Keble College, Oxford, St John's College, Cambridge, Eton College, the Secretary of State for Defence, the Prime Minister, the National Trust, the Mercers’ Company and the Earl of Lucan all share one role. Along with a myriad of other private individuals, office-holders and institutions, they are patrons of benefices. A patron holds an advowson, an ancient perpetual property right, which allows them to present a new incumbent when there is a vacancy in their benefice.
In 2014 the Church of England's Simplification Task Group was set up to ‘bring forward options and proposals for simplification and deregulation’ of the Church to promote mission and growth.Footnote 2 Flowing from this work, the Legislative Reform Committee of the Archbishops’ Council has begun a consultation under the Legislative Reform Measure 2018 ‘to remove or reduce burdens of a procedural nature’ arising from the Patronage (Benefices) Measure 1986.Footnote 3 The remit of these new legislative reform measures is limited to administrative inconveniences and ‘obstacles to efficiency’.Footnote 4 The current ‘Consultation’ clearly states that ‘There are no proposals to change the substantive rights of patrons, parochial church councils or bishops.’Footnote 5
The last substantive reform of patronage was undertaken a generation ago.Footnote 6 This article advocates a new review of the broader principles of the law. Church appointments turn on discernment, but in 2019 there are also new expectations of equality and transparency in all appointment processes. The six procedural changes proposed in the current ‘Consultation’ smooth the existing patronage system for the future. This article seeks to reconsider the nature and use of the property right behind that system.
In Patronage and Society in Nineteenth-Century England, Bourne observes that ‘To exercise patronage, to be a patron was in some measure to possess power over the lives of others. The essential and perennial problem of power – “who, whom” – lay therefore at the heart of patronage.’Footnote 7 Applying that maxim to modern private lay patronage, this article uses contemporary and historical records to define patronage and to show who is holding patronage today and how they are using it. On the basis of this research, suggestions are made for future substantive reform of this area of law. The article also explores how a reconsideration of the principle of patronage would affect other pressing contemporary issues facing the Church of England. As the bedrock of the parish system, patronage is a key part of pastoral reorganisation. Patronage needs to be openly considered within the wider debate on the future of the parish as a unit. Patronage is also relevant to the implementation of the 2017 ‘Taylor Review: sustainability of English churches and cathedrals’ and the Church of England's Renewal & Reform initiative to re-imagine the Church's ministry.Footnote 8 Consideration of Crown patronage within the context of the future of Establishment is outside the remit of the article.
DEFINING PATRONAGE AS PROPERTY
In property law terms, the patron owns an advowson, which is included within the definition of ‘land’ in section 205(1)(ix) of the Law of Property Act 1925. An advowson, like an easement, is an incorporeal hereditament. The law of real property applies, but the property itself is a right rather than a physical object. While property lawyers prize other incorporeal hereditaments such as easements as essential for modern land use, advowsons are regarded as an irrelevance. Thompson's Modern Property Law defines this ‘right to present a clergyman to a living’ as one of the ‘archaic rights derived from the feudal system … which, for some reason, was classified as real property’.Footnote 9 In the context of chancel repairs, Dawson and Dunn observe that ‘Land law provides examples of ancient rights, some of which have enduring utility, but others of which do not.’Footnote 10 Advowsons are Dawson and Dunn's first example of those rights that do not. Property lawyers value the evolving, ‘organic base’ of land law.Footnote 11 Advowsons are no longer regarded as part of that. Whereas once they were hotly traded, now they have no market value and cannot be bought or sold.Footnote 12 They may only be bequeathed or transferred without value. Advowsons are excluded from the open land registration system under the Land Registration Act 2002.
While property lawyers regard advowsons as relics, within the Church they are a matter of everyday use. Norman Doe's Canon Law in the Anglican Communion describes patronage across different parts of the Anglican Communion.Footnote 13 Clergy vacancy pages of the Church Times show that private patronage is alive and exercised by a whole variety of patrons in the Church of England. All church benefices have a patron, but few church-goers are aware of their patron's existence or identity. Often the bishop will also be the patron, but in a significant number of benefices there will be a private individual who has inherited the right, or a patronage trust or other body such as an educational institution, charity or guild.Footnote 14 In the best cases there are genuine, on-going relationships between the patron and the benefice which are supportive of the community and their faith and mission. In the worst cases there are private patrons retaining the patronage as a remnant of a feudal badge of honour, and the parish is only reminded of their existence and their rights when it is faced with a vacancy.
