Noake's Worcestershire Page 181

HALES OWEN. 181

been efficiently carried out under the Rev. J. C. Wood, M.A., and his successor, the Rev. H. Richardson, M.A.; 6, the Church schools, the children of which numbered at the last festival no less than 1,016, while the attendance at the day schools averages 450; 7, Independent, Primitive Methodist, and New Connection Methodist Chapels (there were Baptists here in the middle of the last century). Net value of the living, £723; Lord Lyttelton patron; the Ven. Archdeacon Hone vicar; church accommodation, 1,470; free seats, 593. The ecclesiastical arrangements for this parish have been as changeable within the last three or four years as those mentioned at the outset. Comprising, as before stated, fifteen townships (all of them separate parishes for civil purposes). Hales Owen had been divided into five independent districts or parishes for all- ecclesiastical purposes by an Order of the Queen in Council bearing date August llth, 1841, under the provisions of 1 and 2 Vic., 106, 26, and 2 and 3 Vic., 49. These newly-constituted parishes were Hales Owen, St. Kenelm's, Oldbury, Cradley, and the Quinton. On the 23rd of December, 1845, a further Order in Council constituted a sixth district or parish - that of Langley - which was taken out of the parish of Oldbury. The recent changes have only affected the parishes of Hales Owen, St. Kenelm, and the Quinton. The first was effected by two Orders in Council, dated 17th November, 1863, under the authority of the above recited Acts. One of these took out of the ecclesiastical parish of Hales Owen a certain portion of the township of Hunnington, and united it to the parish of St. Kenelm, The other altered the boundaries between Hales Owen and the Quinton, so as to transfer to the latter certain portions of Long Lane and Carter's Lane, situate in the townships of Hill and Lapal. These alterations were made with a view to the better spiritual care of the population of those parts, Somewhat later - January 1st, 1864 - a rearrangement of the tithes was made between Lord Lyttelton, the lay impropriator, and the incumbents of the three parishes