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For the Registration of Births and Deaths the
Parish is included in the Westminster District. The SubRegistrar
is Mr. Thomas Matthew Crowe, of 31, Wardour
Street; and the Superintending Registrar, Mr. Joseph Bond,
Union Offices, Poland Street.
THE VESTRY,
as now constituted under the Metropolis Local Management
Act, 1855, and the Local Government Act, 1894, consists of
48 elected and three ex-officio members, the latter being the
Rector and Churchwardens. It superseded a Vestry elected
under the provisions of a permissive statute, 1 and 2
William IV., cap. 60, which was adopted by the ratepayers
of St. James's on the 6th April, 1832. This elected Vestry
had in its turn superseded a select Vestry established by the
Act under which the Parish was created in 1685. The
select Vestry was virtually a self-appointed body, vacancies
being filled up by the surviving members.
Neither the ancient select Vestry nor the Vestry elected
under the statute of 1831 had any jurisdiction over the
paving or drainage of the parish. Each of these matters
was under the control of a separate and distinct body of
Commissioners. The Act of 1855 transferred to the Vestry
as now constituted, not only all the powers of the earlier
Vestry, but also those relating to paving, drainage, and
lighting formerly exercised by these Commissioners. Subsequent
legislation has laid upon the Vestry various
additional duties, and in many respects, the powers of the
Vestry within the area of its jurisdiction resemble those of
the Town Council of a corporate town, with the addition of
rating powers, although as regards the police force, the
provision of markets, and the supply of gas and water, not
this parish alone, but the metropolis at large, stands on a