MR. HERBERT ROBERTS (Denbighshire, W.)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that on October 24th last the Reverend J. F. Reece, rector of Llanfwrog, Denbighshire, refused to allow Mrs. Williams, a Nonconformist, residing at time of death in the borough of Ruthin, to be buried in the parish churchyard of Llanfwrog; that the deceased had resided in the parish of Llanfwrog from childhood, for 31 years; that her family have long possessed two graves in the parish churchyard; that the grave in which it was desired that the burial should take place had been acquired or paid for by her husband; and that two of her infant children, who died outside the parish of Llanfwrog in 1885, are there interred; whether ho is aware that the father of the deceased died outside the parish of Llanfwrog in 1881, and was buried in Llanfwrog parish churchyard; and that several persons, not resident at death within the parish of Llanfwrog, have during the last two years been buried in that parish churchyard; whether he will state the reasons given for denying to the deceased a right of burial in the Llanfwrog parish churchyard, previously granted to her family and others; whether the rector was entitled to prevent the deceased being buried in a grave held by her husband under such circumstances; and whether it will be open to the rector in the future to order 344 the burial of another parishioner in the grave referred to?
§ MR. COLLINGSI am informed by the rector that the husband of the deceased lady had not acquired any grave in the churchyard referred to by purchase, nor had he obtained any rights of future interment in the grave in which the two infant children were buried. It appears, further, that Mrs. Williams had ceased to be a parishioner more than 15 years ago, and that her interment in the parish churchyard was refused in pursuance of a rule, which has been in force for some years, restricting the interments of non-parishioners in this churchyard to husbands and wives of persons already buried therein.
§ MR. COLLINGSI am not.