DEFINING PATRONAGE AS PROCESS: PATRONAGE (BENEFICES) MEASURE 1986Footnote 15
The current process for private patronage is to be found in the Patronage (Benefices) Measure 1986. The Measure has been criticised by clergy, bishops, patrons and parishioners.Footnote 16 The current ‘Consultation’ describes it as containing a ‘great deal of highly prescriptive provision’ and its procedures as ‘prone to delay’ and ‘complex’.Footnote 17
The detail of the current Measure and the range of approaches taken in practice is comprehensively explained elsewhere for any parish in vacancy.Footnote 18 David Parrott and David Field identify three ‘key players’ that bring ‘stability to the process as a whole’; the patron who nominates, the parochial church council (‘PCC’) (through its elected representatives) who affirm or veto and the bishop who institutes.Footnote 19 Together they represent a ‘tripod of responsibility’.Footnote 20 The process begins with notice of vacancy being given to the registered patron and the PCC. The patron must respond and declare that they are a member of the Church of England, or that they are appointing an appropriate representative or body to act in their place.Footnote 21 There is no requirement to show any physical or spiritual connection to the parish. The patron waits for the PCC to meet and complete its initial duties, which include preparing a statement about the needs of the parish and appointing two representatives.Footnote 22 From here the advowson entitles the patron to take the lead. The patron has 12 months in which to discern, select and present their choice of clergy to the bishop.Footnote 23
Patrons have the potential to be ‘powerful allies’ for bishops or PCCs in difficult circumstances.Footnote 24 Parrott and Field describe four models of the patronage process at work in practice: the ‘consultation’ model, the ‘joint interview’ model, the ‘collaboration’ model and the ‘presentation’ model.Footnote 25 The ‘presentation’ model reflects patronage at its most extreme. Here, ‘The assumption is that the patron's decision should be accepted as final without too many questions asked.’Footnote 26 Such diversity in practice results from a lack of formal guidance. There is a Code of Practice, but it is not binding, it is outdated and practice varies widely geographically.Footnote 27 Regrettably, the patron is not obliged to advertise the vacancy, to follow any selection protocol or shortlisting or to hold interviews. The patron may choose to take any of these steps – which would be regarded as essential in any other public role – but decisions are at their discretion.Footnote 28 The advice given to members by the Private Patrons Consultative Group emphasises the breadth of patrons’ rights in deciding on the ‘method of selection’.Footnote 29
Once the patron has made their choice, they seek the approval of the bishop and PCC representatives before making a formal offer of the benefice to the new incumbent and presenting them for admission.Footnote 30 Any objection from the representatives and the bishop must be accompanied by written reasons within time limits.Footnote 31 The patron has the right to ask the archbishop to reconsider and authorise.Footnote 32 The bishop then institutes, with the additional proviso that the bishop can refuse if there is a lack of pastoral experience or concerns about financial or moral character or ill health of the proposed incumbent.Footnote 33
The six procedural changes proposed in the current ‘Consultation’ do not change the rights or roles of patrons. The first three changes are about avoiding delays and simplifying the timetable in the process.Footnote 34 The fourth and fifth changes aim to improve efficiency in shared patronage appointments through notice of turns and facility for joint patrons to choose to nominate another patron to act on their behalf.Footnote 35 The final proposal allows email and other electronic forms of communication.Footnote 36 At most, the proposals make a modest nod to updating administrative procedures. Paragraph 68 of the ‘Consultation’ envisages ‘updated guidance’ on ‘matters of best practice’.Footnote 37 None of these proposals address the underlying issues with patronage identified in this article. The legislative reform order process under the Legislative Reform Measure 2018 is only designed for procedural change.Footnote 38 The proposals put forward streamline and embed the existing system. This article suggests that private patronage requires more substantive reflection, review and reform.
DEFINING PATRONAGE AS ECCLESIASTICAL POWER
Patronage has been defined as a property right and as an appointment process under the Patronage (Benefices) Measure 1986. It is also spoken of as a matter of ecclesiastical power. Much has been written about the history of church patronage since the early mediaeval period, when the Church successfully shifted the role of the feudal lord from owner of the church they founded to that of patron with a right to present clergy.Footnote 39 Today's patronage is the result of an intricate history of ecclesiastical rights, but ideas of possession still underpin it. The Private Patrons Consultative Group advise their members against transferring patronage to bishops as ‘to do so is to assist a process which is making the Church of England more narrowly ecclesiastical and silences a lay voice which centuries ago the original donor had secured, as he thought in perpetuity’.Footnote 40
At first sight it seems inconceivable that mediaeval property rights are still being used to voice opinions and drive appointments processes. On closer consideration, the role that patronage can play in protecting preferences of practice and faith within the Church is apparent. New appointments affect or preserve the churchmanship of individual congregations.Footnote 41 Dispersing power and responsibility for appointments has been seen as a means of retaining equilibrium in the Church as a whole. Parrott and Field observe that, while ‘No-one would dream of inventing the process’ now, it does have ‘considerable latent merits’.Footnote 42 The Diocese of Ely's Board of Patronage refer to the right of presentation as ‘a system of checks and balances which ensure the continuance of a broad spectrum of belief and practice within the Church’.Footnote 43 The Church Society Trust describes patronage as ‘an outworking of the fact that the Church of England is neither a congregational federation, nor an episcopal hierarchy’.Footnote 44 The trust sees patronage as protecting that structure, and patrons as a ‘check’ against the ‘pressure’ of the diocese to ‘assume control’.Footnote 45 Patronage is described as ‘part of the dynamic strength of the Church of England since its earliest days’.Footnote 46 As little is written about the identity of modern church patrons, only a new examination of the patronage registers will shed light on who these patron ‘lay voices’ are and who is exercising these ‘checks and balances’.
