduction of duty or the consequences of bowing to the whims of a 'Squire Parson. '43 The Bounty Board, ever powerless in dealing with the anomaly of ancient parish boundaries, found itself increasingly 'outmatched'44 by the new divisions.

Applications were considered by the Governors on a parish basis; no consideration was taken, for instance, of the population or value of adjacent benefices. The union or dis-union of benefices was never part of the Governors' strategy. 45 A case in point was the prescriptive perpetual curacy of Worthington, severed as late as 1755 on the whim of Sir Nathaniel Curzon from the mother church of Breedon-on-the-Hill. 46 The poor vicarage of Breedon with no glebe house was burdened with exceedingly heavy duty as a consequence of the extent of the parish, extending some 'sixteen miles in circumference': 47 Breedon ecompassed numerous hamlets and suffered through Worthington's independence.48

Insensible of Worthington's geographical position within the parish of Breedon, first-aid augmentation provided little relief for either benefice; both remained equally poor and without the benefit of a house.49 It was just this lack of attention to local detail which most concerned the Bounty's critics in the nineteenth century. The discrete chapelry of Worthington, considering the fact that its 'clear improved value' 50 was only £28 in 1781, fared well: by 1820 it had amassed £2,000 from both the Bounty and Parliamentary Grants, £800 more, in fact, than the extensive mother parish had recieved from the same source. 51

Lotteries were all very well before the advent of statistics but following the inception of the decadal census, a more equitable procedure ought to have been devised in order to 'lead the most beneficial application of the funds placed at the disposal of the Governors'. 52 The Bounty critic Rogers, while admitting that the Governors were not insensible to their responsibilities, simply criticised the framework of the Bounty as inadequate in the face of contemporary needs and should be made more efficient. 53 In particular the 'right principle'54 of favouring poorly endowed populous parishes required considerable refine­ment in order to bear 'directly and more powerfully'55 in those areas of greatest need. All

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too often, it appears, peculiar local circumstances carried little weight with the Board, as the rector of Lowesby explained to Bishop Tomline in 1814:

Their usual grant is [£]300 for two and [£]600 for four but possibly the number of inhabitants being small they may not choose to advance so much, and yet that is the only way which I can remunerate myself during my thirteen years incumbency -Perhaps they would think it right to encourage a Clergyman under such circum­stances; and though the Parish is small - yet from the situation of the Hamlets scattered over two Lordships containing 3,000 acres the duty is in reality greater than in a larger Parish. At this time I visit two sick persons - who are nearly two miles distant from each other - but within the cure of Lowesby. 56

Matters were difficult enough, and none more so for the walking wounded like the vicars of Lowesby or Barkston. Such clergymen were hard pressed to understand the Bounty's hardness of heart: after all, was it not the Governor's duty to assist:

I have served the Church of Barkstone for upwards of thirty years [Richard Stope informed Robert Chester in 1781] & I do believe that I have never in the best times received 20£ in any one year for my trouble & I do moreover believe that ... not a Church in the Kingdom more legally entitled to ye Benefit of the Queen's Bounty ... 57

Cases of hardship were common enough, yet the Bounty made no special provision for the really poor clergy. The alternative option of distributing 'stipends or annual grants' ,58

which might have provided the poorest benefices with much needed financial assistance, was never seriously considered by the Governors; indeed, Christopher Hodgson advised the Ecclesiastical Commisioners to adopt the Bounty's proven system of 'capital grants'. 59

It was ever the Bounty's 'idee fixe' that landed investments were best although contem­poraries were divided over the suitability of promoting the purchase of several acres of land as a way of helping the poorer clergy; the agriculturalists in particular had doubts as to the practicability of the scheme:

Are not lands purchased by Queen Anne's Bounty, and annexed to chapels a national disadvantage; as the possessors cannot ensure term to the tenant beyond their continuation in the living?

Will not, therefore, such lands be worst husbanded, and produce less than other lands in general?60

Arthur Young was less than enthusiastic about small scale landed investment: it was 'impossible for agriculture to be pursued as a trade'. 61 These were not uncommon sentiments: it was generally held that clerical estates were badly managed and 'worse tenanted' .62 Clergymen too had reservations: far from all were 'qualified to manage properties' .63 There was more than a grain of truth in such misgivings: dispersed land holdings of small acreage sometimes so small as two acres, cannot have commanded high rents.

Complaints of the depressed agricultural market ring out from the Ecclesiastical Revenues Return of 1832. None were exempt from the falling economy; rental and tithe reductions of ten per cent were commonplace. 64 The rector of Harston estimated that the value of his living had diminished by something between fifteen and twenty per cent, well below the prices boom of 1813.65 Hard luck stories abound, but none were more badly placed than the poor clergy who depended heavily upon augmentation estates. The vicar of Oadby's glebe and augmentation rental suffered a twenty per cent decrease as a consequence of the agricultural depression which, he added, would not have been demanded 'had the land been lay property'. 66 The perpetual curate of Worthington, where augmentation land accounted for eighty per cent of the income, was continually

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pressed by his tenants: 'from improvements on the land, with new gates &c, & bad crops, there is always some return to be made to the tenant'. 67 Poor urban clergy more reliant than most upon rents from augmentation lands were badly effected: the vicar of St Nicholas in Leicester had for two years returned between ten and twenty per cent of the rental to his tenant. 68 Matters were often made worse by the variable nature of urban church revenues: vicarages heavily dependant on Easter offerings and surplice fees, for example, often found themselves constrained to look to the Bounty for support: petitioning the Governors in 1823, George Berkeley Mitchell, the vicar of All Saints, drew their attention to the fact that a number of his parishioners had refused to pay their Easter offerings:

I have no way of recovering them but by legal process ... [in which case] ... as the Dissenting party take every opportunity to lower the credit of the Clergy and they would not fail to represent such compulsory payments a great oppression. 69

