Report of the Commissioners of Ecclesiastical Revenue Inquiry, To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty.

Your Majesty having been pleased to issue a Commission under the Great Seal, dated the twenty-third day of June, in the second year of your Majesty’s reign, authorizing and directing the Commissioners therein-named to make a full and correct Inquiry respecting the Revenues and Patronage belonging to the several Archiepiscopal and Episcopal Sees in England and Wales to all Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, and to all Ecclesiastical Benefices, (including Donatives, Perpetual Curacies and Chapelries,) with or without Cure of Souls, and the Names of the several Patrons thereof, and other circumstances therewith connected; and your Majesty having been further pleased, on the expiration of the said Commission, to issue a second Commission, extending the period within which the Commissioners were required to make their final Report, and authorizing them to extend their Inquiries to the Islands of Jersey and Guernsey, and the Isle of Man:—

We, your Majesty’s Commissioners, whose hands and seals are hereunto set, humbly report to your Majesty, that in obedience to your Majesty’s commands, we have proceeded to execute the duties committed to us.

In prosecuting our inquiries, we have, from the extent and complexity of the various matters to be investigated, encountered many difficulties, which, though not unexpected, necessarily required a considerable length of time to surmount.

We believe that we are now in possession of materials sufficient to enable us to make a full report to your Majesty on all the topics within the range of our Commission; but to arrange and digest into a tabular form so large a mass of returns, comprising so many different heads of information, and thus to present a distinct view of the whole revenues of the Church and their distribution, has been a work of no ordinary labour, which, though nearly completed, must still occupy some further time.

It would have been more satisfactory to us to have awaited the period when we could have completed our task by a final report; but we are impressed with a conviction that it is expedient to lay before your Majesty, without delay, a statement of the total income of the Church, and of the manner in which it is divided between the archbishops, bishops, corporations aggregate and sole, and the incumbents and curates of benefices.

The total amount of the gross annual revenues of the several archiepiscopal and episcopal sees in England and Wales is £180,462, affording an average of £6,683; and the total amount of the net annual revenues of the same is £160,114, affording an average of £5,930.

The total amount of the gross annual revenues of the several cathedral and collegiate churches in England and Wales, together with the separate gross annual revenues of the several dignitaries and other spiritual persons, members of cathedrals or collegiate churches, is £350,861, and the total amount of the net annual revenues of the same is £272,828.

The total number of benefices with and without cure of souls, the incumbents whereof have made returns to our inquiries, omitting those which are permanently or accustomably annexed to superior preferments, and which are included in the statements respecting those preferments, is 10,498; the total amount of the gross annual revenues of which benefices is £3,191,950, affording an average of £304; and the total amount of the net annual revenues of the same is £3,000,393, affording an average of £285.

The total number of benefices with and without cure of souls in England and Wales, including those not returned to us, is 10,701; the total gross income of which, calculated from the average of those returned will be £3,253,662, and the total net income thereof will be £3,058,248.

The total number of curates employed both by resident and non-resident incumbents returned to us is 5,282, whose annual stipends in the aggregate amount to £424,796, affording an average annual stipend of eighty pounds; and the total amount of the stipends of curates, if one hundred and two be assumed as the proportionate number on the benefices not returned, and the same be calculated on the average of those returned to us, will be £432,956.

From a scale which we have prepared of the benefices with cure of souls returned to us, it appears that there are 294, the incomes of which are respectively under £50; 1621 of £50, and under £100; 1591 of £100, and under £150; 1355 of £150, and under £200; 1964 of £200, and under £300; 1317 of £300, and under £400; 830 of £400, and under £500; 504 of £500, and under £600; 337 of £600, and under £700; 217 of £700, and under £800; 129 of £800, and under £900; 91 of £900, and under £1000; 137 of £1000, and under £1500; 31 of £1500, and under £2000; and 18 of £2000, and upwards.

The number of sinecure rectories returned to us, and which sinecure rectories are included in the number of benefices above stated, is sixty-two; the aggregate gross annual revenues of which amount to eighteen thousand six hundred and twenty-two pounds, affording an average of three hundred pounds, and the aggregate net annual revenues of the same amount to seventeen thousand and ninety-five pounds, affording an average of two hundred and seventy-five pounds.

We regret that it is not at present practicable to offer a full explanation of the various items which compose the difference between the gross and net amounts; but, to prevent misapprehension, we think it advisable to observe, that no deduction is made from income on account of payments to curates, nor for the reparations of episcopal residences, or of glebe houses and offices, nor on account of payments of rates and taxes for the same, nor has any deduction been made on account of arrears due at the time of making the returns, or of any payments not being of a compulsory nature.

The returns of income have been generally made upon an average of three years, ending December the thirty-first, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-one.

Received this day of June, 1834.