IDENTIFYING MODERN CHURCH PATRONS
The Bodleian Library Special Collections holds a typescript list of all patrons in England and valuations of benefices, compiled by A H Plaisted and dating from approximately 1950.Footnote 47 Today the Patronage (Benefices) Measure requires the registrar of each of the 42 dioceses to hold and maintain a register of the patronage in their own diocese and make it open for inspection by the public.Footnote 48 In contrast to the land registration system, there is no one accessible centrally maintained record. At the time of this study, only one diocese had a link to a formal list of patrons readily available online. For other dioceses, application had to be made to view the register or to receive information derived from it. The piecemeal, physical format of some registers can hinder access. Some dioceses were very helpful but some did not welcome enquiries about registers. In contrast, there was immediate, free access to names of past patrons in a parish using the Clergy of the Church of England Database 1540–1835.Footnote 49
This project aimed to consider patronage across a range of geographical areas. The following sections are based on examining the physical registers of Winchester Diocese and Salisbury Diocese, and using extracts from the registers of Peterborough Diocese,Footnote 50 Lichfield DioceseFootnote 51 and Norwich DioceseFootnote 52 and the individual diocesan directories including patrons published by London DioceseFootnote 53 and available online from Truro Diocese.Footnote 54 Research also relied on using Crockford's Clerical Directory, patrons’ own records in Oxford and historical case studies in Sussex.Footnote 55 In all the dioceses considered, the bishop holds the largest share of patronage. Further patronage is held by diocesan boards, deans and chapters of cathedrals and other clergy (for example from ‘mother’ churches) and the Crown. Remaining private lay patronage can be divided into the four broad categories of private individual patrons, educational bodies, the guilds and the patronage societies. Each has a different type of patronage relationship. The ‘who, whom’ question will be applied to each of these categories in turn.
PRIVATE INDIVIDUAL PATRONS
The private individual patron category has always been the most controversial form of patronage. William Evershed describes the ecclesiastical patronage system at the start of the nineteenth century as having a ‘secular ethos’:
It fitted naturally into the wider patronage world, and like other kinds sought the advancement of friends, and the placating of enemies. It was a key to power. He who had much patronage would be great, and he who needed it would surely make himself useful.Footnote 56
Today it is tempting to limit patronage to the novels of Jane Austen and Anthony Trollope.Footnote 57 However, the registers show that a significant number of private individual patrons continue to hold and pass on rights. Some rights have been in landed families for generations. Some were purchased as investments or to provide family livings before the advowson trade was abolished.Footnote 58 All have been passed on by will or transfer since.