There were other drawbacks apart from the vicissitudes of the agricultural economy. A restricted land market reduced the chances of finding suitable purchases of land for invest­ment as it had always been the policy of the Governors to pay less than the commercial interest rates in order to 'induce'70 the clergy to be more assiduous in the search for landed investments.71 From the calculations of Richard Yates 63 per cent of augmentations had been laid out in land by 1815;72 however, the Bounty policy was never successful, as far more clergymen received interest than rents from invested augmentations. 73 A 'fairer system'74 was never devised and from the outset clergymen found it difficult to buy land, particularly within their own parishes.75 Well before 1792 Thomas Hudson, curate of Woodhouse, had been watching 'for a favourable opportunity of laying out ... two former bounties. 76 The difficulty of finding land suitable for purchase reduced the potentialvalue of augmentations: it was never a localised problem, yet complaints and proposals of reform fell upon deaf ears. 77 Not until 1830 did the Governors relax their stringent policy of paying only two per cent interest to incumbents unable to secure real estate. 78 In Derbyshire, entail and an active land market were unfavourable to clerical investment; the Bounty interest provided a better return in 1814, according to Thomas Pares. 79 Leicestershire landlords were equally acquisitive in consolidating their estates; John Frewen Turner's land agent hurriedly purchased an estate at Sapcote for £1,000 in 1810, explaining:

I agreed, under the idea that you ought to have every thing that falls in this Parish, and I was afraid of further incumbencies if sold to other. 80

Bounty reforms in 1829 made matters more difficult: lands for purchase were henceforth to be within 'occupation distance' except in cases of 'extraordinary advantage'. 81

If the restricted land market and rigid rules of the Governors were not difficulties enough, inflation diminished the purchasing power of augmentation capital still further. In 1735 the vicar of Plungar was able to secure over twenty-one acres of land with a lot of £200; by 1770 a similar lot purchased just seven acres of land. 82 As Peter Lievre, vicar of Arnesby, noted in 1819 it was illusory to imagine that an augmentation of £200 could ever command a good purchase 'considering the high advance of land these late years'. 83 The strict adherence of the Bounty Officers to the laborious procedures of private treaty made swift purchase of land even more difficult. It was not 'practicable', for instance, for the Governors to proceed by auction and in consequence valuable purchases were lost. As a result the clergy often grew 'impatient', 85 particularly on the eve of an enclosure, when desirable acres seemed likely to slip out of their grasp. 86

The rigidity of the Bounty system drew the attention of the Leicestershire M.P. George A.L. Keck. As patron of the vicarage of Thurnby and Stoughton, Keck was surprised by the Bounty's inflexibility, particularly when regulations obstructed his attempts to assist

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the poor benefice. Between 1826 and 1830, Keck actively strove to improve the 'inadequate income'87 of the family living but was hindered both by the Board's refusal to allow non­resident pluralists to receive interest from benefactions and by the Governors' disinclination to pay commercial interest rates. Keck did not pull his punches and questioned the traditional Bounty policy of not awarding more than two per cent interest in order to 'excite'88 purchases of land: exceptional circumstances ou5ht not to be dismissed out of hand, as he explained to Bishop Kaye. 89 Such discrimination on the part of the Governors militated against benefices such as Thurnby and Stoughton, where it was 'hopeless' to even seek 'landed investments'. 90 Moreover, Keck was 'continually'91 at a loss to understand why £200 was the minimum unit of benefaction: speaking from his own experience he was convinced that if the Governors guaranteed commercial interest rates, not only would this measure assist the poor clergy but in consequence encourage further lay generosity. 92

One of the most damning criticisms of the Bounty, its tolerance of prosperous plurality, was voiced by both churchmen and radicals alike.93 Loopholes in the Board's regulations, according to Cobbett, worked in favour of the greater clergy. 94 The evidence given before the 1837 committee on the question of pluralism was perhaps, however, more shocking in its implications than in reality.95 At any rate there is far more evidence to suggest that a hard line with pluralists was counter-productive, if not 'invidious and untenable'96 The rule of 1809, in an attempt to prevent augmentations 'swelling the profits of pluralists', discriminated against non-resident pluralists by refusing to pay interest on augmentations or even allowing them to lay out augmentations in advantageous purchases of land. Many were pluralists of necessity and looked to the Bounty for support: when in 1820 George Foster proposed to buy lands with money assigned to the vicarages of Ratby and Breedon, benefices held in plurality since 1772, the Governors rejected his proposal out of hand. Both were poor livings, neither could even boast a parsonage house. Here was a case of justifiable plurality which the Governors might reasonably have assisted, but before 1825 augmentations from Parliamentary Grants could only be utilized in purchasing lands if the 'Incumbent resides, or performs the Duty personally'. Ratby was augmented by lot our of the Parliamentary grant in 1817 but as the incumbent complained, he found no relief. 97

In 1816, E.T. Vaughan, vicar of the adjoining Leicester parishes of All Saints and St Martin's had to seek Bishop Tomline's assistance before the Governors would seriously consider his claim to the augmentation interest of the former, despite the fact that Vaughan lived in St Martin's and regularly performed the afternoon services at All Saints.98 Such uncompromising attention to the rules makes it difficult to substantiate Cobbett's claim of malpractice before 1825, even though pluralists undoubtedly did slip through the net as Christopher Hodgson's evidence before the Select Committee of 1837 makes perfectly plain. 99 The fact that a living was held in plurality did not exclude it from augmentation itself: 'the poverty of the living, not the circumstances of the incumbent' 100 determining Bounty policy. Long term advantages accruing to the benefice were felt to outweigh any windfall lot or benefaction to a pluralist incumbent.

The Bounty's soft treatment of pluralists was all the more inconsistent, since no serious attempt was made to assist in the provision of houses for incumbents whose benefices were beyond the scope of Gilbert's Act. The establishment of private charitable clerical associations contrasts markedly with the Bounty's tacit encouragement of grandiloquent parsonages. 101 In Leicestershire there is a good deal of evidence to suggest that the Bounty became the unwitting vehicle of clerical aggrandisement by enabling clergymen to build new parsonages which were often inappropriately fine. 102 There were no guidelines: the schemes of some parsons know no bounds. 103 The proposed work on the rectory at Coston was certified to be 'almost entirely in the way of addition and alteration' 104 by the

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architect to the Governors in 1847. At the same time the 'slender benefits' 105 of livings like Lubbenham were insufficient to command a mortgage under Gilbert's Act, the system of mortgages as operated by the Bounty after 1811 106 being weighted in favour of wealthier benefices, especially rectories, whose incumbents more often than not had access to private incomes. 107 Time honoured inequalities of endowment were sharpened by the Bounty's generous mortgages; few could mistake the grandeur of the new rectories. 108

Clerical families were not slow to take full advantage of the favourable mortgage scheme: with a buyers' market in advowsons, rebuilding made good sense for both clerical and lay patrons109

• Indeed, with the increasing disposition of clerical families to view parsonages as patrimonial properties, improvements were viewed as long term family investments, as the rector of Stoney Stanton admitted to Thomas Frewen in 1860: 'we have been more unrestrained in our expenditure on the house, & of our private means, as we regarded this as a family living.11°

