The Ecclesiastical Commissioners Act 1847 ( 10 & 11 Vict. c. 108), sometimes called the Bishopric of Manchester Act 1847, is an Act of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace ...

with the principal purpose of delegating to the

Ecclesiastical Commissioners The Ecclesiastical Commissioners were, in England and Wales, a body corporate, whose full title was Ecclesiastical and Church Estates Commissioners for England. The commissioners were authorised to determine the distribution of revenues of the Ch ...

for England the power to put forward a scheme (a form of

secondary legislation Secondary may refer to: Science and nature * Secondary emission, of particles ** Secondary electrons, electrons generated as ionization products * The secondary winding, or the electrical or electronic circuit connected to the secondary winding ...

) to create the Diocese of Manchester. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners scheme containing the precise arrangements for the diocesan changes was put forward to

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...

Osborne House Osborne House is a former royal residence in East Cowes, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom. The house was built between 1845 and 1851 for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert as a summer home and rural retreat. Albert designed the house in the style ...

in the Isle of Wight, on 10 August 1847, where it was assented to in Chambers. Whilst the Act was primarily a procedural enabling device to provide the legal framework for a relatively minor reorganisation within the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

, and would normally have ceased to be relevant once the scheme for the creation of the dioceses had been assented to, it incorporated provisions which set the number of

Lords Spiritual The Lords Spiritual are the bishops of the Church of England who sit in the House of Lords of the United Kingdom. Up to 26 of the 42 diocesan bishops and archbishops of the Church of England serve as Lords Spiritual (not including retired bish ...

in the

House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

at 26, irrespective of the number of

bishoprics In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associated ...

in England, and created the mechanism for the determining the membership of the Lords Spiritual. The bill was the subject of debate in the House of Lords at the time, regarding whether "The limitation of the number of Lords Spiritual which it was proposed to establish by this Bill, was not only an infringement of the prerogatives of the Crown, but he also considered that it was a dangerous invasion of the rights and privileges of all the Members of their Lordships' House, temporal and spiritual" as it was Government legislation which sought to control the membership of the House of Lords through limiting the ability of the exercise of

Royal Prerogative The royal prerogative is a body of customary authority, Privilege (law), privilege, and immunity recognised in common law (and sometimes in Civil law (legal system), civil law jurisdictions possessing a monarchy) as belonging to the monarch, so ...

in the right of issuing writs of summons to call a Bishop to the House of Lords that "with respect to the Peerage of this country, this was the first time it had ever been proposed to interfere with the right conferred by it".

Preamble

The preamble, to "Church of Wales and" was repealed by section 1 of, and the Schedule to, the Statute Law Revision Act 1891. The words "for England" were repealed by section 1 of, and the First Schedule to, the Statute Law Revision Act 1894.

Section 1

This section from "so much" to "and that", was repealed by section 1 of, and the Schedule to, the Statute Law Revision Act 1875.The Statute Law Revision Act 1875, section 1 an
Schedule
/ref> The words "for England" were repealed by section 1 of, and the First Schedule to, the Statute Law Revision Act 1894.

Section 2

This section, to "enacted that" and from "and whenever" to the end of the section, was repealed by section 1 of, and the Schedule to, the Statute Law Revision Act 1891.

Section 3

This section was repealed by section 1 of, and the Schedule to, the Statute Law Revision Act 1875.

References

*Halsbury's Statutes of England. (The Complete Statutes of England). First Edition. Butterworth & Co (Publishers) Ltd. 1929
Volume 6
Page 94. *The Statutes: Second Revised Edition. Printed under the authority of HMSO. London. 1894. Volume 8. Page
290
and 291. *"Statute and Order in Council creating the Bishopric of Manchester". The Manchester Municipal Code. Solicitors' Law Stationery Society. 1899. Volume 5

Page 299. *Ivor Bowen. The Statutes of Wales. T Fisher Unwin. 1908. Pages xxi an
264
to 266. {{Authority control English law United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1847 Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom concerning the House of Lords