West Grinstead church in Sussex is a good study of private patronage because the benefice has enjoyed a variety of types of individual patrons over the centuries. The settlement was a significant area of Roman Catholic recusancy and religious land sequestration which facilitated change. Prior to the mid-seventeenth century and in the nineteenth century the advowson was held by major local landowners. In the intervening years it was held in trust by the Woodward family, and five consecutive rectors of West Grinstead came from that family between 1695 and 1807. In the 1920s the advowson was then sold to an entrepreneur, J P ‘Pitt’ Hornung, who made his fortune in the sugar estates of Mozambique before returning to create a family seat at West Grinstead Park. The patronage finally passed from the Hornung family to the bishop in the 1980s.Footnote 59 In most churches, individual patrons leave a unique physical mark of their property rights on a church. These are symbols of spiritual ownership over centuries through monuments, memorials, windows and burial vaults. At West Grinstead they include two twentieth-century stained-glass windows depicting the biography of the Hornung family.Footnote 60
It is a common misconception that all advowsons have now passed to bishops or other church authorities following the pattern at West Grinstead. In reality all the registers and records considered for this project saw surprising numbers of existing private individual patrons, especially in rural areas.Footnote 61 Norwich Diocese is the best example of the advowson as a legacy of feudal rights. In 1835 11 men held 80 livings advowsons in the diocese; these 11 men included the Townshend and Coke families with nine each.Footnote 62 As at 2017, of the 179 benefices in Norwich Diocese, 63 benefices still involved one or more private individual patrons.Footnote 63 Furthermore, the names Townshend and Coke still appeared nine times between them. The patron has a formal title in more than 40 of the private individual patron entries for Norwich; the majority of these patrons are male. There are more men with titles listed as patrons than there are women across the whole register. A pattern of residual private individual patronage being held by titled men can be seen repeated in other dioceses. In Lichfield, of the 53 benefices that have one or more private individual patrons, there are 20 titled men and 3 titled women. Even in dioceses such as Truro, where there is less remaining individual patronage, a similar pattern can still be seen.Footnote 64
Steve Bruce's sociological study ‘Patronage and secularization: social obligation and church support’, considered ‘big house patronage’ and ‘industrial paternalism’ in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.Footnote 65 Bruce argues that ‘the squirearchy and the major local employers paid a large part of the costs of British religious life’ involving the fabric of buildings, the clergy and social events.Footnote 66 His view is that, while some believed in the religious activity, others ‘took such support to be an obligation placed on them by their social status’.Footnote 67 Advowsons are described as having been ‘one of the main sources of a sense of obligation to the church’.Footnote 68 Bruce's study is historical, from a time when even the right to vote was tied to land rights, but it is relevant for understanding the nature of the relationship behind private patronage rights that continue to exist today. Perceptions of social status duties and land rights should have no role in the discernment of appointments.
The strongest argument made for retaining private individual patronage is that it is helpful to have an additional lay voice from the community. Individual patrons can prove very valuable in the search for candidates or in promoting a cause to the bishop. They can bring wisdom, connections and resilience. The registers show who these patrons are. The individual voices behind the advowsons are shown to come from those who have inherited or been given a property right which entitles them to nominate clergy. In many cases these rights were previously purchased. The Church needs to be certain that it can be comfortable continuing with this principle in the future. Discernment is vital, but to those looking on the process can appear out of step with modern expectations of transparency and due diligence in appointments. It is important to preserve a lay voice. However, the loudest lay voice to be heard in modern processes should arguably be that of the parish to be served. This is heard most clearly through the elected PCC and its representatives. For these reasons the author suggests that a sunset rule should be applied to private individual patronage in order that it may not be passed on or transferred again in the future to another individual.
EDUCATIONAL PATRONS
All the dioceses considered have educational bodies acting as patrons; the overwhelming majority of these are Oxford and Cambridge colleges. Norwich has over 40 registrations of educational patrons and all but one are Oxford or Cambridge colleges. Peterborough Diocese has more than 30 registrations linked to the two universities. At a greater geographical distance, there is still significant involvement in patronage. For example, Queens, Keble, Christ Church, Balliol and Exeter, Oxford, and Sydney Sussex, Cambridge, hold patronage in Truro; Balliol, St John's, Keble and Brasenose, Oxford, and Trinity, Magdalene, Corpus Christi and King's, Cambridge, are patrons in London Diocese; and Keble, St John's, University, New and Magdalen, Oxford, and King's and Emmanuel, Cambridge, hold patronage in Winchester. The proportion of patronage held nationally by universities and colleges was estimated at 7 per cent in the mid-twentieth century.Footnote 69 Today the main change is that the majority of patronage is joint or alternate. In addition to the Oxford and Cambridge colleges there are theological colleges or former theological colleges, old grammar school foundations and leading public schools acting as patrons.Footnote 70 The role of these educational patrons is embedded into the system. For example, the Patronage (Benefices) Measure 1986 provides that if a patron is unable to act then they should appoint an alternative. The list of alternatives includes a university, college, hall of a university, and Eton and Winchester Colleges.Footnote 71
There is no longer any legal or financial reason for the educational bodies to continue these patronage relationships. The advowsons were originally bequeathed or purchased to provide income for colleges and livings for the fellows. Balliol acquired the sole patronage of Long Benton, Northumberland, in 1340 and still holds it today.Footnote 72 Past appointments to the living with a Balliol connection can be seen on the historical Clergy of the Church of England Database.Footnote 73 Some endowments, such as that to Hertford College in 1887 which included the advowson of the parish of Ripe in East Sussex, made express provision for the rights of presentation. Trustees were instructed to give priority to a member of the governing body and failing that a qualified graduate member.Footnote 74 Patronages no longer provide any material benefit to a college. When Ripe (now Laughton with Ripe and Chalvington) was in vacancy in 2017, Hertford College was named as one of the patrons in the advertisement but was not expected to present its own internal candidate.