Even between 1777 and 1811 the limitations of Gilbert's Act became apparent, Arch­deacon Burnaby recognising the impasse of the Act's provisions for the poor clergy as early as 1796. 111 Bishop Tomline saw too how the question of parochial residence could only be solved by a generous Treasury subsidy, thereby enabling the poorer clergy to build. 112

There was simply no incentive to rebuild, argued 'A.M.' in 1801, unless the benefice in question happened to be a family living. 113 An analysis of the statistical evidence for 1818 and 1835 reinforces the argument tha there was no surge of innovatory parsonage house building in the wake of Gilbert's Act.114 The view from Dean's Yard was unduly optimistic: local evidence more than suggests that the concert of Bounty Board and Gilbert's Act promoted a programme of rebuilding rather than solving the clerical housing problem. m The momentum of the building programme depended not upon the efforts of the poor clergy to be housed but upon the desire of the wealthier clergy to be better housed, encouraged no doubt by the diminishing tolerance of plurality and non-residence after 1803. 116 In Leicestershire, at any rate, there was no immediate reduction in the number of house-less benefices between 1777 and 1835. 117 Bounty mortgages were far from egalitarian in their influence, serving only to cement the polarization, already evident as a consequence of enclosure, between plush rectories and poor vicarages. 118

Benefices most in need of further augmentation were forced to relinquish their interest payments in order to realise the most modest of housing aspirations. At Barkstone, for instance, the parsonage, never very good, was in an appalling condition by 1826; so ruinous, in fact, that it was necessary to secure part of the building with 'iron cramps'. Naturally the new vicar, Valentine Green, wished to rebuild but this object could not be achieved for less than £600, five times the value of the vicarage: Gilbert's Act was useless, and the Governors would certainly not bend the rules. 119 In the end the deficiency of money was overcome by encashing Barkstone's augmentation capital. 120 It was a pyrrhic victory: to renovate his parsonage, the vicar was induced not only to part with his own money but to sacrifice a considerable portion of a previous endowment by lot. Such sacrifice stands in contrast to the mortgages on comparatively easy terms enjoyed by wealthier incumbents. It was perhaps significant, against the background of a 'general complaint' 121

recognised by Parliament that Green's successor, Henry Cleveland, petitioned the Governors for mortgage relief in 1837.

The Bounty's 'extreme respect for the rights and advantages of patrons and impropriators'122 attracted some well aimed cnt1c1sm. Cobbett's vials against impropirators were nothing new but he was not alone in condemning both the augmentation of impropriate livings and the subsidy of private advowsons from public funds. In 1835, for instance, 'R. W.B. 'calculated that 2,550 private benefices had received

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augmentation. 123 Gentry patrons like Thomas Pares did well by the lottery system: the value of the Pares' family advowsons of Ockbrook in Derbyshire and Cosby in Leicester­shire were both increased at Bounty expense. 124 Pares was not averse to offering some assistance himself: as he assured Bishop Tomline in 1806, his 'leading object' in the case of Cosby, was to secure 'the benefit of a resident minister'. 125 But there were limits to family altruism: a benefaction would be offered immediately, 'would it not preclude the Vicarage from further Augmentation by Lot'. The duke of Rutland, Leicestershire's principal private patron, with eighteen advowsons, did especially well out of the Bounty. The dukes' record as a church benefactor, however, was an indifferent one: in 1817, of his five poorest livings, three did not possess a house suitable for residence. 126 In contrast to the dukes' manipulation of the livings in their gift to further the family interest, no benefactions were settled upon these least desirable of preferments up to 1844. 127 This suggests that patrons like the dukes of Rutland, with sufficient preferment to meet the needs of family and political patronage, were less inclined to offer benefactions to their poor livings. Four of the dukes' impoverished Leicestershire livings received a total of £1,600 from the Bounty, Plungar and Stonesby each being augmented to the tune of £600 by lot: 128 such were the 'unmerited gifts' 129 to joint patrons and impropriators which most angered churchmen and radicals alike. 130 Whereas the more attractive rectories were awarded to former tutors, such as Bowyer Sparke and Bishop Watson, 131 the crumbs fell to less exalted, often local, claimants who were in no position to seek further favours by way of benefaction.

The case of the rector of Hose is illustrative of the predicament of poor parsons in closed parishes. It was a 'comfort'132 for William Greenwood to hear in 1808 that his benefice was about to be augmented by lot: 'the Living is very small and incapable of much improve­ment. An addition, will contribute much to the comfort of myself & rising family'. Greenwood solicited the aid of the Bounty in 1815 but Richard Burn was 'very sorry' 133

and could offer no 'encouragement to expect an Augmentation ... the population being to small to admit of it'. In 1827 Greenwood wrote again seeking a revision of his case. As a single beneficed incumbent for nearly twenty-six years, on a living with only a cottage for a glebe-house, the rector's anxiety was real enough. 134 Hodgson's instruction was brief: 'Reply: This Living is not qualified for Augmentation unless £200 is offered by a Benefaction. ' 135 Here was the catch: without direct intervention of the patron there was little chance of aid from the Bounty. Moreover, the living was to small to qualify for further augmentations by lot, and had been so since 1815.

The Bounty's policy of respecting private patronage never faltered. Patrons were given every encouragement to tighten their 'stranglehold' on the 'patronage network of clerical livings' ,36 squarsons in particular having every incentive to offer benefactions. The Rev Henry Palmer's offer of a benefaction of £500 to his living at Withcote in 1823 illustrates this: on this occasion, however, the Governors 'felt themselves compelled to decline ... on account of the small population & other circumstances' .137 Lord Huntingtower's determination to secure the advowson at Buckminster, for example, underlines the continuing attraction of local patronage in the nineteenth century. 138 Earl Howe, whose munificence largely endowed the perpetual curacy of Twycross, was anxious to ensure that the new patronage should be vested in his own family, as was the Bishop of Dromore in the case of the augmentation of Thurmaston in 1796. 139 'Pious and well-disposed Persons'140 did not give unreservedly without hint of an investment in the future fortunes of their families. An analysis of Leicestershire benefactions between 1714 and 1803 confirms Dr Green's conclusion that benefactors gave to benefices 'with which they had a particular association', 141 frequently, in Leicestershire, a particular stake in the

