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APPENDIX.
IN THE CONSISTORY COURT OF LONDON
Before Dr. TRISTRAM [Chancellor].
Hansard and others
v.
The Parishioners, Inhabitants, and others of St. Mattheiv, Bet final Green.
JUDGMENT.
The Chancellor. —This is an application by the Rector and Churchwardens of
St. Matthew's Bethnal Green for a Faculty authorising the erection of a building
at the South-west corner of the Parish Churchyard, the ground floor to be appropriated
as a Mortuary and post-mortem examination room, t lie first floor for an inquest
room and for the use of the Coroner, and the second floor as living rooms for the
keeper of the mortuary.
The grounds of the application are, that it is essential for the sanitary welfare of
the Parish that it should have a mortuary, and that owing to the crowded state of its
buildings the Vestry have been unable to procure any other site for the purpose.
The granting of the Faculty is opposed by Mr. Henry Merceron, a gentleman
who is not an actual resident in the Parish, but who is possessed of considerable
freehold property in it including houses in the neighbourhood of the Churchyard ;
and whose family have been settled in the Parish since the Revocation of the Edict
of Nantes: and also by Mr. Arthur Wilson a builder who is also possessed of
considerable household property in the Parish. They filed an answer stating several
objections to the granting of the Faculty to which I will advert hereafter. The
petitioners in their reply object to the defendants' right to be heard in opposition to
the Faculty, on the ground that they are neither inhabitants of the Parish nor
Parishioners. Affidavits were filed by the respective parties in support of the case
set up in their pleadings, and several of the deponents were cross-examined on their
affidavits, and were examined by the Court.
The first question for the determination of the Court is, Whether the defendants
or either of them have a locus standi to oppose this Faculty. It was argued by the
counsel for the petitioners that to give a person a locus standi to oppose the granting
of this Facuity he should either be a resident in the Parish or, at least, a ratepayer;
but Mr. Merceron and Mr. Wilson according to the evidence had at the present time