VESTRY is the name of that part of a parish church where the ecclesiastical vestments are kept ; and inasmuch as meetings of parish ioners have been usually held in this part of the church for parochial purposes, such meetings, duly convened, have acquired the name of vestries ; eo that even where a building remote from the church has been erected for parochial meetings, it is usually called the restry.room. When the meeting is held in the church, or even in a building within the precincts of the churchyard, the ecclesiastical courts claim juris diction over the conduct of the parishioners.
By the common law all rated inhabitants of a parish have a right, either periodically or when specially convened, to meet in vestry for the affairs of the parish, and to vote the necessary pecuniary rates. But this common law right has been modified iu many ways.
1. By custom, which has vested the government of some parishes in a select and usually a aelf-clected body of persons, probably the suc cessors 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 constituents, came to hold permanently the powers intrusted to them. The principal act for the regulation of these vestries is the 53 Geo. III., c. 69, but it does not extend to parishes within the city of London or borough of South wark. .
2. The act 10 Anne, c. 11 (for the purpose of erecting fifty new churches in London and its neighbourhood) appoints "a select vestry for each parish." The 59 Geo. III., c. 134, also permits the election of
a select vestry out of the "substantial inhabitants of the district," parish, or chapelry ; and several local acts have also created vestries.
3. The 59 Goo. III., c. 12 (Sturgca Bourne's Act), enables general vestries to appoint special vestries for certain purposes ; but they are little more than committees of the general vestries, to which they are responsible.
4. A fourth kind of vestry is created by 1 & 2 Win. IV., c. 60 (Sir John Ifobhouse's Act), but the adoption of this act is left to the dis cretion of each particular parish ; rural parishes of less than 800 rated householders being excluded from its operation.
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 churchwardens; to present for appointment fit persons as overseers of the poor ; to administer such estates and other property as belong to the parish ; and in some cases, under local acts, to super intend the paving and lighting of the parish, and to levy rates for those purposes.
The remedy for neglect of duty by a 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 ordinary process against him, or by a process against the churchwardens out of the ecclesiastical courts.