Where educational patrons continue to be involved in parishes, they do so as an act of benevolence. Eton includes its 16 shared patronages in the school's records for the public benefit requirement.Footnote 75 Advocacy on behalf of the parish with ecclesiastical authorities has been part of the patronage relationships in the past.Footnote 76 Today some colleges endeavour to support parishes and build links. Some college chaplains view patronage as part of their ministry and offer chapel services, tours and conference days. Many will still assist a parish in vacancy. Keble College, Oxford, is one of the colleges known for a commitment to patronage. The history of the college makes it a special case. Keble was founded in 1870 as a memorial to John Keble, a leader of the Oxford Movement within the Church of England. The college was given advowsons for the specific purpose of promoting the Anglo-Catholic traditions within the Church and was the largest holder of Catholic patronage. For these reasons, it has been argued that in the past Keble has been more of a party patronage trust than an educational patron.Footnote 77 Today Keble still holds more than 70 patronages and is actively involved in vacancies. While many of their parishes do retain an Anglo-Catholic tradition, the college does not seek to make appointments solely on that basis.
Notwithstanding the efforts made by some educational bodies, patronage is now an optional form of support that a college can choose to provide. Some parishes are grateful for the hospitality and spiritual connection. Balliol records that, when it offered its parishes the chance to sever links, all but one chose to retain the connection.Footnote 78 These valuable relationships are more akin to the sort of figurehead patron that a charity might seek. They could exist and survive independently of the formal property right from which they were originally derived and are not a reason for retaining the principle of patronage.
GUILD PATRONS
The most generous sort of patron to have has always been one of the London livery companies or guilds. Much of the mediaeval life of these social and religious fraternities revolved around the guild churches and chapels. Today the livery companies continue to hold patronages of churches that have served them for centuries and a small number of patronages of more far-flung parishes originally acquired for income.Footnote 79 Regional guilds hold patronage as well.Footnote 80 The companies view their continued patronage of these parishes as part of their charitable work. Just as the companies endeavour to support schools that they originally founded, so too do they choose to benefit these churches.
As in the private individual patronage relationships, the patronage has often left a physical mark on the church. At St Peter, Ugborough, in Devon, the ‘Grocers’ Window’ has the coat of arms of the Company and its motto as a badge of belonging. St Peter is one of 13 churches that the Company refers to as ‘our parishes’.Footnote 81 The Mercers’ Company and the Haberdashers’ Livery Company both hold eight patronages, many of which were originally acquired through bequests of members.Footnote 82 Both companies list ‘the right to present a new incumbent’ as the defining characteristic of their role. Both acknowledge that this patronage role is now shared through joint or alternate patronage, but neither reflect on the present realities of the suitability of themselves for that role. Many of these patronages have been long-standing and positive. For example, the Drapers’ Company has held the patronage of St Michael, Cornhill, since 1503 through the destruction of the church in the Fire of London and the rebuilding by Christopher Wren. The church continues to serve the City and the Livery Companies and Guilds. The relationship is a valued one. During the last vacancy, St Michael described the Company as playing ‘an important and constructive role in parish life to this day’, including ‘very considerable financial support’.Footnote 83 As with the educational patrons, the picture is one of benevolence. The current role of the guilds does not need to depend or turn upon any property right to nominate an incumbent. The relationship between the guild and the church is a charitable one. As with the educational patrons, the link would survive severance from the right to nominate and is not a reason for retaining the underlying principle of patronage.
PATRONAGE TRUSTS AND SOCIETIES: PARTY PATRONAGE
The patronage trusts and societies are the most challenging group of patrons to address because many are still very purposeful in fulfilling their original role.Footnote 84 They represent party patronage, supporting and promoting the work of either the Evangelical or the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England. Some are small trusts, with the patronage of one or more local churches, such as the remnants of the Wagner Trust in Brighton.Footnote 85 The most influential trusts, in contrast, have an extensive national presence. The Church Pastoral Aid Society holds 521 sole or shared patronages.Footnote 86 The Church Society holds 125.Footnote 87 The Simeon's Trustees and the Hyndman's Trust hold nearly 200 across 40 dioceses.Footnote 88 The Anglo-Catholic Society for the Maintenance of the Faith holds 84 across 29 dioceses and the Guild of All Souls another 40.Footnote 89 The variety and spread of the trusts is striking. In Lichfield Diocese, in addition to small individual trusts, nine different patronage societies hold rights to present clergy.Footnote 90 This party patronage is the legacy of the vision of significant nineteenth-century churchmen to use advowsons to influence the theological direction of the Church.
