HC Deb 16 February 1872 vol 209 cc527-8
MR. STAVELEY HILL

asked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, after having carried an Act of Parliament by which the living of Ewelme had been severed from the Regius Professorship of Divinity, the present Regius Professor has been allowed to hold the living of Shoreham, in Sussex, together with the canonry of Christ Church?

MR. GLADSTONE

The present Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford holds the living of Shoreham together with the canonry of Christ Church. With that, however, we have nothing to do. The hon. and learned Gentleman is also no doubt aware that the law permits a canon to hold a living, and that it is not in our power to interfere with any arrangements of that kind. Perhaps a duty did accrue to us in this instance, out of a proposal to sever the living of Ewelme from the Regius Professorship. That is to say, if the living now held by the Regius Professor had been a living more onerous than the living of Ewelme, I think it would have been my duty to inquire before severing the living of Ewelme, whether it was the intention of the Regius Professor to give up the present living, in the event of the other being so severed. But inasmuch as I knew the living of Shoreham was both of considerably less emolument, and of one-half the population of the living of Ewelme, I did not consider it to be my duty to enter into any investigation of that kind.