NATAL.
No. B.
12
CORRESPONDENCE RELATIVE TO
strife and bitterness within this diocese of the Church, most urgently demands amelioration: and that such can only be looked for from Imperial legislation at the instance of Your Majesty's
Government.
And your petitioner, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
Deepdene, Natal, May 24, 1866.
No. 8.
(Signed
G. H. WATHEN,
COPY of a DESPATCH from the Right Hon. the Earl of CARNARVON to the Officer Administering the Government of Natal,
SIR,
• Page 11.
(No. 3.)
Downing Street, July 26, 1866.
1 HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Despatch, No. 61*, of the 1st of June, and I have to request that you will inform Mr. Wathen that his petition to the Queen, praying for Imperial legislation on the subject of the position of the Bishop of Natal, has been laid before Her Majesty.
The Officer Administering the Government of Natal, (Signed)
I have, &c. CARNARVON.
COLONIAL BISHOPRICS.
13
definition of lay communicants suggested by the Right Reverend the Bishop of Grahams Town: And whereas these proceedings appear to have been taken in accordance with some private advice of His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury and of the Right Reverend the Bishops of Oxford, Capetown, and Graham's Town. And whereas, while we admit to the fullest extent the right of the above mentioned body of clergy and laity, or of any other body, to elect for themselves their bishop or other ecclesiastical head, we believe such an act on the part of these clergymen and laymen to be a renunciation of the Queen's supremacy which is a fundamental principle of the United Church of England and Ireland, to which we belong, and consequently a forfeiture of membership of the Church of England and of their right to the use or disposal of the property of that church in the Colony.
We therefore, members of the Church of England in Natal who assemble to worship God in the Cathedral Church of St. Peter, hereby protest against the said election of a bishop, as being in any wise the act of the Church of England in this Colony; and using for ourselves the liberty which we allow to others, we hereby declare that we remain, as we have been, an integral portion of the United Church of England and Ireland, recognizing Her Majesty's supremacy and submitting to the the interpretation put on the standards and formularies of the church by the ecclesiastical or other courts of the realm.
Signed on behalf, of and deputed thereto by, a Vestry Meeting held in St. Peter's Cathedral,
Pietermaritzburg, Natal, on Tuesday, October 30th, 1866, at 4 o'clock p.m.,
A. TONNESEN, Chairman.
NATAL
No
30th Oct. 1856.
&c.
&c.
&c.
No. 10.
No. 9.
Copy of a DESPATCH from the Acting Lieut.-Governor to the Right Hon. the Ear! of CARNARVON. Government House, Natal, November 17th, 1866.
(Received, January 11, 1867.) (Answered, No. 36, February 9th, 1867, page.)
(No. 114.)
MY LORD,
I HAVE the honour, at the request of the Reverend Mr. Tonnesen, as Chairman of a vestry meeting held in the Cathedral Church of St. Peter's in this city, on the 30th October last, to transmit to you the enclosed petition to Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, on the subject of the clection of a Bishop.
I have, &c. The Right Hon. the Earl of Carnarvon, (Signed) JOHN J. BISSET, Colonel.
Acting Lieut.-Governor.
&c.
&c.
&c.
$
SIR
Copy of a DESPATCH from the Right Hon. the Earl of CARNARVON to the
Officer Administering the Government. (No. 36.)
Downing Street, February 9, 1867.
I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Despatch No. 114, of the 17th November last, forwarding a petition signed by the Rev. Mr. Tonnesen on behalf of certain "members of the United Church of England and Ireland in Natal," praying that Her Majesty would restore discipline and remove doubts in that diocese.
You will be pleased to inform the petitioners that their petition has been laid before the Queen.
The Officer Administering the Government,
&c.
&c.
&c.
I have, &c.
(Signed) CARNARVON.
Enclosure in No. 9.
nol. in No. 9. To Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, the Petition of the undersigned Members of the United
Church of England and Ireland in the Colony of Natal,—
HOMBLY SHEWETH,
THAT at a Vestry Meeting of the members of the Church of England held in the Cathedral Church of St. Peter in Pietermaritzburg, in the Colony of Natal, it was resolved to forward, for Your Most Gracious Majesty's consideration, a copy of a certain resolution then and there passed having reference to a meeting of a portion of the clergy and laity of this diocese, the proceedings of which appear to your petitioners to be subversive of Your Majesty's supremacy as Head of our Church.
Your petitioners would humbly pray that Your Majesty would be graciously pleased to take such order herein as may appear to Your Majesty fitting to restore and maintain a due discipline, and to remove doubts in the Church of England in this Colony.
And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
(Signed on behalf of, and deputed thereto, by said Vestry Meeting) Pietermaritzburg, Natal,
October 30th, 1860.
A. TONNESEN,
Chuirman.
WHEREAS a private meeting of certain clergy and laity professing to belong to the Church of England, summoned by the very Reverend the Dean of Maritzburg, and held in a private room, this city on the 25th and 26th of October 1866, resolved to elect a Bishop, intending such Bishop to be a bishop of the Church of England in Natal, under the pretence that the see of this diocese is vacant: And whereas there are in this Colony seventeen clergymen of the Church of England, of whom fourteen are in priest's orders, and three are deacons, and of these seventeen clergymen sixteen were present at this private meeting, of whom two were not permitted to vote, and others of these hold no licences from the Bishop of this Diocese: And whereas seven of these clergymen, including the Chairman, voted for and seven against the election of a bishop: And whereas about thirty-one of the laity also attended at this meeting, not being delegates of their respective congregations, but by special public invitation as that small party of lay communicants which happens to have adopted a certain
B 3
No. 10.
*Page 19.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference:
14 TTC.O.885
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