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advowson concerned was the determining factor in the benefaction. The mainstream of private benefactors came from the squire-patrons who saw their advowsons improved at public expense: Sir Nathaniel Wright, impropriator-patron and squire of Oadby, gave £240 to meet a benefaction of £200 from the Bounty in 1715, in 1770 Edward Palmer giving £200 to meet a similar benefaction to improve the value of his inherited advowson, the impoverished rectory of Withcote. 142 Instances could be multiplied of clergymen hard pressed to improve their financial base, often simply unable to build a parsonage for lack of lay interest, there was often little chance of raising a benefaction: far from all were sympathetic to the church, even in the nineteenth century there being more than a whiff of the old Whig anti-clericism amidst the 'gentry culture' .144 Dissenting landowners and patrons had little interest in augmentations or church extension: a surprising number of deserving benefices remained out in the cold for want of generous benefactors. 145

University patrons, for instance, appear on the whole to have preferred to purchase new advowsons rather than augment their own poor livings. 146 It is quite clear that at Oxford, colleges drew little distinction between leases of · impropriated rectories and ordinary property; often, it appears, the responsibility for paying the vicar fell to the college lessee. Whatever can be said of individual instances of college munificence, it would be difficult to identify any specific policy of augmentation in Leicestershire. 147 Christ Church Oxford's concern with the perpetual curacies of Market Harborough and Bowden Magna was demonstrably 'slight ... [and certainly]. .. spasmodic' 148 even in the mid-nineteenth century. 149 Market Harborough was a case in point and like other poor benefices in the gift of the universities, remained under-endowed for want of benefactors. The bishop of Lincoln thought the stipend here 'shameful', yet the scholars of Christ Church remained unmoved, as Edward Vardy reported in 1816:

The Dean and Chapter once promised to augment this Curacy, they now refuse to do so. All that they pay me is £60 a year from land, the rent of which, I am under apprehension must now be lessen'd. 150

The 'Tory Anglican' 151 topographer John Throsby, writing in 1790, drew attention to a notorious case concerning the University of Oxford, the poverty of the vicarage of Syston being something of a local cause celebre: 'The village is one of the most populous in the country; but the vicar's stipend is not equal to the pay of a carman to the brewery' .152

Here was the epitome of impropriatorial neglect: the great tithes were carried off by Oxford University leaving an impoverished vicar to make the most of a poor house and small glebe. 153 The perpetual curacies of Quorndon, Woodhouse and Mountsorrel fared little better under the patronage of St John's College, Cambridge. All three curacies were poor with revenues running at well below £150; there was no house at either Woodhouse or Mountsorrel, while that at Quorndon had been sold by the vicar of Barrow-upon-Soar to redeem his land tax. 154 Here, in the developing manufacturing villages, the machinery of the Bounty was shown to be inadequate in alleviating 'the persistent blows of nineteenth­century economics and demographic reality'. 155

Without the direct intervention of benefactors, little could be achieved: all to often, collegiate patrons were ready to rest cases or hardship and applications for financial assistance at the Bounty door. 156 Bishop Watson had long since drawn attention to the injustice of diverting public money to the improvement of university and capitular benefices; particularly when such institutions might not unreasonably be expected to help themselves. 157 Indeed, against the background of rising land values and increasing estate profitability, the failure of church landlords to augment their own poorer advowsons drew severe criticism; the Times, for instance, railed against such 'indifference: 158 who could forget how Parliament had been goaded into supplementing the revenues of Queen Anne's

QUEEN ANNE'S BOUNTY AND THE AUGMENTATION OF LEICESTERSHIRE LIVINGS 17

Bounty, whilst the 'great available wealth' of the church remained intact. 159

Benefices in public patronage experienced 'greater difficulty' 160 than most in finding willing benefactors: the problem was well known but no solution was ever devised. In Leicestershire just under one third of the crown livings were worth less than £150 in 1809, 161 a financial misfortune often exacerbated by the concomitant problem of poor housing. In 1817 housing difficulties were still acute in eight out of the twelve poor Leicestershire crown livings, 162 but such benefices ought to have been the first to reap the benefit of the Bounty, argued Bishop Watson in 1808, especially since these livings were inalienable and open to all. 163 The anonymity of benefices in public patronage placed crown livings in a particularly difficult position as regarded the operation of the Bounty: cut off from all but windfall augmentations by lot, poor royal benefices were not attractive objects to the charity of private individuals, and in consequence were often inadequately endowed. As a consequence, none of Leicestershire's crown livings were augmented by private benefaction before 1838. 164 The disinterest of private benefactors was nowhere more evident than in the borough of Leicester: the vicarages of St Mary de Castro, All Saints and St Nicholas all derived a 'great measure' 165 of their incomes from Parliamentary Grants and donations from Queen Anne's Bounty, but none of Leicester's vicarages ever attracted a private benefaction. The 'meagre terms' upon which the Leicester clergy were employed had long been a sad reflection upon the Corporation: 'One should think, where there was Pride; there would not be wanting a spirit to do handsome or decent Things' .166 The revenues of the urban clergy, already subject to the 'caprice'167 of unsympathetic parishioners and victim to the brickbats of urban radicalism, made the likelihood of private benefactions in Leicester even slimmer, as Stockdale Hardy observed to Bishop Tomline in 1820: 'there does not by any means appear that zeal in the cause of the Church ... which might have been expected. 168

•

The Bounty's task could not be doubted but few found satisfaction in either its rate of progress or its modicum of early success. 169 Disadvantaged from the outset with 'palpably defective' 170 rules, the Bounty's institutional weaknesses were hallowed and ossified into immutable principles. There were to be no significant departures from the code of 1717 for a hundred and twenty years: enshrined in its own 'obsolescence' 171 the Bounty had become an integral part of the 'ecclesiastical system' .172 Against the burst of criticism in the mid-nineteenth century, Christopher Hodgson considered it sufficient to reassure petitioners that the Bounty always adhered 'strictly'173 to the rules. Criticism of the Bounty cannot so readily be dismissed.

