A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



archdeaconry, which, for lack of a better territorial name, was called 

 the archdeaconry of Westmorland. This final arrangement was made 

 by Order in Council, dated 10 August 1847, but did not come into 

 force till the death of Bishop Percy in 1856. After a history of 723 

 years the diocese of Carlisle entered on a new epoch. Its enlargement 

 marks the turn over of a fresh page. The period of organization and 

 activity had come. The railway was discovered to be a useful agency 

 in diocesan work, and bishops of Carlisle were not slow in taking advan- 

 tage of it. 



The whole of the nineteenth century, and specially the latter portion 

 of it, is distinguished for the ceaselessness of its manifold activities and the 

 variety of its diocesan and parochial organizations. It is true that at all 

 times the diocese of Carlisle was administered on plans suited to its geogra- 

 phical situation and spiritual necessities, but when we reach the Victorian 

 period the church became more plastic and adaptable to the require- 

 ments of increasing population and advancing education. The history 

 of the episcopate is embodied in ' the daily round and common task ' of 

 diocesan movement. Under the new conditions the bishop became the 

 most indefatigable worker in his diocese. Bishop Villiers lost no time in 

 carrying out the legislation of 1836 for the enlargement of his charge. 

 One of his first acts after consecration was the nomination of an archdeacon 

 of Westmorland on 9 May 1856, and so bent was he on diocesan organi- 

 zation that the long obsolete machinery of ruridecanal action was revived 

 on i January 1858 by the subdivision of the diocese into eighteen rural 

 deaneries and the appointment of a beneficed clergyman in each district 

 with a nominal oversight. 1 Very soon the actual condition of things 

 began to dawn on the chief pastor of the flock. The rural deans brought 

 back a report of the nakedness of the land. Populous and extensive 

 parishes needed subdivision : new churches, new parsonages, increased 

 incomes this was the mournful tale. Bishop Waldegrave lamented in 

 1 86 1 that of the 267 incumbencies in the diocese, 58 had no glebe 

 houses at all, and to these should be added nine places in which the 

 residences were unfit for habitation. In six parishes the income did not 

 attain to 50 a year ; in eight it did not exceed 70 ; in three it barely 

 reached 80 ; while but few exceeded I2o. 2 While this undesirable 

 state of things was being remedied by the action of the Church Exten- 

 sion Society, founded by himself in 1862, the supply of the right sort of 

 clergy became the pressing problem of his episcopate. It troubled 

 Bishop Waldegrave as it had troubled many of his predecessors. Appre- 

 hension was expressed that the bishop was lowering the status of the 

 clergy by admitting men of inferior educational equipment to holy 

 orders. The charge brought a spirited defence at the diocesan visitation 

 of 1864. Of the sixty candidates ordained during the four years of his 

 episcopate, twenty-two were of academic rank, twenty-six had been 

 trained in theological colleges, and only twelve were literates, men 



i Carl. Epis. Reg. Villiers, ff. 81, 145-50. 



3 Charge at his Primary Visitation (1861), p. 16. 



112 