The first and most deliberate of these churchmen was Charles Simeon (1759–1836), the vicar of Holy Trinity, Cambridge, for 54 years. His obituary in The Gentleman's Magazine records his missionary work among his students and his ‘still more important engine for the advancement of his peculiar views … his Society for the purchase of advowsons, and thereby planting in many populous districts ministers devoted to his opinions’. The same article describes his incomplete ‘episcopal tour of visitation’ to his churches in the summer of 1835.Footnote 91 Evershed argues that, above all, Simeon ‘spiritualised the idea of the advowson; he saw the need to secure perpetuity; he gave priority to the parishes’ needs; and believed that the patron acted under God’.Footnote 92 In 1833 Simeon wrote his ‘charge’ for his trustees to guide them in appointments and this is still used by the largely evangelical Trust today.Footnote 93
Some modern trusts, like Simeon's, only exercise patronage. Other trusts see their patronage rights as fitting into their broader mission and role. The Church Society's original nineteenth-century purpose was to ‘defend’ the Church of England from Anglo-Catholic teaching. Today the Society's objectives are to ‘strengthen local churches in Biblical faith and to help shape the Church of England now and for the future’.Footnote 94 The Society tries to achieve these aims through campaigning, publishing and patronage. It actively seeks to add to its patronages. Of the Anglo-Catholic trusts, the Guild of All Souls has regarded intercessory prayer for the deceased as its fundamental purpose; its role in patronage is an additional subsidiary function. The Society for the Maintenance of the Faith has always seen its object as to ‘promote and maintain the Catholic teaching and practice’ and has used patronage as its principal means.Footnote 95 Today some trusts, such as Simeon's, emphasise that they will always respect a parish's own choice of tradition. In any case, trusts are now forced to show flexibility because of the number of patronages that are shared after parish amalgamations.
Party patronage has been much criticised in the past. In 1960 Leslie Paul was commissioned by the Church to prepare a report, which was published as The Deployment and Payment of the Clergy. Footnote 96 Paul described party appointments via patronage trusts as ‘an irrationality which does the Church moral harm’. He continued:
One can only imagine the outcry in the press if it were discovered that a political party ‘owned’ the right to make civil service appointments in order to ensure placing men of the right political colour in key posts! Such a dubious system of empire-building within the Church could only have grown up because the Church was never properly master of its house.Footnote 97
Today many trusts are small and some share trustees. They embrace their role sincerely and protect their interests vigorously. Trusts bring experience, independence and advocacy to the table during a vacancy, and mediation, prayer, connection and practical help in other times. Connection to a trust can reduce isolation for clergy. Trusts can be a supportive voice for parishes in negotiations with the diocese and provide breadth and context. The Society for the Maintenance of the Faith describes patronage as ‘the rock upon which the Christian Church in this country has flourished for centuries’.Footnote 98 Trusts can promote diversity by protecting a variety of traditions within a diocese alongside the preferences of the bishop. On the other hand they can reduce opportunity where they rely on existing links with clergy known to the trust or trustees in making nominations. The trusts have these privileges because of the property rights that they purchased or were given. Again, the Church needs to be sure that it is comfortable with appointments being made on this basis in the future.
The position of the trusts is different from that of the individual patrons. The trusts are largely incorporated as charities, with the safeguards that provides. However, property rights based in mediaeval law are a far from ideal way to incorporate different traditions in the Church today. The recent provisions in the House of Bishops’ Declaration on the Ministry of Bishops and Priests for PCCs unable to accept women's ordained ministry show the wisdom of concentrating on local solutions.Footnote 99 If the trusts are to continue with their charitable work, it should be on the basis of a parish electing to continue patronage relationships with a trust. Choice should trump current perpetual ownership ties flowing from historical purchases and bequests, and thereby appointments could be separated from property rights.
