VESTRY is the name of that part of a parish church where the ecclesiastical vestments are kept; and inasmuch as meetings of parishioners have been usually held in this part of the church for paro chial purposes, such meetings, duly con vened, have acquired the name of ves tries; so that even where a building re mote from the church has been erected for parochial meetings, it is usually called the vestry-room. When the meeting is held in the church, or even in a building within the precincts of the churchyard,. the ecclesiastical courts claim jurisdiction over the conduct of the parishioners.
By the common law all rated inhabit ants of a parish have a right, either pe riodically or when specially convened, to meet in vestry for the affairs of the parish, and to vote the necessary pecu niary rates. But this common law right has been modified in many ways.
1. By custom, which has vested the government of some parishes in a select and usually a self-elected body of persons, probably the successors of individuals to whom the parishioners at some previous time delegated the management of their parish for a stated period, but who, by the indifference and neglect of their con stituents, came to hold permanently the powers intrusted to them. The principal act for the regulation of these vestries is the 58 Geo. III. c. 69. It requires that three days' notice shall be given of the holding a vestry ; that if the incumbent of the parish is not present, a chairman shall be elected by the meeting, and that minutes of its proceedings shall be kept and signed by the chairman and such of the parishioners present as think fit ; and it gives to each inhabitant, provided he has paid his rates, one vote, if he is rated on a rental under and, if on a higher rental, one vote for every 25/. for which he is rated, so that no one however shall have more than six votes. This act does not extend to parishes within the City of London or borough of Southwark.
2. Section 20 of the act 10 Anne, c. 11, gives to the commissioners appointed by that act (for the purpose of erecting fifty new churches in London and its neigh bourhood) power to appoiut, under their seals, with the consent of the ordinary, a convenient number of sufficient inhabit ants, in each parish created under the act, to form a select vestry of such parish." It vests in the majority of sac select vestry the power to supply vacancies, and gives them all the powers of other ves tries. The 59 Geo. III. 0. 134, another church-building act passed to explain and amend the act of the previous session, gives a similar power (§ 30) to the com missioners under those two acts to ap point, with the like consent, a select -vestry out of the "substantial inhabitants 3f the district," parish, or chapelry, for the management of the affairs of the church, and the election of church or chapel wardens, vacancies being supplied by the select vestry itself; and the 10th section of the act 3 Geo. IV. e. 72, con fines the powers of the vestryman to his own district with respect to ecclesiastical matters, and provides that any deficiency (a somewhat vague expression for an Act of Parliament) in the select vestry shall be supplied as vacancies have heretofore been filled up in the vestries of the par ticular parish. Local acts have also created vestries.
3. The 59 Geo. III. c. 12 (Sturges Bourne's Act), enables general vestries to appoint special vestries, consisting of not more than twenty, or fewer than five, parishioners to superintend the relief of the poor, the overseers of the poor being placed under their authority. These spe
cial vestries are little more than commit tees of the general vestries, to which they are responsible.
4. A fourth kind of vestry is created by 1 and 2 Wm. IV. c. 60 (Sir John Hob house's Act). The adoption of this act is left to the discretion of each particular parish ; but rural parishes of less than 800 rated householders are excluded from its operation. In order to apply the act to any parish. either one-fifth, or else fifty, of the rated parishioners must sign a re quisition to the churchwardens to take the votes of the parishioners for or against its adoption. When the act has been adopted in the manner provided by the act, the parishioners who have been rated one year to the relief of the poor meet on some day in May (21 days' notice having been previously given ea the church doors), and elect out of the resident house holders assessed upon an annual rental of not less than ten pounds (or if the pa rish is in the City of London, or contains more than 3000 resident householders, upon an annual rental of 401.) persons as vestrymen, in the proportion of twelve for every thousand rated householders : but the number of vestrymen is never to 'exceed 120. One-third of the vestry goes out of office in rotation annually, and their places are supplied by the method already described. The incumbent of the parish is entitled to be a member of the vestry; indeed the rector of the parish is supposed to be entitled to preside at vestries, but by what au thority, other than an implied opinion of the ecclesiastical courts, and the pro vision already cited from the 58 Geo. III. c. 69, is not clear. This act also prescribes that the parish accounts shall be open to the inspection of all the parishioners ; and that on the day of electing vestrymen the rate-payers shall elect, out of persons with the same quali fication as is necessary for vestrymen, five auditors of the accounts, who shall not be members of the vestry, or concerned in any contract with the parish. These are to audit the accounts every half-year, and an abstract of the accounts is to be pub lished by the vestry clerk within a fort night after the audit, and distributed to the rate-payers at the price of one shilling each copy. A statement is also to be made out annually, for the inspection of the pa rishioners, of all the estates and charitable foundations of the parish, their nature and application.
It is the duty of vestries to provide funds for the maintenance of the edifice of the church and the due administration of public worship ; to elect churchwar dens ; to present for appointment fit per sons as overseers of the _poor ; to nister such estates and other property as belong to the parish ; and in some MEN under local acts, to superintend the pav ing and lighting of the parish, and to levy rates for those purposes.
The remedy for neglect of duty by a 1 vestry is a mandamus from the Court of Queen's Bench, directed to the officer whose duty it would be to perform the particular act, or in some cases by an or dinary process against him, or by a pro oess against the churchwardens out of the ecclesiastical courts.