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18
MORTUARY.
The further hearing of the suit in the Ecclesiastical Court took
place on the 11th day of August. Mr. Merceron again appeared by counsel,
but practically no opposition wasoffered. The Chancellordecided to
grant the faculty, of which the following is a copy:—
JOHN, by Divine permission Bishop of London, to all whom it may concern,
more especially to the Reverend Septimus Cox Holmes Hansard, Clerk, the Rector,
and George Henry Nicholson and Alfred Ewin, the Churchwardens of the Parish of
Saint Matthew, Bethnal Green, in the County of Middlesex, and within our Diocese
and jurisdiction, greeting. Whereas it has been represented unto the Worshipful
Thomas Hutchinson Tristram, Doctor of Laws, our Vicar-General, by a Petition
under the hands of the Reverend Septimus Cox Holmes Hansard, Clerk, the Rector,
and George Henry Nicholson and Alfred Ewin, the Churchwardens of the Parish of
Saint Matthew, Bethnal Green, aforesaid, that on the Twenty-fourth day of January,
One thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven the Petitioners, the Reverend
Septimus Cox Holmes Hansard, and John Cook and Joseph Jacobs, the then
Churchwardens of the Parish, presented their petition praying our said Vicar-General
to decree a Licence or Faculty to issue authorising or empowering them and the
Vestry of the Parish to erect a Mortuary in the Churchyard of the said Parish in
accordance with certain plans or drawings then deposited in our Registry, and
authorising the removal of any coffins or bodies which might be discovered, and
which it might be necessary to remove in the course of the erection thereof to some
other part of the churchyard. That a Citation with Intimation was thereupon issued
and served, and appearances were entered to the said Citation on behalf of Henry
Merceron and Arthur Wilson, alleging themselves to be inhabitants and parishioners
of the said Parish, and praying that the prayer of the then Petitioners should be
rejected. That on the Twenty-seventh day of August a reply which, among other
things, denied that the said Henry Merceron and Arthur Wilson or either of them
were Parishioners or inhabitants of the said Parish, or had any interest to entitle
them to oppose the grant of the proposed Faculty, was filed on behalf of these
Petitioners, and on the Twenty-third day of October a Rejoinder was filed on behalf
of the then objectors. That Affidavits were then filed on behalf of either party, and
the Cause or business came on for the cross-examination of the Deponents and for
hearing on the 10th, 14th, 21st, and 28th day of January, One thousand eight
hundred and seventy-eight. That on the fifteenth day of April our said VicarGeneral
was pleased to declare that he would be prepared to grant a Faculty for the
erection of a Mortuary in two separate compartments; one for the reception of
bodies dying from infectious complaints, and the other for the reception of bodies
not dying from infectious complaints, together with a post-mortem room in the said
Churchyard, provided such Mortuary be placed back fifty feet or thereabouts from
the road on either side, but rejected so much of the application for the Faculty as
applied to the erection of such Mortuary upon the site proposed, and to the erection
of Coroner's and Living Rooms over the Mortuary; and further ordered that the
further consideration of the case should be adjourned in order that a fresh plan
should be submitted to the Vestry of the said Parish and to the further consideration
of the Court. That the present Petitioners have accordingly caused other plans for
a Mortuary to be prepared, which are now filed in our Registry on five sheets