The bishop of Oxford's belief in 1868 that benefactions never failed for want of benefactors174 runs contrary to the Leicestershire evidence, and to the bishop of Peter­borough's personal experience of the difficulties faced by the benefices of Coalville and Evington. 175 Bishop Kaye had long exploded the voluntarist principle: provision for the manufacturing districts could not be left to the 'Christian benevolence' of local individuals. The two-fold failure of Queen Anne's Bounty either to sufficiently increase the value of the poorer urban and industrial parishes, or to assist in the building of parsonage houses, points to the inherent weakness of the Bounty system based squarely upon the generosity of private individuals. In such parishes, especially the more populous ones, when wealthy benefactors were either indifferent or absent, the chances of securing a benefaction were remote, as J emson Davies, vicar of the poorest Leicester parish of St Nicholas, lamented as late as 1867:

The Owners of the large Factories [& there are manyl are all Dissenters, & if not so­yet they have their Private residence far away out of the parish, in the . suburbs of the Town and seem to care little or nothing for the poorest classes ... 177

18

In an unfashionable and poor parish like St Nicholas, where the inhabitants were 'all poor & the poorest of the poor', 178 it was pointless to even consider seeking benefactions: St Nicholas was still worth 'barely £150' in 1867. This contrasts with the marked upturn in the fortunes of the suburban vicarage of Belgrave; this living, said 'not to exceede £70 in 1792',179 drew £1,600 from the Bounty between 1825 and and 1832, all in consequence of private benefactions. 180 But there was a limit to local benevolence as many clergymen were all too well aware, particularly in the manufacturing villages of north-west Leicester­shire where neither the landed nor the manufacturing interests took a lead in benefaction. 181

In the end, the failure of the Bounty lay not so much with its officers but with the bishops who, as sleeping governors, bore much responsibility for the Board's shortcomings. Diligent Hanoverian bishops left the Bounty very much to its own eighteenth century devices: few considered anything amiss. 182 In the early nineteenth century episcopal attendance at Bounty Board Courts was surprisingly erratic: not all, it appears, were summoned. From 1827 only those 'resident in or near London' 183 were called to Dean's Yard, far from all attended, and even fewer bothered to turn up to the committee meetings. 184 Succeeding generations of bishops had chosen to disregard the signs of the times: demography meant little to the bench. Even after 1801, most bishops were oblivious to the unpleasant realities of population growth. 185 There was a complete lack of 'reform­mindedness', and a failure to direct augmentations in proportion to necessity as had once been envisaged. Revelations came late in the day for most of the bench: on his own admission, the 'church reformer' 186 Bishop Kaye did not fully appreciate the 'magnitude of the wants of the Established church'187 until 1838. Indeed, it was only as an Ecclesiastical Commissioner, wrestling with the dilemma of cathedral revenues, that Kaye's conscience was finally awakened. He was not alone: his fellow traveller, the 'more conservative' 188 bishop of Gloucester, experienced a similar if somewhat more dramatic conversion to the vanguard of reform. 189

The episcopal managers of the Bounty had been out of touch just at the very time when sound management was most wanted. Had the sacrifice of a more equitable distribution of church revenues been made a century before, argued Kaye,

the governors .. might, by a judicious application of it, have kept in advance of the growing .population; and the difficulties with which we have now to contend, would not have existed. 190

In his Appeal to the Nobility and Gentry of the County of Leicester of 1832,191 Francis Merewether stressed the importance of disinterested christian benevolence. In reality, his reliance upon the initiatives of local benefactors was misplaced: yet the Bounty's 'tortoise'192 progress rendered it incapable of providing the necessary assistance.

Notes

Abbreviations Ch. Com. Church Commissioners (Millbank, London) LAO Lincolnshire Archives Office LRO Leicestershire Record Office PRO Public Record Office I am grateful to my supervisor Professor Eric J. Evans for reading and commenting upon this paper. I would also like to thank Mr David Armstrong, Records officer with the Church Commissioners, for his kind attention to my research.

1. Frances Merewether (Rector of Coleorton and Vicar of Whitwick), The Case Between the Church and the Dissenters ... ', (1827), p.161. See G.I.T. Machin, Politics and the Churches in Great Britain 1832 to 1868, (Oxford, 1977), pp.200-1

QUEEN ANNE'S BOUNTY AND THE AUGMENTATION OF LEICESTERSHIRE LIVINGS 19

2. Ian Green, 'The first five years of Queen Anne's Bounty', in Rosemary O'Day and Felicity Heal, (Eds.), Princes & Paupers in the English Church 1500-1800, (Leicester, 1981), pp.236, 249

3. Ibid., 249. Stephen Taylor, 'Sir Robert Walpole, The Church of England and The Quakers Tithe Bill of 1736', The Historical Journal, 28, I, (1985), p. 56 ,

4. John R. Guy, 'Perpetual Curacies in Eighteenth Century South Wales, in Derek Baker, (Ed.), The Church in the Town and Countryside, Studies in Church History, 16, (Oxford, 1979), pp.332, 327-333

5. Arthur Young, General Report on Enclosures, (New York, 1971; original edn 1808), pp.131-5 6. Guy, 'Perpetual Curacies', p.333. For a discussion of the difficulties see Green, 'The first five years', pp.235

sqq • 7. John Bacon, Liber Regis vel Thesaurus Recrum Ecclesiasticum, (1786), p.vi 8. LAO Ben 9/57, C. Hodgson, An Accoum of the Augmemations of Small Livings, (1826) 9. Green, 'The first five years ' , p.245

10. Hodgson, Account, (1826), p. 73-4 11. Ch.Com. F4632: Richard Bum to Bishop Tomline, 6 Jan 1794 12. The chapelries ofGrimston and Wartnaby, Little Stretton, Thorpe Satchville, Knighton, Newton Harcourt,

and Freeby were all set aside as incapable of augmentation between 1762 and 1830 13. Bacon, Liber Regis, p.iii 14. Ibid., vi. Christopher Hodgson echoed these remarks in 1867, see PP, (HC), 1867-8, VII, p.571 15. Norman Gash, Pillars of Government, (1986), p.18 16. The Extraordinary Black Book, (1831), p.87 17. William Selwyn (Rector of Branstone), A Sermon ... July 12, 1834, (Cambridge, 1834), p.19. For Selwyn see

G.F.A. Best, Temporal Pillars Queen Anne's Bounty, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and the Church of England, (Cambridge, 1964) pp.315, 431-3, 441-2.

