The Annals of WillenhallHackwood, Frederick William
History
The Annals of Willenhall
Hackwood, Frederick William
Willenhall (Walsall, England)
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. The minister’s income
was stated by one speaker to be £539 per annum nett—£508 derived from a
sum of £20,974 13s. 11d. invested in Consols, and with other sources
making a gross revenue of £641 18s. 9d., from which deductions amounting
to £102 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).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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