PARISH REORGANISATION: SHARED PATRONAGE AND SUSPENDED PATRONAGE
Shared patronage
Pastoral reorganisation and new initiatives bring boundary changes, united benefices, team ministries, pluralities, clergy working under bishops’ mission orders, Fresh Expressions settings and local missional leaders. All affect the operation and relevance of patronage, as it has a geographical basis. The most obvious impact is the totally impractical ways in which patronage is now often shared. Unlike other areas of property law, there are no limits on the number of patrons that can appear on the register or the complication of the sharing provisions. When parishes are amalgamated, it is for the Diocesan Mission and Pastoral Committee to broker an arrangement for exercise of patronage rights thereafter.Footnote 100 Joint and shared patronage has become very common indeed.Footnote 101 It is estimated that in 2011 71 per cent of parishes were in multi-parish benefices, compared to 17 per cent in 1960.Footnote 102 Shared patronage can result in alternate turns or more complicated arrangements. Special patronage boards may also be put in place. A large number of parties sharing the process presents significant practical difficulties. The fourth procedural change proposed in the recent ‘Consultation’ acknowledges this and suggests allowing one joint patron to nominate another to act for them.Footnote 103
In other benefices a large number of patrons taking turns may result in a patron waiting decades before having any involvement at all. For example, in one rural Norwich benefice the rights of presentation were recorded as being exercised in a recurring series of five successive turns involving the bishop, the trustees of the Great Hospital in Norwich, two private patrons and the Norwich Diocesan Board.Footnote 104 Other arrangements have varied groups of patrons taking turns. Another Norwich benefice has its rights of presentation exercised in a recurring series of four turns: the bishop, Keble College, Oxford, Christ's College, Cambridge, and the Martyrs’ Memorial Trust have the first, third and fourth turns jointly; St John's College, Cambridge, has the second turn.Footnote 105 As the speed of pastoral reorganisation increases in the face of falling attendance and financial pressures, the issues presented by joint and shared patronages will increase.
Suspended patronage
As in some other areas of property law, an owner will lose their rights if they do not exercise them at the correct time. Patronage is unique in that the right can also be suspended and then subsequently ended, modified or revived, or suspended again years later. The friction around suspension reflects dissatisfaction with existing patronage rules from all parties.Footnote 106
Under the Mission and Pastoral Measure 2011 the bishop has power to suspend the patron's right of presentation during a vacancy or three months before a planned vacancy.Footnote 107 Suspensions are for up to five years and renewable.Footnote 108 Section 85(1) obliges the bishop to give reasons why they are considering exercising the power. The accompanying Code requires that consultation is genuine and recommends that suspension is confined to benefices where ‘pastoral reorganisation is under consideration or in progress’ or a ‘change in parsonage house is planned’.Footnote 109 The provisions are not supposed to facilitate general flexibility and fluidity. The Code states that ‘Care should be taken to allay fears’ that suspension ‘is being used to exclude the rights of patrons’.Footnote 110
As the need for pastoral reorganisation has grown, so too has the number of suspensions.Footnote 111 Some patrons believe their rights are being deliberately put on hold through the suspension mechanisms. Patrons complain of overuse and misuse.Footnote 112 Leave to petition for judicial review of the action of one bishop was granted in 1995, but the parties reached agreement and the matter went no further.Footnote 113 The underlying problem is that the current patronage rules do not sit well with new pressures of reorganisation and redeployment. Patronage is a legacy from different times. A reconsideration of that patronage and the principles behind it would contribute to open debate about the best ways in which to facilitate local change in the context of national pressures upon the Church.
EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS, FIRST PROTOCOL, ARTICLE 1
A review of patronage needs to consider any impact of Article 1 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights on the advowson that gives rise to the right. Patrons wishing to protect rights might argue that change represents an interference in the peaceful enjoyment of possessions under Article 1. Similar property rights, such as easements and covenants attached to land, do not represent separate possessions for the purposes of Article 1; they are part of the property to which they are attached.Footnote 114 Modern advowsons stand alone, unattached to any other property, and cannot be interpreted in this way. Given their inclusion in the statutory definitions of land, there is an argument that advowsons could be covered by the autonomous definition of ‘possessions’.Footnote 115 However, as a right which gives a spiritual role to discern who to put forward for religious service at undetermined times in the future, it has no measurable value. Nomination can be vetoed in some circumstances. Any transfer or sale for value is void. Advowsons are already regulated to the extent that the right can be lost by non-exercise for one year or suspended for renewable periods of five years after nominal consultation. All these characteristics distinguish the advowson from other property rights. If advowsons were still to be interpreted as a possession under Article 1 then any interference needs to be justified by the wider public interest in reform of the Church.Footnote 116
POSITIVE ADVANTAGES OF REFORMING PATRONAGE
Previous sections of this article have focused on the problems of the existing patronage system. The last section presents the positive advantages that reconsideration of the law of patronage can contribute to wider debates about the future of the Church.
Sustainability of English churches and cathedrals
The ‘Taylor Review: sustainability of English churches and cathedrals’ was published in December 2017. In the context of falling church attendance and significant public expenditure on church buildings, this Government-commissioned review examined future funding and conservation of churches.Footnote 117 The challenges are huge: 78 per cent of the 16,000 parish churches in England are listed and £2.6 billion of public money has been spent on Church of England buildings since 1999.Footnote 118 The review explores new ways to fund repairs and maintenance, and find additional uses for buildings. It recommends a continued focus on the work of the Simplification Group to review existing law to enable parish reorganisation. The review advises that ‘more needs to be done with urgency’ to simplify processes so that churches are encouraged to work on projects to ‘enable more flexible and increased use of their buildings, and to promote their use by the whole community’.Footnote 119 As previously discussed, patronage can act as a brake on pastoral reorganisation. The recommendations of the review will be assisted by an open debate on the role of patronage in local churches.