18. Best, Temporal Pillars, p.134-5 19. J. Rogers, A Brief Statement of the Origins ... of Queen Anne's Bounty, (Falmouth, 2nd edn 1837), p.32 20. Gentleman 's Magazine, 1785, 55.2, p.860, quoted in Best, Temporal Pillars, p.134 21. Ibid. 22 . PRO, (Pitt Papers), 30/8/310/24. Bacon, Liber Regis, p.vii 23. Ecclesiastical and University Annual Register, 1809, (1810), pp.88-9 24. Best, Temporal Pillars, p.91. See below pp.26 sq. 25 . George Townsend, A Plan for Abolishing Pluralities ... (1833), p.56 26. Ecclesiastical And University Annual Register 1809, (1810), p.149 27. Best, Temporal Pillars, p.134 28. The Extraordinary Black Book, (1831), p.62 29. W. Cobbett, Legacy to Parsons, (1947, original edn 1835), pp 101-2 30. Ibid., Townsend, A Plan ... , pp.49-83. Best, Temporal Pillars, p.233-4 31. Ch.Com. F350: Richard Stephens to Christopher Hodgson, 28 Sept 1843 32. Best, Temporal Pillars, pp.91, 234-4 33. M.J .D. Roberts, 'Private Patronage and the Church of England, 1800-1900', Journal of Ecclesiastical History,

Vol.32, No.2, 1981, p.208 34. Ibid. 35. Best, Temporal Pillars, p.84 36. Guy, Perpetual Curacies, p.328. Alan Savidge, The Foundation and Early Years of Queen Anne 's Bounty,

(1955), p.110 37. Gash, Pillars of Government, pp.18-9, R.A. Soloway, Prelates and People Ecclesiastical Social Thought in

England 1783-1852, (1969), p.281. For some contemporary views, see R. Watson, Anecdotes of the Life of Richard Watson, Bishop of Landaff .. , (1817), p.356; or William Selwyn, The Substance of an Argument .. . before the Archdeacon of Leicester ... , (Cambridge, 1838), pp.31 sqq. (proposed union of Barkstone an Eaton)

38. Best, Temporal Pillars, p.89 39. Annals of Agriculture, (1784-1815), xviii, pp.508-12 40. Machin, Politics and the Churches ... , (1977), p.17. E.J. Evans, The Forging of the Modern State, (1983), p.48 41. LAO, Register XXXVIII, N . & S. medieties ofHallaton, (1728), Willoughby Waterless and Peatling Magna,

(1729), Twyford and Hungerton, (1732). Register XL, Sproxton and Saltby, (1807), Saxby and Stapleford, (1821), Roby and Rotherby (1823)

42 . John Kaye, Works (1888), VII, pp.201-2, p.144 43. LAO Cor B 5/5/17/20 Bishop of Peterborough to Bishop Kaye, 19 Jan 1853. The benefices in question were

Burrow on the Hill and Somerby. 44. Best, Temporal Pillars, p.220 45. W.R. Le Fanu's Queen Anne's Bounty, (Ed. F.G. Hughes), (1933 2nd edn.), p.39

20

46. Ch.Com. F601: Joseph Hooley to Bishop Thurlow, 27 June 1791 47. Ch.Com. F601: George I. Foster to Richard Burn, 2 May 1820 48. Ch.Com. F601: Joseph Hooley to Bounty Office, 3 April 1792 49. Ch.Com. F601, F5187, NB 19/30B 50. Ch.Com. F5187: Commission of 1781 51. Ch.Com. F601: G.I. Foster to Richard Burn, 29 May 1820 52. Rogers, A Brief Statement ... , (1837), pp.23, 25 53 .. Iliid., p.7. Hodgson, Account, (1826), pp.34 sq 54. Ibid., p.27. Best, Temporal Pillars, p.109 55. Rogers, A Brief Statement ... , (1837), p.28 56. Ch.Com. F3048: Wm. Wilkinson to Bishop Pelham, 11 November 1814 57. Ch.Com. F261, Richard Stoup to Robert Chester, 18 October 1781 58. PP (HC), 1867-8, VII, p.573 59. Ibid. 60. Annals of Agriculture, (1784-1815), VI, p.248-9 61. Ibid., X, p.400 62. Suffolk Record Office: Ipswich Branch, (Pretyman-Tomline Papers), HA 119: 562, (Bdl. 1822) 63. Ibid. See also LAO, Cor B 5/30/7 Alex Crombie to Bishop Kaye, 17 November 1832 64. See amongst many other examples, Ch Com. NB/19 files, SOB, (V. Sproxton & Saltby), 47B, (R. Seagrave),

180B (R. Sapcote) 65. Ch.Com. NB 19/50B 66. Ch.Com. NB 19/162 67. Ibid., 30B. See also LAO, Ter, (Leicestershire), Worthington, 1821. Augmentation estates were situated at

Houghton on the Hill, Stapleton and Blackfordby 68. Ibid., 129B 69. Ch.Com. F2781: George B. Mitchell to Christopher Hodgson, 15 August 1823. In 1832 the perpetual curate

of St George's Chapel, (Leicester), complained of reduced pew rents as a consequence of the 'great depression of the manufacturing interest'. Ch.Com. NB 19/130A Part ½

70. PRO 30/8/310/24, Best, Temporal Pillars, p.131. 71. On the consolidation of estates see, Christopher Clay, Landlords and Estate Management in England, in Joan

Thirsk, (Ed.), The Agrarian History of England and Wales, (Cambridge, 1985), V, ii, pp.179, 182. F.M.L. Thompson, English Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century, (1980), p.233

72. Richard Yates, Patronage of the Church of England, (1823), p.81 73. Best, Temporal Pillars, p.132 74. Ibid. 75. Best, Temporal Pillars, p.132-33. Hodgson, Supplement to the Accounts .. . , (1835), pp.xxv-vi 76. Ch.Com. F5148: Thomas Hudson to Richard Burn, 3 May 1792 77. Best, Temporal Pillars, pp. 131, 221-222. In 1790 John Throsby noted that Kilby's augmentation of £600 was

worth only two per cent to the vicar. John Throsby, The Supplementary Volume to the Leicestershire Views ... , (1790), p.63

78. Ibid., pp.220-21 79. Ch.Com. F3602: Thomas Pares to Richard Burn, 11 April 1814 80. East Sussex Record Office, FRE 9109: William Spencer to J.F. Turner, 1810 81. Christopher Hodgson, Supplement to the Account, (1835), p.xii 82. Ch.Com. 'Red Ledger' held in Records Department, np 83. Ch.Com. Fl41: Peter Lievre to Christopher Hodgson 1819. In this context, see Thompson, English Landed

