A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



to improve the value of poor benefices. In connexion with this task a 

 parochial survey was undertaken in 1650, and the presentments of jurors 

 were returned into Chancery giving much detail as to the various parishes 

 surveyed.*'^ All these Committees of Parliament were discharged by the 

 dissolution of the Long Parliament in 1653. 



The instructions given to the commissioners will illustrate the business- 

 like character of these parliamentary dealings with the church : To find 

 out (i) What parsonages, vicarages, and other benefices, with or without 

 cure of soul, there are in your division ; (2) The value of each per annum ; 

 (3) The names of the present incumbents and proprietors ; (4) Who receives 

 the profit ; (5) Who supplies the cure, and what is his salary ; (6) The 

 number of chapels belonging to parish churches; (7) How the parish 

 churches and chapels are situated, and how they might be united ; (8) How 

 the churches and chapels are supplied with preaching ministers ; (9) What 

 chapels might well be reassigned or made into parish churches ; (10) Where 

 new churches should be built and parishes divided. So far as Durham is 

 concerned, the remarks appended to the returns are very interesting, and the 

 details given are a useful piece of parochial church history. About eighty 

 parishes in the county of Durham appear to be described, exclusive of annexed 

 chapelries. One or two returns may serve as specimens, e.g. ' Stockton a 

 chapel value ^35 ; minister Rowland Salkeld, salary £25-' ^^ i^ desired 

 by the inhabitants that ' being a corporation it may be made a parish 

 church.' «^ 



Another scheme of these years was the foundation of the Durham 

 College, which in its educational aspect has been more fully described in the 

 previous volume."* Mooted first in 1650 the design took six years to come 

 to maturity. From the very first the idea was to promote an institution 

 which should be ' as well in reference to the promoting of the Gospel as the 

 religious and prudent education of young men there.'*" It is natural to 

 suppose, though exact proof is wanting, that the idea of the college owed 

 something to the splendid Ripon College scheme which had been projected 

 seventy years before.*'^ After various propositions as to using fines from 

 delinquents for carrying out the Durham plan, subscriptions were invited,*'^ 

 ,and the college began work in the late summer or autumn of 1656. The 

 tradition is that it prospered well during the short period of its existence.**" 

 Coincidently with its inception in 1650 a disgraceful episode took place when 

 Cromwell filled cathedral and castle with what remained of the rabble of 

 prisoners taken at Dunbar.**^ Tradition ascribes much defacement of the 



*" Shaw, op. cit. ii, 603. The Durham return is among the Hunter MSS. in the Dean and Chapter 

 Library. 



*^' The volume is the fourth of the Lambeth MSS. described by W. A. Shaw, Hisf. ofCh. of Engl, ii, 467. 



"" V.C.H. Dur. i, 380. See, too, J. T. Fowler, Hist, of Univ. of Dur. The dates are : 7 May, 1650, 

 original petition for erection of a college, Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. i, 636 ; August, petition for fines to go 

 to its support; 11 Mar. 165 1, Cromwell's approbation secured, Hutchinson, ibid.; 14 Jan. 1652, further 

 petition, ibid. 638; 28 Apr. 1653, further petition from the county, ibid 639; 29 Jan. 1656, citizens' 

 petition, S.P. Dom. 12480 (17) ; I Feb., 6, 10 Mar., 3, 10, 22, 25 Apr., 16 May, i, 7 Aug., 5 Sept., 1 1 Dec. 

 are days for which there is some report in S.P. Dom. An article in the Gent. Mag. (Ser. l), ix, 606, purports 

 to describe the final steps, but perhaps it betrays some imagination. 



"' From Cromwell's approbation, Hutchinson, op. cit. 641. 



"' One of the provisional drafts has been printed in Peclc's Desiderata Curiosa. 



"^ S.P. Dom . Interregnum, vol. 126, No. 28. *"" Hutchinson, Hist. Dur. i, 655. 



*" Mercurius Politicus, 8 Nov. 1650 ; cf also Several Proc. 8 May — Burney newspapers in B.M. 34 and 36. 



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