Avestrywas a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government of aparishinEngland,Walesand someEnglish colonies,which originally met in the vestry orsacristyof theparish church,and consequently became known colloquially as the "vestry". At their height, the vestries were the only form of local government in many places and spent nearly one-fifth of the budget of the British government. They were stripped of their secular functions in 1894 (1900 in London) and were abolished in 1921.
The termvestryremains in use outside of England and Wales to refer to the elected governing body and legal representative of a parish church, for example in theAmericanandScottish Episcopal Churches.
For many centuries, in the absence of anincorporatedcity or town council, the vestries were the solede factolocal government and presided over communal fundraising and expenditure until the mid or late 19th century under localestablished Churchchairmanship. They were concerned with the spiritual and physical welfare of parishioners and their parish amenities, both secular and religious, by collecting local taxes and taking responsibility for functions such as thecare of the poor,the maintenance of roads, minor law enforcement,civil registration,and maintenance of the church building, etc. However, more serious punitive matters were dealt with by themanorial courtandhundred court,or theJustices of the Peace.The functions could vary from parish to parish depending on accepted custom and necessity and the willingness of the community to fund them. This was because their power derived initially fromcustomand was only occasionally ratified by thecommon lawor asserted in statute. However during theTudor period(1485-1603), parish vestries were given increased statutory duties; for example, the compulsoryparish registerof baptisms, marriages and burials was introduced in 1538, and under theHighways Act 1555,the vestries became responsible for the upkeep of roads in the parish, while theTudor poor laws;a series of laws introduced through the period, made vestries responsible for the care of the poor of the parish.[1][2]At the high point of their powers before removal of Poor Law responsibilities in 1834, the vestries spent not far short of one-fifth of the budget of the British government.
During the 19th century, their secular functions were gradually eroded, and finally in 1894 (1900 in London) the secular and ecclesiastical aspects of the vestries were separated. The vestry's remaining secular duties were transferred to newly createdparish councils.Their ecclesiastical duties remained with theChurch of England,until they were abolished and replaced byparochial church councils(PCCs) in 1921. This secularisation of local government was unsuccessfully opposed by administrations of theConservative Partyled byLord Salisburyand severalHigh ChurchLiberalpoliticians from 1895 to 1900.
The only aspect of the original vestry remaining in current use is the annualmeeting of parishioners,which may be attended by anyone on the local civil register of electors and which has the power to appointchurchwardens.A right to tax by a PCC for churchchancelrepairs remains as to liable (apportioned) residents and businesses across an apportioned area of many church parishes, in the form ofchancel repair liabilityhowever, in some areas no such further taxation replaced tithes.
Notice dated April 1843 (which would have been pinned to the church door[3]) calling a meeting of the select vestry of the parish ofSt Bees,for rating and assessing property in the parish to raise money for the repair of the church and the provision of ornaments and other necessary goods for the coming year. It is signed by the Rev R P Buddicom, vicar of St Bees, and three of the four churchwardens
The vestry was a meeting of the parish ratepayers chaired by theincumbentof the parish, originally held in the parish church or its vestry, from which it got its name.[4][a][b]
The vestry committees were not rooted in any specific statute, but they evolved independently in each parish according to local needs from their roots in medieval parochial governance. By the late 17th century they had become, along with the county magistrates, the rulers of rural England.[5]
In England,until the 19th century,the parish vestry committee equated to today'sparochial church councilsplus all local government responsible for secular local business, which is now the responsibility of a District Council as well as in some areas a CivilParish Council,and other activities, such as administering locally thepoor law.
The original unit of settlement among the Anglo-Saxons in England was thetunor town. The inhabitants met to carry out this business in the townmootor meeting, at which they empowered or tasked men with various positions, and thecommon lawwould be promulgated. Later with the rise of theshire,the township would send itsreeveand four best men to represent it in the courts of thehundredand shire. However, township independence in the Saxon system was lost to the feudalmanorialcourt leet,which replaced the town meeting.
