Page:The statutes of Wales (1908).djvu/121

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INTRODUCTION
cxvii

performance of divine service according to the Church of England. More favourable provisions were made for St. David's College at Lampeter.

A.D. 1847.—On February 10, 1847, a Commission was appointed to consider the state of the bishoprics in England and Wales. This Commission reported, and some of its recommendations became law in the same year (10-11 Victoria, c. 108). The dioceses of St. Asaph and Bangor were continued as separate bishoprics, and the bishopric of Manchester was founded. The Commission had recommended taking away one bishop from North Wales and joining the sees of St. Asaph and Bangor, and had recommended also that one bishop should be taken away from South Wales, and that Llandaff should be united with the see of Bristol. There was a strong feeling displayed in Wales against these proposals, with the result that these particular recommendations were omitted from the Act. Under section 2, a very important provision relating to the constitution of our country became law, viz., that the number of Lords Spiritual then sitting and voting as Lords of Parliament was not to be increased by the creation of the new bishopric of Manchester. A protest was also entered in the House of Lords against the procedure established by this section for filling up vacancies among the Lords Spiritual. This protest was made by a few of the lay and spiritual lords, because "it constituted a dangerous precedent, and was at variance with the principle of an hereditary peerage, and contrary to the privileges of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal."

A.D. 1863.—By an Act (26-27 Victoria, c. 82) the Welsh Bishops were empowered to make provision for English services in certain parishes of Wales. As the law stood, in all parishes in Wales in which Welsh was the tongue commonly spoken by the people the whole Divine Service was required to be used and said in the British or Welsh tongue. It was provided that wherever any ten or more