SECOND READING. (Hansard, 1 July 1861)

SIR GEORGE LEWIS
said, he had to move the second reading of this Bill, the object of which was the appropriation, out of the eight suspended canonries, the proceeds of which were payable to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, of the profits of one canonry for the benefit of the military knights, on the Royal foundation at Windsor, and the profits of another of these canonries in augmentation of the benefices of the vicer and the perpetual curate of the district church of the Holy Trinity in Windsor.

§ LORD JOHN MANNERS
said, he objected to the Bill on the ground that it reversed the principles on which Parliament had of late years dealt with Ecclesiastical property of that description. One of the canonries consisted of the tithes of the parish of Wraysbury, which, in point of fact, was much more miserably endowed than Windsor was.

§ MR. E. P. BOUVERIE
said, that as one intrusted with the administration of these funds, he must protest against such an application of the revenues of one of the suspended canonries. The principle was one which might be carried a great deal further, and might destroy the effect of much useful legislation.

§ MR. AYRTON
said, that if the object of the Bill was to give to the Military Knights of Windsor, out of the revenues in 174 the hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, an advantage which they had never before enjoyed, and to which the highest Court of Appeal in the realm had declared they had no right, it was a very extraordinary measure indeed. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary had on other occasions opposed, on the ground of principle, a diversion of ecclesiastical funds for which he now sought a legislative sanction.

§ MR. G. W. HOPE
contended that the Military Knights had an equitable, though not, perhaps, a legal claim to the allowance the Bill proposed to give them. As a Royal foundation, the chapter of Windsor, he thought, was bound to make provision for the living of Windsor.

§ MR. DEEDES
said, he had great sympathy for the Military Knights of Windsor, but he could not help thinking that the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman was a strong one, in giving to these knights what the law had decided they were not entitled to. He could not agree either to the proposal for increasing the livings of Windsor out of the fund. But he would not divide the House at that stage.