Assembly ofparishesrested on land ownership, so increasingly themanorial system,with parishes assembled bylords of the manorin concert with local clergy and religious institutions by serving via a new church a manor, or more than one manor plus commons, barren land (waste) and land set aside for church benefit as rectory or vicarage lands (glebelands).[6]Initially, the manor was the principal unit of local administration, common customs and justice in the rural economy, but over time the church replaced themanorial courtas to key elements of rural life and improvement—it levied its local tax on produce,tithes.[6]Much subinfeudation, division of manors and a new mercantile middle class had widely eroded the old feudal model by the earlyTudor periodand which changes nationally accelerated with theReformationin the 1530s seeing the sequestration of religious houses and the greatest estates of the church, but also underMary Iand others a turning to the parish system to attend to social and economic needs. These changes transformed participation in the township or parish meeting, which dealt with various civil and ecclesiastical demands, needs and projects. This new meeting was supervised by the parish priest (vicar/rector/curate), probably the best educated of the inhabitants, and became generally dubbed the vestry meeting.[7]
As the complexity of rural society increased, the vestry meetings pragmatically acquired greater responsibilities and were given the power to grant or deny payments from parish funds. Although the vestry committees were not established by any law and had come into being in an unregulated ad-hoc process, it was highly convenient to allow them to develop. This was convenient when they were the obvious body for administering theEdwardian and Elizabethan systems for support of the pooron a parochial basis. This was their first, and their principal,statutorypower for many centuries.
With this gradual formalisation of civil responsibilities, the ecclesiastical parishes acquired a dual nature and could be classified as civil and ecclesiastical parishes. In England,until the 19th century,the parish vestry was in effect what would today usually be called aparochial church council.Still, it was also responsible for all the secular parish business now dealt with by civil bodies, such as parish councils.
Eventually, the vestry assumed a variety of tasks. It became responsible for appointing parish officials, such as the parish clerk, overseers of the poor, sextons and scavengers, constables, and nightwatchmen.
At the high point of their powers, just prior to removal of Poor Law responsibilities in 1834, the vestries spent not far short of one-fifth of the budget of the national government itself.[7]More than 15,600 ecclesiastical parish vestries looked after their own:
churches and burial grounds, parish cottages and workhouses, endowed charities, market crosses, pumps, pounds, whipping posts, stocks, cages, watch houses, weights and scales, clocks, and fire engines.
Or to put it another way: the maintenance of the church and its services, the keeping of the peace, the repression of vagrancy, the relief of destitution, the mending of roads, the suppression of nuisances, the destruction of vermin, the furnishing of soldiers and sailors, even to some extent the enforcement of religious and moral discipline. These were among the multitudinous duties imposed on the parish and its officers, that is to say, the vestry and its organisation, by the law of the land, and by local custom and practice as the situation demanded.
This level of activity had resulted in an increasing sophistication of administration. The parish clerk would administer the decisions and accounts of the vestry committee, and records of parish business would be stored in a "parish chest" kept in the church and provided for security with three different locks, the individual keys to which would be held by such as the parish priest andchurchwardens.
While the vestry was a general meeting of all inhabitant rate-paying householders in a parish,[8]in the 17th century the huge growth of population in some parishes, mostly urban, made it increasingly difficult to convene and conduct meetings. Consequently, in some of these a new body, theselect vestry,was created. This was an administrative committee of selected parishioners whose members generally had a property qualification and who were recruited largely byco-option.[8]This took responsibility from the community at large and improved efficiency, but over time tended to lead to governance by a self-perpetuating elite.[6]This committee was also known as theclose vestry,whilst the termopen vestrywas used for the meeting of all ratepayers.
