A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



in the diocese."^ The Act swept into the coffers of the permanent com- 

 mission now erected by it all the episcopal revenues in excess of the _^8,ooo 

 assigned to the bishop, and further annexed under the powers given to it the 

 episcopal estates.^*'* The lands and funds of the dean and chapter were 

 untouched for some years to come, until the Act of i 840, which suspended 

 six canonries.^^* 



Bishop Maltby succeeded to the diminished external prestige of the see 

 without real regret. ' I can no longer,' he said, ' exercise the large hospitality, 

 nor what is more important, the unbounded beneficence which marked the 

 career of my predecessors. ... I relinquish secular power without any 

 regret.' ^^^ His appointment was greatly due to the hopes entertained of the 

 influence so eminent a scholar was likely to exert upon the nascent university, 

 and there can be no doubt that at a time when great pressure was being 

 brought to bear upon government to widen the whole scope of the university 

 and to throw it open to Dissenters, Maltby was able to keep the control of 

 dean and chapter upon it, and he certainly proved a considerable benefactor 

 to it.^^" 



The more absorbing problem that faced the bishop was the enormous 

 growth of population on the one hand, and on the other the diminished 

 resources of the church. The population of the county proper was 239,256 

 in 1831, 307,963 in 1841, and the proportion of sittings was decreasing year 

 by year. At the beginning of the century the church provided accommoda- 

 tion for one person in 4*232, but in 1841 only one in 6*268. Church- 

 building did not increase rapidly, though progress was made. It was a sore 

 point with Durham people that the original understanding by which local 

 claims were to receive some satisfaction was not fulfilled. As a result of 

 this injustice church accommodation became more inadequate in the county 

 of Durham and in Northumberland than in any other part of England. 

 Eventually, but not until Bishop Maltby had resigned, a strong effort was 

 made to compel the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to take a proper view of the 

 claims of the diocese."^ This effort was too late to make up for arrears. 

 The rapid multiplication of railways and collieries was filling the county 

 with a huge rough population for whose social and spiritual welfare church 

 machinery was imperative. The numbers had about doubled during the 

 twenty years of Maltby's episcopate. The translation of his successor. Bishop 

 Longley, who had pressed forward the question, left its further solution to 

 Bishop Baring. He inaugurated a new fund which gave an energetic im- 

 pulse to church-building, so that between 1871 and 1881 fifty parishes were 

 added, a record which no decade has exceeded. 



The mediaeval see of Durham had remained untouched during all the 

 vicissitudes recounted in these pages. It contained, of course, not merely the 



'" 6 and 7 Will. IV, cap. 77, supplemented as regards this point by an Order in Council dated 

 21 June, 1837, and a second dated 30 July, 1838. '^ Sect. I, 41, 42 and 54. 



*" The question was before Parliament for four years, and only received solution in the Act i and 2 

 Vict. cap. 30. The de.in and chapter had already under the Act of 4 July, 1832 (2 and 3 Will. IV, 

 cap. 19), conveyed to the university certain estates, and in 1841 canonries were assigned by an Order in 

 Council to two professorships, the actual money and securities being handed over to the university in 1842. 



'*^ Reported in Dur. Advertiser, Sept. 1836. 



"^ Account of Bishop Maltby, Gent. Mag. 1856 (2). 



'" The figures and facts as set forth in the text are given in a charge of the Ven. Archdeacon Watkins of 

 Durham in the Diocesan Mag. for Oct. 1884. 



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