The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-04-09 00:00:00

GENERAL VESTRY,

The annual general vestry for the parish of Liverpool was
held on Tuesday, in St. Nicholas's Church. In the absence of
the Venerable Archdeacon Brooks, the Rev. A. Campbell,
rector, occupied the chair. _

Mr.' Hart, vestry-clerk, having read the churchwardens' ac-
counts. and their adoption having been snored,
Mr. BIOHAM having congratulated the churchwardens on the
economy they had exercised with regard to the churches, pro-
ceeded to protest against some of the sums paid to the choris-
ters, bell-ringers, &c., of the churches, on the ground of ille-
gality ; but confined himself to the protest, declining to move
any amendment. He then directed attention to the fact that
several of the pews in St. Peter's and St. Nicholas's Churches
were claimed by parties as their private property, and those
parties derived rents from these pews. He (Mr. Bigham) ap-
prehended that these pews were not private property, that they
were open to every person who wished to go into the church,
and he asked what the opinion of the chairman was on the
subject.
The CHAIRMAN was of opinion that those pews were not pri-
vate property, though they had been treated as such by some
parties.
The accounts were then passed.
Mr. Richard Harbord and Mr. Thomas Dover were then re-
elected churchwardens for the ensuing year and Mr. H.
Banner and Mr. Peter B. Drinkwater were appointed sidesmett
for the ensuing year.

Mr. HA !MORD proposed the following gentlemen as over-
seers for the ensuing year :—Mr. William Brown, Mr. Hugh
Molyneux, Mr. Thomas Clarke, and Mr. W. P. Jeffreys. The
motion having been seconded,
Mr. W. BROWN, in proposing an amendment, said that It
great principle was involved in the question of who should be
overseers. That question was whether large property only
should be rated, or whether all property should be rated?
This principle was recognised thirty-one years ago by Sturges
Bourne's act, and in 1831 an act was passed rating the owners
of this property in Liverpool. This act, however, through the
instrumentality of the cottage owners, had been defeated and
repealed, on the alleged ground that it increased pauperism;
but he could prove that the increase which then took
place was attributable to the visitation of cholera, and
not to the operation of this act. In conclusion, Mr. Brown
stated that the cottage owners wanted to have fourteen mem-
bers of the vestry who either belonged to their body or sup-
ported their views, whilst the total number of members in the
vestry, including the rector, was twenty-eight. On the prin-
cipal that taxation should govern representation, they were
not entitled to more than one or two, for this class of property
had only paid about .1:'3,000 out of the whole assessment. He
then proposed, as an amendment, that the name of Mr. Poole
should be substituted for that of Mr. Thomas Clarke.
Mr. WRlNtoirr seconded the amendment. He congratulated
the vestry on the large proportion of the rates collected in the
past year. The overseers had done their duty fearlessly, and
if they had been constrained to be hard on the cottagers, they
were equally severe on all other classes.
Mr. CHARLES WI LLNIER denounced the course that bad been
pursued by the overseers, and stated that their indiscriminate
and harsh mode of collection had inflicted much misery on the
occupiers of cottage property, and had injured the town mate-
rially by driving many persons to reside in the out-townships.
A very long and desultory discussion followed on this sub-
ject, and, after the exhibition of much personal feeling, the,
amendment was put and carried.
The election of select vestrymen was next proceeded with,
and, after much discussion and wrangling, the following gen-
tlemen were appointed :—Messrs. Cearns, Luff, Johnson, Wood-
ruff, Summer, Blain, Cafferata, Earle, Fairhurst, J. Gardner,
Hand, and Shakeshaft. On naming several of these gen-
tlemen amendments had been proposed, and negatived by the
vestry ; but polls were demanded in every case.
Mr. John Troughton and Mr. Ralph Leyland were appointed
churchwardens of St. Paul's, and Mr. William Hutton and Mr.
George Nixon churchwardens of St. John's. After much dis-
cussion, £5O, the compensation in lieu of Easter grants, was
voted to the pariah clerks, according to stipulation, it being
understood that the payment of this sum was open to be objected
to at any future vestry, and was to cease with the present clerks,
A sum of -5() was also voted for the Welsh services at St.
Paul's. A sum of £3O was voted to the minister of St. Matthias's
Church. The equitable rating committee were then appointed,
with some additional names, and a voluntary rate of a halfpenny
in the pound was agreed to.
Mr. HARBORD stated that the amount of voluntary rate
Oi
received was '2,389 lls. 2d., of which the sum of .4,1,466 had
1,466
inquired
d o n beenwbat expended
secur
security
yy
thet e
meqouneityagatible
itgairating
been disposed of, and a sum of .875 remained on hand. .e 750
had been lent to the parochial water committee, and the ba-
lance
lentaoinAmvcl rment .ogioEttt fothAene.:RLR
parochial water committee? and this pie "po
qt.- 'NI DA RD
rise to considerable discussion, in the midst of which"! • •
money
read the last part of Mr. Stephenson's report in favour
itS:
had lan,been
expended.
proof of the
sun foolish i alto
"'wale oinlisr"e.di‘Bl
paid to Mr. Wainwright forhis services. • ,
The object of the recent appointment of school r: , 4. 2
life by the Poor-law Commissioners having been br..._t u • --
the consideration of the vestry, a resolution, recd ibt
of the course pursued by the select vestry, in prote
life appointments, was agreed to, and the prof • 11 I
Dated with a rote of thanks to the ChAiflOttil.
ZriVtiShiag