The Million Pound Advowson of Reepham St Mary with Hackford St Mary or how the Church of England really worked 1835

The advowson was once central to the organisation of the Church of England in terms of who selected the clergy (rectors, vicars) of English parishes and what determined their personal standard of living. In the simplest terms, the advowson was a piece of heritable but intangible property, varying greatly in value, which gave its owner the right to present to the relevant bishop a preferred candidate for the parish church living to which the advowson attached. There was a general presumption that the bishop would accept the presentation; had that not been the case we would not see so many parishes where the incumbent vicars came from the same family through several generations.

In the late middle-ages, the advowson was usually owned by the lord of the manor in which a parish church was situated; but over time, since it was a property which could be bought and sold, ownership became more dispersed. Oxford and Cambridge colleges were enthusiastic buyers of advowsons which could provide college fellows with a house and income, though they might choose to leave the work to a curate who would be paid considerably less than the income generated from rents and tithes.  That is only a summary but Wikipedia has a very long and detailed entry on the subject; what I now offer is an illustration of the system at work. 

The Reverend John Mathew was in the most unusual position of owning his own advowson which he inherited from his adoptive father Saint John Priest who as Vicar of Reepham in Norfolk chose him as his curate once the son had done a student stint at Cambridge. On the death of Saint John Priest in 1818 the curate nominated himself as his father’s successor. That proved acceptable to the Bishop of Norwich, Henry Bathurst (1744-1837), in the history books for his liberal and Whig views and one of only two Bishops to vote in favour of the Great Reform Act of 1832.

The Reverend Mathew’s position was unusual in a second respect. In the very distant past the lords of three adjoining manors had built their parish churches adjacent to each other where the parish boundaries met. One church (Whitwell) was abandoned at the time of the Civil War and used as a source of building materials; the two others effectively became united under a single advowson. That yielded a material advantage in terms of combined rents from church lands (the glebe) and taxes on the rest of the land in the combined parishes (the tithes). The oldest image I can find of the arrangement of the three churches is a black and white picture postcard, circa 1900:

Ruin of Whitwell Church      Hackford & Reepham Churches back-to-back

Click on Image to Enlarge

In 1835 and having no children of his own, the Reverend Mathew wishes to sell up and writes to the Reverend Waller at St Alban’s Hall in Oxford, an obscure classicist in an obscure college, but who appears to have acted as a specialist estate agent. In the letter transcribed below, Mathew provides the Reverend Waller with an enticing description of his properties designed to enable calculation of the value of its advowson. Here it is, minus the preliminaries:

 Datelined: Reepham Rectory near Norwich 23 Oct 1835:

 A comfortable Parsonage House very conveniently & pleasantly situated near the Church & the Town of Hackford & having a very pretty view in Front. A Large Garden with wall, orchards & Farming Premises very compact – all the walls & Premises excepting the Parsonage itself built by the present Incumbent. About 15 acres or more of Glebe Land adjoin the Parsonage & about 53 acres more are conveniently situated in the Parish

The great & small Tithes arising from about 2,230 acres of very superior land of which about 600 acres are principally rich pasture & meadow. The Tithes were set in 1830 at a very low rate by a Landlord & occupier in the Parish (not a Land agent) at my request to meet the depression of Agricultural Produce.

The Tithes including the rent of about 20 acres of Glebe Land produce 630.0.0 [pounds shillings pence]

About 46 acres of Glebe Land in my occupation valued low rent & Tithe at 2£ 10s per acre

Similar land near in the Parish is now let Rent alone at 4£ & more per acre

The Land Tax is reduced & there are no other annual outgoings but 17s 9d for Synodals & Procurations [Church of England Fees]

The duty is once every Sunday [Reepham St Mary] alternate with Hackford [St Mary] the two Churches standing in the same Inclosure.

The occasional duty [Baptisms, Weddings, Burials] very little

There is no Modus [a fixed or customary payment in lieu of tithes] in the Parish

The Population 663

Reepham is 12 miles from Norwich   7 from Aylsham   10 from East Dereham

Are you tempted? Well, it depends on the price I suppose:

Being unable to do my own duty I have no objection to immediate resignation. The very lowest price is 10,000 £. A few years ago I refused to treat on 12,000 £ a Gentleman of your University made the offer. I am now asking 10,500£.

The Bank of England’s calculator converts £10 000 to £1,100,000 at today’s prices. Mathew got no takers; his widow sold the advowson to Trinity College, Cambridge and in 1842 Trinity presented to the new Bishop of Norwich a theologian and biblical scholar, Frederick Field, as suitable to occupy the very conveniently & pleasantly situated parsonage house of Reepham. Frederick Field has a Wikipedia page which describes in detail his scholarly interests; deep in the Trinity archives, a future researcher may be able to recover the price paid by the college for the advowson of Reepham St Mary with Hackford St Mary.