Baron Pollock delivered judgment in the Queen's Bench Division of
the High Court of Justice on Tuesday in the action of Quare impedit brought by Sir Percival Heywood against the Bishop of Manchester, for refusing to institute Mr. Cowgill to the living of Miles Platting. He recited clearly the facts of the case, which were not disputed, stating that the Bishop had assigned as his reason for not instituting Mr. Cowgill that Mr. Cowgill had, as curate of Miles Platting, committed various breaches of ecclesiastical law, for which Mr. Cowgill might have been subjected to ecclesiastical censure; that he did not think it right to ran the risk of Mr. Cowgill's repeating those offences as incumbent, and therefore sought an interview with him, and asked a series of written questions, the intention of which was to ascer- tain whether Mr. Cowgill would desist from these breaches of the law if instituted to the living; and that the result of the interview was to assure the Bishop that it was exceedingly unlikely that he would so desist. This Baron Pollock regarded as a legitimate exercise of the discretion confided to the Bishop to refuse to insti- tute an incumbent whom he could reasonably and lawfully regard as unfit for the office. Baron Pollock did not hold that Dr. Fraser was in any way obliged to refuse institution to Mr. Cowgill. He intimated that if the Bishop had chosen to regard the ritual offences committed under another incumbent as insufficient grounds for assuming that they would be repeated by Mr. Cow- gill as incumbent, he might in his discretion have done so ; but that he had a discretion in the matter, and that he had exercised that discretion on grounds which the law would hold to be suffi- cient. He therefore gave judgment for the defendant, the Bishop of Manchester, with costs against Sir Percival Heywood.
Previous page