By the late 17th century, a number of autocratic and corrupt select vestries had become a national scandal, and several bills were introduced to parliament in the 1690s, but none became acts. There was continual agitation for reform, and in 1698 to keep the debate alive theHouse of Lordsinsisted that a bill to reform the select vestries, theSelect Vestries Bill,would always be the first item of business of the Lords in a new parliament until a reform bill was passed. The First Reading of the bill was made annually, but it never got any further every year. This continues to this day as an archaic custom in the Lords to assert the independence from the Crown, even though the select vestries have long been abolished.[5]
A plaque commemorating an 1897 bridge building initiative in London.George Bernard Shawwas elected to the St Pancras vestry in 1897. It became the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras in 1900.
A major responsibility of the vestry had been the administration of the Poor Law. Still, the widespread unemployment following theNapoleonic Warsoverwhelmed the vestries, and under thePoor Law Amendment Act 1834this duty was transferred to elected boards of guardians for single parishes or topoor law unionsfor larger areas. These new bodies now received the poor law levy and administered the system. This legislation removed a large portion of the income of the vestry and a significant part of its duties.
The vestries escaped theMunicipal Corporations Act 1835,which brought more democratic and open processes to municipal bodies. Still, there was a gradual movement to separate the vestry's ecclesiastical and secular duties. TheVestries Act 1850prevented the holding of meetings in churches, and in London, vestries were incorporated under theMetropolis Management Act 1855to create properly regulated civil bodies for London parishes. Still, they did not have any ecclesiastical duties.
As the 19th century progressed, the parish vestry progressively lost its secular duties to the increasing number of local boards which came into being and operated across greater areas than single parishes for a specific purpose. These were able to levy their rate. Among these were the local boards of health created under thePublic Health Act 1848(11 & 12 Vict.c. 63), the burial boards, which took over responsibility for secular burials in 1853, and theSanitary districts,which were established in 1875. Thechurch rateceased to be levied in many parishes and was made voluntary in 1868.[9]
However, the proliferation of these local bodies led to a confusing fragmentation of local government responsibilities, and this became a driver for large scale reform in local government, which resulted in theLocal Government Act 1894.The problem of so many local bodies was expressed byH H Fowler,President of the Local Government Board, who said in the parliamentary debate for the 1894 Act....
62 counties, 302 Municipal Boroughs, 31 Improvement Act Districts, 688 Local Government Districts, 574 Rural Sanitary Districts, 58 Port Sanitary Districts, 2,302 School Board Districts... 1,052 Burial Board Districts, 648 Poor Law Unions, 13,775 Ecclesiastical Parishes, and nearly 15,000 Civil Parishes. The total number of Authorities which tax the English ratepayers is between 28,000 and 29,000. Not only are we exposed to this multiplicity of authority and this confusion of rating power, but the qualification, tenure, and mode of election of members of these Authorities differ in different cases. "[10]
Under the Act, secular and ecclesiastical duties were finally separated when a system of elected ruralparish councilsandurban districtcouncils was introduced. This removed all secular matters from the parish vestries, and created parish councils or parish meetings to manage these. The parish vestries were left with only church affairs to manage.
Following the removal of civil powers in 1894, the vestry meetings continued to administer church matters in Church of England parishes until the Parochial Church Councils (Powers) Measure 1921 Act establishedparochial church councilsas their successors.[11]Since then, the only remnant of the vestry meeting has been themeeting of parishioners,which is convened annually solely for the election of churchwardens of the ecclesiastical parish.[12]This is sometimes referred to as the "annual vestry meeting". Parochial church councils now undertake all other roles of the vestry meetings.
The termvestrycontinues to be used in some otherdenominations,denoting a body of lay members elected by the congregation to run the business of a church parish. This is the case in theScottish,[13]and theAmericanEpiscopal Churches, and in Anglican ecclesiastical provinces such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand. In the American Episcopal church, vestry members are generally elected annually and serve as the legal representatives of the church.[14]Within theChurch of Irelandthe term "select vestry" is used to describe the members of the parish who are elected to conduct the affairs of the parish.
^InWelshchapels, the room is often the location ofa teaserved to the congregation, particularly family members, after a funeral, when the congregation returns to the chapel after the burial or cremation[citation needed]
