In February, 1836, the Provost and Senior Fellows, two only dissenting, agreed to join the Junior Fellows in an application to the Lord Lieutenant for a repeal of the obnoxious Statute, suggesting, however, that the six most Junior of the Fellows should be exempted from the permission to marry. The Earl of Mulgrave, then Viceroy, declined to recommend the change. At the end of 1838 a further memorial was presented to the representative of the Crown, praying that the Fellows above the lower nine of the body should be allowed to marry. The Provost and Senior Fellows concurred in the prayer of the memorial, stipulating, however, that the plan should be accompanied by such measures as would prevent the College livings from being declined by the whole body of Fellows. On the arrival of a new Viceroy (Lord Fortescue) in 1839, a memorial was presented to him by the College asking for a repeal of the Celibacy Statute. To this there was a considerable opposition on the part of the great body of the Scholars and prospective Fellowship candidates, on the ground that the existing Fellows would be settled for life in the College, and the vacancies for fresh elections would become very rare, and thus the highest mathematical and literary studies in the College would suffer. It was known, also, that the Archbishop of Armagh, Lord John George Beresford, who was then Vice-Chancellor, and who took a warm interest in the welfare of the College, was strongly opposed to the repeal of this Statute. In the end the Government was guided by the advice of Dr. Dickinson, afterwards Bishop of Meath, and in 1840 the Celibacy Statute was repealed; ten new Fellowships were added, one to be elected each year; the six junior of the Fellows were excluded from the emoluments of the tutors, and restricted to the statutable emoluments of a Junior Fellow (about £37 a-year, with rooms and dinner in the Hall); and the number of Tutor Fellows was increased from fifteen to nineteen, the average income of the tutors being thus diminished by 21 per cent.