Society in the Nineteenth Century, p.212ff 84. Ch.Com. F601: Richard Burn (draft) to G.I. Foster, October 1820 85. Ch.Com. F261: Richard Stoup to Richard Chester, 18 October 1781 86. Ibid., see also F5002: Francis Merewether to Christopher Hodgson, 23 February 1828 87. Ch.Com. F4633: G.A.L. Keck to Christopher Hodgson, 19 April 1826 88. Ibid., Bounty Office (draft) to letter of 6 November 1828 89. Ibid., Keck to Bishop Kaye, 6 June 1827 90. Ibid., Keck to Hodgson, 21 November 1828 91. Ibid., Keck to Hodgson, 30 March 1830 92. Ibid., Keck to Hodgson, 21 November 1828 93. Best, Temporal Pillars, p.231 94. Cobbett, Legacy to Parsons, (1835), pp.101-2 95. PP (HC), 1837 VI, especially pp.67-8 (evidence of 5 May), see also Best, Temporal Pillars,. p.216 n.6 96. Ibid., p.231

QUEEN ANNE'S BOUNTY AND THE AUGMENTATION OF LEICESTERSHIRE LIVINGS 21

97. Ch.Com. F3900: Richard Burn (draft) to G.I. Foster, 21 February 1820 98. Ch.Com. F2781 : E.T. Vaughan to Bishop Tornline, 11 October 1816; Bishop Tornline to Christopher

Hodgson, 23 February 1817 99. Best, Temporal Pillars, p.231

100. PP (HC) 1837, VI, p.68§ . 1046 101. Edward Bernes, The Claim of Destitute Clergymen to Assistance ... , (Salisbury, 1836), p.l3ff. On the disparity

of clerical incomes see E.J. Evans, The Contentious Tithe: the tithe problem and English agriculture, 1750-1850, (1976), p.12. See also John Howlett, An Enquiry Concerning the Influence of Tithes upon Agriculture, (1801), p.16

102. Quarterly Review, XCVI, (1855), p.124. James Obelkevich, Religion and Rural Society: South Lindsey 1825-1875, (1976), p.116. See the complaints of the 'overhoused' rector of Lutterworth and vicar of Buckrninster. Ch.Com. NB 19/141 and /233B

103. Diana McClatchey, Oxfordshire Clergy 1777-1869, (Oxford, 1960), p.23 104. LRO 1069/7,1 105. Ch.Com. F3054: Christopher Hodgson (draft) to Henry Bullivant, 12 June 1842 106. Best, Temporal Pillars, pp.217-8. The state of the public funds hindered the implementation of the Act of

1777 before 1811, see PP (HC) 1867-8, p.504, §549 107. Rectories were always well placed in this respect, see for example, M.W. Barley, Rural Building in England,

in Joan Thirsk, (Ed), The Agrarian History of England and Wales, (1985), V, ii, p.636. E.J. Evans, The Contentious Tithe, pp.10 sqq

108. James Obelkevich, Religion and Rural Society, pp.115-6. Quarterly Review, XCVI, (1855), 123 sq 109. M.J.D. Roberts, Private Patronage and the Church of England, J. of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 32, No.2,

(1981), pp.205 sq 110. East Sussex RO, FRE 9508/1-3: John Sankey to Thomas Frewin Turner, 14 August 1860 111. A. Burnaby, A Charge Delivered to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of Leicester, (1797), p.27 sq 112. Suffolk Record Office: Ipswich Branch, HA 119: 562 (Bdl. 1815) 113. 'A.M.', Six Letters to His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury . .. , (1801), pp. 44 sqq 114. PP (HC), 1818, XVIII, 359; 1835, XXII, 1060 115. Hodgson, Account..., (1826), pp. 52-3, 55-6. For the limitations of Gilbert's Act, see: John Stockdale Hardy,

Literary Remains, (J.G. Nichols, Ed.), (1852), pp. 296 sq 116. 43 Geo III c.84 117. PP (HC), 1817, XV, pp. 268-271; Ch.Com. NB 19, (Leicestershire) files: 52 houses were returned as unfit

in 1817; by 1832, 20 had been repaired but the hardcore of 22 or so benefices without a house remained unchanged

118. E.J. Evans, 'Some Reasons for the Growth of Anti-Clericalisrr, c.1750-c.1830' , Past and Present, 66 (1975), p.100

119. Ch.Com. F261 : Valentine Green to Christopher Hodgson, 11 December 1826 120. Ibid., Valentine Green to Christopher Hodgson, 29 December 1826 121. Ch.Com. F261 : Henry Cleveland to Christopher Hodgson, 14 November 1837, endorsed To be Stated! 122. Best, Temporal Pillars, p.91 123. Ibid., pp.91, 236 124. M.R. Austin, 'The Church in Derbyshire in 1823-4' , Derbyshire Archaoelogical Society, Record Series,

Volume 5 for 1969-70, (1972), p.133. Hodgson, Account, (1845), p.cccxxv 125. LAO, Ben 4/30 Thomas Pares to Bishop Tornline, 26 July 1806 126. PP (HC), 1817, XV, 268-271 127. Thompson, English Landed Society . .. , pp.71-2, 82-3 128. Hodgson, Account, (1845), pp.cccxxv-vi 129. Best, Temporal Pillars, p.91 130. George Townsend, A Plan for Abolishing Pluralities ... , (1833), p.50 sqq. Cobbett, Legacy to Parsons, (1835),

p.93-97. The Church of England Bulwark and Clergyman 's Protector, (1828), I, p.159 131. Watson, Anecdotes, (1817), pp.86-7. Sparke held the duke's livings ofRedrnile, Scalford, and Waltham on

the Wolds, (LAO, Spe 7 pp.361, 363, 374). See Thompson, English Landed Society, (1980), p.83 132. Ch.Com. F2416: William Greenwood to Richard Burn, 25 March 1808 133. Ibid., Richard Burn (draft) to William Greenwood 134. Ibid., William Greenwood to Christopher Hodgson, 6 March 1827 135. Ibid., Christopher Hodgson to William Greenwood n.d. 136. Lawrence Stone & Jeanne C. Fawtier Stone, An Open Elite? England 1540-1880, (Oxford, 1984), p.230.

