§ MR. WARDLE (Derbyshire, S.)My question, I notice, has been considerably altered, but I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that the Rev. Sydney Faithorne Green, who was deprived of the living of St. John's, Miles Platting, in 1882, for wilful disobedience to the laws of the Church of England, was in 1886 licensed by the Bishop of London to St. John Baptist's, Kensington, where unlawful ritual is in use, and that, notwithstanding this continued defiance of Her Majesty's Ecclesiastical Courts, the same clergyman has been instituted to the benefice of Charlton-in-Dover, and 1274 is there continuing the same unlawful practices, which formed the ground of his removal from Miles Platting; and, if so, whether the Government is prepared to take any action, by legislation or otherwise, in the matter?
§ MR. MATTHEWSI am informed by His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury that Mr. Green was instituted last year to the benefice of Charlton-in-Dover on the presentation of Keble College, Oxford, and on the production of proper testimonials. The Archbishop has no information as to any illegal practices at Charlton. I am also informed that this gentleman was never licensed to St. John Baptist's, Kensington. That church was not consecrated in the year 1886. It was merely a proprietary chapel. It is not the intention of the Government to take any action in the matter.