are sometimes of about 20,000 souls
incumbent on him.'[971] A resolution was carried in the House of Commons
(May 1711), that fifty new churches were necessary within the bills of
mortality, and 350,000_l._ were granted for the purpose, 'which was a
very popular thing.'[972] Of the proposed fifty, twelve were built; the
money for which was raised by a duty on coal--2_s._ per chaldron from
1716 to 1720, and 3_s._ from 1720 to 1724.[973] After this exertion the
work of church-building seems to have pretty nearly ended for the
century. Towards the middle of it, the bishops complained in their
Charges that there was no spirit for building churches, and that the
occasional briefs issued for the purpose brought in very little.[974]
Fifty years later the question had again become too serious to be
overlooked, and with the revival of deeper religion in the Church, there
was little likelihood of its being allowed to rest. In large towns, the
disproportion between the population and the number and size of churches
had become so great 'that not a tenth of the inhabitants could be
received into them were they so disposed.'[975] A return made in 1811
showed that in a thousand large parishes in different parts of the
kingdom there was church accommodation for only a seventh part of their
aggregate population.[976] Parliament granted a million for the erection
of new churches, and large subscriptions were raised by the societies.
But Polwhele, writing in 1819, said there were two large London
parishes, with a joint population of above 120,000, which kept their
village churches with room for not more than 200; and that in 1812, Dr.
Middleton tried in vain to build a new church for St. Pancras, where the
population was 100,000, and the church would only accommodate 300.[977]
These facts seem almost incredible; probably the writer from whom they
are quoted overlooked subsidiary chapels attached to the parish church.
It is, however, very clear that in London and many of the large towns no
energetic efforts had for a long time been made to meet necessities of
very crying urgency.

Bishop Beveridge, writing in the first years of the last century,
lamented that 'daily prayers are shamefully neglected all the kingdom
over; there being very few places where they have public prayers upon
the week days, except perhaps on Wednesdays and Fridays.'[978] But in
towns this order of the Church was far more carefully observed in Queen
Anne's reign, and