Growing vocations
The Taylor Review focuses on broadening the use of church buildings. The Ministry Division of the Church also has initiatives to broaden recruitment and vocations. The Church is seeking to increase the number of candidates for ordination by 50 per cent. It aims to recruit younger people and increase social and racial diversity.Footnote 120 To this end, the ‘Future Clergy’ project is reconsidering the initial discernment and selection processes for clergy. Processes have changed to improve access. The Church acknowledges that updating has been necessary ‘to keep pace with rapid social change and technological change as a result of which all the major systems of professional selection which BAPs resembled 40 years ago have changed significantly’.Footnote 121 Modernisation of initial selection processes is to be welcomed. This commitment to diversity and openness in recruitment could be furthered through a reconsideration of the patronage system. Historically, patronage has been described as fossilising the ‘social stratum’ of the clergy.Footnote 122 The private patron process whereby individuals can present without any duty to advertise or interview is especially problematic. In many ways this process dates back to times when it would have been seen as inappropriate for clergy to initiate a parish move themselves. They would wait to be asked.Footnote 123 Patrons, and in particular patronage trusts, can still be helpful in finding candidates for roles and locations that lack applicants. However, given the public nature of some aspects of the parish clergy role, the process through which clergy are appointed must be seen to be open and fair, and the current patronage system lacks cohesion on this point.Footnote 124
The future of the parish debate
Abby Day's recent ethnographical study, The Religious Lives of Older Laywomen: the last active Anglican generation, argues that, as the generation of women born in the 1920s and 1930s dies, so too does the Church, as successive generations have little interest in what the Church has to offer.Footnote 125 Day identifies these women as the backbone of the local parish system: ‘They attend the mainstream churches every Sunday, polish brasses, organise fund-raisers, keep the churches open on weekdays, bake cakes, and visit vulnerable people in their homes.’Footnote 126 It is true that some of the most dynamic recent growth in the Church is outside the traditional geographical unit of the parish. Attendance has increased in cathedrals, in new church plants, in parish churches ‘re-planted’ with new congregations and in ‘Fresh Expressions’ variations of church under bishop's mission orders.Footnote 127 Difficulties within the traditional parish settings and new successes outside it have led to an ongoing theological debate about the future of the parish as a unit.Footnote 128 It is very surprising that advowsons and patronage have not been considered as part of this debate. The 2018 Code of Practice on Mission Initiatives is positive for new ventures but more substantive review of the old structures is also necessary.Footnote 129 Some new life is even being forced into outdated patronage structures for procedural reasons.Footnote 130 Reconsideration and reform of this area of law has the potential to facilitate broader change and renewal within the Church.
CONCLUSIONS
Advowsons raise different questions for property and ecclesiastical lawyers. Property lawyers view advowsons as an unfortunate relic of feudal land law. Ecclesiastical lawyers respect them as a fundamental part of the vacancy process. This article has used a variety of sources to show who is holding private patronage rights today and analyse how and why they are exercising those rights. The existing patronal relationships of private individual lay patrons, educational and guild patrons and patronage societies are rooted in different times. Historical reasons for patronage are not enough to justify its continuing use in its current form. In spite of extensive goodwill on the part of some patrons, the system has many weaknesses. The proposals in the current ‘Consultation’ are necessarily limited to those of procedure. This article argues for a more substantive reconsideration of patronage. Reform of private patronage would make a positive contribution to other debates before the Church: promoting applications of the Taylor Review, facilitating open and accountable recruitment to ministry roles and contributing to the wider discussion about the geographical parish unit in the future organisation of the Church.
Patronage is a subject that some within the Church already feel strongly about one way or the other. The author believes that more parishioners and property lawyers would also hold views about it if they were fully aware of the current position. On the basis of the records considered, the author suggests three steps forward for discussion. First, propose a sunset rule on individual private lay patronage, providing that personal patronage may no longer be passed onto another individual. Second, develop a nominal figurehead ‘charity patron’ role without formal rights of presentation for educational or guild patrons that are willing to retain supportive links with a church. Finally, recognise value in the work of the patronage societies in reflecting churchmanship through provision for societies to assist parishes, but only where PCCs opt into continuing that arrangement at the point of vacancy.
