atherston, Monmore, Hatherton, and
Wobaston respectively), and the Rev. G. Oliver, D.D., perpetual curate
and Sacrist (an Act obtained in 1811 by Dean Legge had constituted the
Sacrist the real incumbent of the church). The Chapter had it own seal,
which was of proper ecclesiastical design, and of some antiquity.

On the death of the very Rev. and Hon. H. L. Hobart, D.C.L., &c., in
1846, the Collegiate establishment of Wolverhampton ceased to exist, and
its property became vested in the ecclesiastical Commissioners.

Such was the gross abuse of ecclesiastical patronage, the entire income
of the Collegiate Church (except 100 pounds a year for a curate of very
indefinite status) had been absorbed in the payment of a Dean of the two
"peculiars" of Windsor and Wolverhampton, and of some half-dozen
legendary prebendaries who were for the most part unknown, even by name,
to the oldest inhabitant of the parish.

With the suppression of the ancient Deanery, the modern township of
Wolverhampton was divided into thirteen ecclesiastical parishes.

[Picture: Decorative flower]

XV.--Willenhall Struggling to be a Free Parish.

In the eighteenth century the ecclesiastical history of Willenhall
reached a critical stage. Long and bitter were the disputes which arose
between the mother church of Wolverhampton and the daughter chapelries of
Willenhall and Bilston; and perhaps the temper of the authorities at the
former had not been improved by the gradual impoverishment of the
residentiaries there, the history of which formed the subject of the last
chapter.

The first cause of the quarrel was found in the fact that these two
places, having become as populous as towns of ordinary status, were
without legal burying-grounds. When land had been provided there seems
to have been considerable hesitancy on the part of the authorities in
allowing Willenhall and Bilston these ordinary parochial privileges. The
Rev. Richard Ames, of Bilston, has left it on record that on June 9th,
1726, he waited upon the Bishop of the diocese, while he was holding a
confirmation at Walsall, when "John Lane, Esqre., of Bentley, mov'd his
lordship to consecrate Willenhall and Bilston Chapelyards for
burial-places, wch. his lordship seemed inclinable to do."

The history of the conflict goes back to 1709, when Dr. Manningham, on
becoming Dean, convened a Chapter at Oxford which was attended by all the
Prebendaries and the