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The Disestablishment of the Church in Wales

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2008

Roger L. Brown
Roger L. Brown
Affiliation:
Vicar of Welshpool and Rector of Castle Caereinion
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Extract

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During the earlier part of 1993 a paper of mine was published in the Ecclesiastical Law Journal. Entitled ‘What of the Church in Wales?’, it endeavoured to suggest why the disestablished Church in Wales still maintained the characteristics of an established Church. The paper seems to have aroused much interest within certain circles of the Church of England, especially among synod members, at a time when the question of disestablishment was once more being publicly aired. The point was made to me repeatedly that disestablishment would need to be accompanied by dis-endowment, although the only reason for this assertion appears to have been the historical precedents of the Irish and Welsh disestablishments. I am not competent to write about the former, but with regard to the latter I feel that a historical examination of the events which led to the disestablishment of the Church in Wales might raise some question marks against this assertion.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ecclesiastical Law Journal , Volume 5 , Issue 25 , July 1999 , pp. 252 - 264
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical Law Society 1999

References

1 3 Ecc LJ 20–9.

2 4 and 5 Geo 5 c 91.

3 Welsh Church (Temporalities) Act 1919 (9 and 10 Geo 5 c 65). s 2.

4 Welsh Church Act 1914. s 2.

5 Ibid, s 9(2).

6 Ibid.. s 9(3).

7 By-Gones. 26 April 1933. pp. 153ff.Google Scholar

8 Utilising a phrase in Fowell, R. W. and Dibdin, L. George. The Welsh Disestablishment Bill 1912 (London 1912), p. 97Google Scholar. Two vestiges of establishment remained, so that the Church in Wales is still governed by ecclesiastical law (as distinct from its own canon law) in relation to the solemnisation of matrimony and the burial of the dead. See Watkin, T. G.. ‘Vestiges of Establishment’ 2 Ecc LJ 110–115.Google Scholar

9 Welsh Church Act 1914. s 2(1).

10 Ibid., s 2(2).

11 Ibid., s 2(4).

12 Ibid., s 3(5).

13 Ibid., s 3(1).

14 Ibid., ss 3(2). 13(1).

15 Ibid., s 3(3).

16 Ibid., s 3(2).

17 Ibid., s 3(3).

18 I.e. the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919 (9 and 10 Geo 5 c 76).

19 Welsh Church Act 1914. s 13(1).

20 see Ibid. s 38.

21 Ibid. ss 1, 16.

22 Green, C. A. H.. The Setting of the Constitition of the Church in Wales (London 1937). P. 298.Google Scholar

23 Welsh Church Act 1914. s 10.

24 Ibid., s 4(1).

25 Ibid., s 4(2).

26 Ibid., s 8(1).

27 Ibid., s 5. Sch 1–3.

28 Welsh Church Act 1914. s 24.

29 Ibid., s 19(1)(b).

30 Ibid., s 8(1)(c).

31 Ibid., s 8(1)(d).

32 Welsh Church (Temporalities) Act 1919. s1(2).

33 For a detailed argument, see Bell, . Disestablishment in Ireland and Wales, pp. 250–6.Google Scholar

34 C. A. H. Green, address at the Church Congress. Bournemouth 1935. on ‘Disestablishment and Disendowment in Wales’, in The Official Handbook of the Church in Wales 1936. p. 14.

35 Green, . The Setting of the Constitution, pp. 279 ff.Google Scholar

36 32 & 33 Vict c 42.

37 Jones, Basil. Fourth Charge to the Diocese of St David's. 1886. p. 33.Google Scholar

38 Compulsory Church Rate Abolition Act 1868 (31 and 32 Vict c 109).

39 54 and 55 Vict c 8.

40 Tithe Act 1936 (26 Geo 5 and 1 Edw 8 c 43).

41 35 and 36 Vict c 33.

42 43 and 44 Vict c 41.

43 Welsh Church Act 1914. s 24.

44 2 Edw 7 c 42.

45 1 and 2 Geo 5 c 13.

46 8 and 9 Geo 5 c 54.

47 See Bell, . Disestablishment in Ireland and Wales, pp. 309–13.Google Scholar

48 See my article. ‘Traitors and Compromisers: The Shadow Side of the Church's Fight against Disestablishment’. Journal of Welsh Religious History, 3 (1995) 35 53.Google Scholar