£ Oxford, 17 Colleges 42,898 Cambridge, 17 Colleges 67,646 Winchester School 7,258 Eton College 8,484 Wimborne 2,416 Other smaller Schools 11,362 Hospitals 32,000 Charities 8,276 Municipal Corporations 5,562 Public Companies 6,024 Governors distributing Church Revenues 4,129 -------- £196,055 The disclosures made in the Tithe Commutation Return of 1887 (Lord Wolmer’s) as regards the extent of the prebendal and other separate estates, are most astonishing. The four principal officers—Dean, Precentor, Chancellor, and Treasurer—of certain cathedrals, were endowed with separate estates in tithes and lands, in addition to their shares of the Chapter properties. Then the prebendal estates were in the aggregate enormous. I am now dealing only with tithe property. And it is well to remark again that we should add one-half of the commuted value to the commuted value in order to ascertain the original tithe value, according to Sir John Caird’s opinion, that the commuted value of tithes = 4 millions, was 2 millions less than the tithe value = 6 millions. I must also remark, that the rentals of the episcopal, capitular and prebendal tithes, were only one-third their rack-rental value, because the owners had for centuries let all their properties on beneficial leases for years, or on lives for one-third their rack-rental value. The lessees retained the other two-thirds. The tithe-payers had to pay them their tithes in full. In 1835, appeared, for the first time since the reign of Henry VIII., an official Parliamentary Report of the revenues of the Church. The creation of the Ecclesiastical Commission in 1836, and the passing of the Cathedral Act of 1840, led to investigations as to the actual rack-rental value of the episcopal, capitular, and prebendal properties. The leasehold property with which the Act of 1840 vested the Commissioners was ascertained to be only one-third of its rack-rental value, and it was also found that the same remark applied to all the church properties which were let on beneficial leases. This was a vital discovery. The Commissioners set about their Herculean work of enfranchising all the leasehold estates in order that they should obtain for the Church, the two-thirds which the wealthy lessees were receiving. The leases for years are of course long ago in possession of the Commissioners; but a great many leases for lives are still running on, although it is now fifty-one years since the Act of 1840 was passed.