See also J.M. Bourne, Patronage and Society in Nineteenth-Century England, (1986), pp.86-7 137. Ch.Com. F5109: Joseph Cragg to Bishop Kaye, 21 June 1823

22

138. Buckminster Estate Office, Tollemache Estate Papers, (Administration), Draft grants of exchange of the advowson of Buckminster, 1825-6 & related papers, 1793-1827. I am grateful to Major General Sir Humphry Tollemache for access to his family papers and for permission to use them. For a discussion of squire-parson antagonism see Owen Chadwick Victorian Miniature, (1983); James Obelkevich, Religion and Rural Society, (1976), pp.37-39

139. Ch.Com. F4754: Earl Howe to Christopher Hodgson, 24 August 1839. F4632: Copy of Minute, 27 May 1796 140. Bacon, Liber Regis ... , (1786), p.vi 141. Green, The first five years ... , p.248. F. William Torrington, (Ed.), (New York, 1972), House of Lords

Sessional Papers 1714-1805, IV, (1803-4), pp.377-388. Curtis, A Topographical History ... , (1831), passim 142. Ibid., pp.136, 188 143. See, among many similar examples, the Ch.Com. F files for Barkstone, Stonesby, Great Bowden,

Shackerstone, Evington, Ashby Parva and Eaton 144. Obelkevich, Religion and Rural Society, (1976), pp.39-40, 180-1. Best, Temporal Pillars, p.96 145. See, among many examples the case of Shackerstone in 1805, (F4137) or Dunton Bassett in 1848 (Fl504):

here, the 'principal landowner' was a Unitarian and refused assistance. Patrons of donatives declined augmentations rather than accept episcopal jurisdiction, PP (HC), 1837, VI, p.54 § 781. See the cases of Prestwold Ch.Com. F3853; LAO, Cor B 5/5/2/1; or Thorpe Acre and Dishley, Ch.Com. Fl442

146. Geoffrey Holmes, Augustan England, (1982), pp.101-2. Best, Temporal Pillars, pp.102-3. LG. Doolittle, College Administration, in L.S. Sutherland and L.G. Mitchell, (Eds), The History of the University of Oxford, Vol. V, The Eighteenth Century, (Oxford, 1986), p.247. J.P. Dunbabin, College Estates and Wealth 1660-1815, in Sutherland and Mitchell, (Eds.), Ibid., p.247nl

147. J.P. Dunbabin, loc.cit., p.292. Henry Fraser Howard, An Account of the Finances of The College of St John the Evangelist in the University of Cambridge 1511-1926, (Cambridge, 1935), pp.140-1.

148. J.P. Dunbabin, loc.cit., p.292 149. Ch.Com. F545, at Bowden Magna there was still no house in 1854 150. Ch.Com. F2052: Edward Vardy to Bounty Office, 7 August 1816 151. A. Temple Patterson, Radical Leicester, (1975), p.16 152. John Throsby, The Supplementary Volume to the Leicestershire Views .. . , (1790), pp.21-2 153. Curtis, A Topographical History ... , (1831), p.171. Ch.Com. NB 19/207 154. LAO, 3.C.C.3/1; PP (HC), 1817 XV, pp.268-71; Ch.Com. NB 19/229; LAO, Ter (Leicestershire), (Mount­

sorrel, 1822). LRO DE 497/6 155. Soloway, Prelates and People, p.280 156. As in the case of Christ Church Oxford. See also Ch. Com. F5208: Thomas Musgrove, (Bursar Trinity

College, Cambridge) to Bishop Kaye, 14 April 1836 157. Watson, Anecdotes, (1817), p.353 158. The Times, 25 January, 1833 159. On the prosperity of university and capitular estates, see Christopher Clay, "'The Greed of the Whig

Bishops"? Church Landlords And Their Lessees 1660-1760', Past and Present, 87, 1980, p.157. J.P.D. Dunbabin, 'College Estates and Wealth 1660-1815', in Sutherland and L.G. Mitchell, (Eds) The History of the University of Oxford, Vol.V, The Eighteenth Century, (Oxford, 1986), pp.275-77. Colin Shrimpton, The Landed Society and the Farming Community in Essex in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries, (New York, 1977), pp. 183-4

160. LAO, 3.C.C.3/1 161. PP (HC), 1817, XV, pp.268-271 162. Watson, Anecdotes, (1817), pp.498-99 163. Hodgson, Account, (1854), p.cccxxv. See Ch.Com. Fl54: Peter Lievre to Christopher Hodgson, 6 Sept 1837.

The benefaction was offered by the incumbent to defray the cost of building a house 164. Ch.Com. F2781: W.L. Fancourt to Christopher Hodgson, 4 March 1829 165. Bodleian Library, Oxford, Ms Eng Misc e 257, p.125. I am indebted to Mr David Wykes for drawing my

attention to Bickerstaffe's commonplace book 166. Ch.Com. NB 19/122 167. Suffolk Record Office: Ipswich Branch, HA 119 Bdl. 1820 J. Stockdale Hardy to Bishop Tomline,

26 September 1820 168. Best, Temporal Pillars, p.85. Green, The first five years ... , pp. 236 n.27, 249 169. Geoffrey Holmes, Augustan England, p.86 170. Best, Temporal Pillars, p.90 171. Norman Gash, Pillars of Government, p.17 172. Political Register, IV, (1803), col. 1105 quoted in E.J. Evans, The Contentions Tithe, p.87 173. PP (HC), 1866, LV, p.123 174. PP (HC), 1867-8, VII, p.528

QUEEN ANNE'S BOUNTY AND THE11.UGMENTATION OF LEICESTERSHIRE LIVINGS 23

175. Ch.Com. F files 1140 176. John Kaye, Works, (1888), VII, p.200 177. Ch.Com. (Ecclesiastical Commission), Augmentation file, 3827, Pt.I: Jemson Davies to Secretary,

18 February 1842 178. Ibid. 179. Ch.Com. F4632: Bishop of Dromore to Richard Burn May, 1793 180. Hodgson, Account, (1845), p.cccxxv 181. Francis Merewether, A Letter to the Editor of the Quarterly Review . .. (1828), pp.14-15 182. Soloway, Prelates And People, pp.283 sqq 183. PP (HC) 1850, XLII, p.373 184. Ibid., p.222. See Best, Temporal Pillars, pp.380 sqq. for attendances of Ecclesiastical Commissioners 1840-47 185. Soloway, Prelates and People, pp.283 sqq 186. Best, Temporal Pillars, pp.88, 89, 297 187. John Kaye, Works, (1888), VII, pp.198, 209 188. Soloway, Prelates And People, p.302 189. Ibid., p.302 sq 190. John Kaye, Works, (1888), VII, p.210 n9 191. Francis Merewether, An Appeal to The Nobility And Gentry of the County of Leicester ... , (Ashby de la Zouch,

1832), pp.21 sqq. 48 sq 192. Best, Temporal Pillars, p.220, see also pp.450 sqq