Talk:Diocese of Chester

Mentioning the later history of the Anglican Diocese of Manchester after it had separated from the Chester one
Is it really necessary to announce the boundary changes to the Anglican Diocese of Manchester that happened after it was separated from the Chester one? Surely such information would be most properly found in the article about the Manchester Diocese itself? And if one looks, it is found, in the opening paragraph. I think its inclusion here is unnecessary, but would welcome anyone's comments who feel they can justify it here. DDStretch   (talk)  21:34, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree. This is detail that isn't really to do with Chester Diocese; once Manchester has broken away, it become virtually irrelevant to Chester. Geoff Riley 05:59, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * But the point is, until the separation of the Diocese of Manchester, Chester covered the entire territory which is now covered by Manchester and Blackburn. If someone knows the modern Dioceses, but not the exact history of what was split from what when, they will get an entirely misleading picture of the previous bounds of Chester, the intial description of it as covering Lancashire and Cheshire being also somewhat complicated by the various boundary changes that occurred in the 20th century (pace the traditional counties people).  It perhaps seems a little verbose with the article at its current size, but I'm sure it should be possible to add more information to this article.  Compare also with the Diocese of York which gives a similar explanation of the history of all areas previously under it jurisdiction.  On a separate note I see that this article claims that Chester was formed from the Diocese of York at the Reformation, which contradicts the information given on the former extent of that Diocese in its article.  I'm pretty sure it was actually split from Lichfield.  in the history of the Diocese, it should also be noted that Chester was a for a while the See city of the pre-reformation Diocese of Lichfield, the cathedra got moved around at various times from Lichfield to Chester, to Coventry before finally settling at Lichfield.  David Underdown 08:40, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Having found Historical development of Church of England dioceses, it does indeed appear that Chester split from Lichfield, not York. Also, Chester first lsot territory in 1836 at the founding of the Diocese of Ripon, although the majority of that diocese was formerly part of the Diocese of York.  David Underdown 09:03, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

OK. I now have a fairly detailed account of the history of the diocese from various sources (which I will cite in detail). I already knew that it had been formed largely from the diocese of Lichfield and Coventry, but it also included Lancashire, and parts of  Cumberland, Westmorland (both now Cumbria), Yorkshire, and Wales. On this basis, the swathe of Yorkshire and part of Lancashire was assigned to Ripon in 1836, Manchester (which included the deaneries of Manchester, Blackburn, Leyland, Amounderness, and parts of Warrington, Lonsdale and Kendall) was created in 1847. Bangor was assigned to St. Asaph in 1847, with a small part near the Dee estuary following on in 1849. Finally, Liverpool, which included the bulk of the remainder of Warrington was created in 1880. The simple mention, as now, of Blackburn in this context is itself highly misleading. What I will do is add a more complete history, complete with detaile dreferences, over the course of the next few days. I'll also include some maps I will produce which will, I hope, give complete information about what bits were lost, when, and to which diocese. I think that will help matters,  DDStretch    (talk)  09:24, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, I look forward to seeing the expanded article. David Underdown 09:30, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I still (obviously), think it's worth adding a just a few words here to clarify the situation regarding Manchester and Blackburn, without forcing readers to look at another article. I appreciate that you're largely looking at this coming from the Cheshire wiki project, so what happens to bits of the Diocese which were never in Cheshire is outside your scope, whereas my main interest (though Cheshire born) is from the wiki project Anglicanism side.  It may seem obvious from the mention of the Deanery of Blackburn that that was the case, but this is the Church of England we're talking about.  For example, it is possible to be within the current boundaries of the City of Peterborough, less than a mile from Peterborough Cathedral, and yet you'll be in the Dicoese of Ely, rather than the Dioces of Peterborough.  David Underdown (talk) 09:35, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The problem with doing this is that one then begins to wonder whether extensive checking is needed to clarify all other areas which were once in the Diocese of Chester, to see whether further changes have been made (changes to the deaneries, later boundary changes, etc). This places a quite unreasonable burden upon editors, I think, and, if taken as a general strategy, would mean extensive checking and mentioning of all subsequent boundary changes to, say, an area which once used to belong to a country. Would one wish to include all later changes to the English crowns possessions in France subsequent to their loss to the English crown, for example? I think not. That way would tend to collapse all articles into one, and lead to obscurity through trying to be all-inclusive. I don't think it is unreasonable to expect people to follow a link to see if there have been later changes to a diocese once it and the diocese of Chester have gone their separate ways. If, however, the will of a number of editors is to include the later changes, then perhaps it could be done in the form of a footnote? That would, I hope, satisfy the need. If you still think it is important, how about doing it via a footnote?   DDStretch    (talk)  11:00, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I've added a footnote explaining the later changes. If we find later changes to some of the other areas that were transferred from the diocese, we can perhaps treat them in the same way?  DDStretch    (talk)  12:39, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that's probably the best solution. I'm pretty sure the boundaries of everything else have stayed the same - except for some tidying up of diocesan peculiars, and detached bits of Ripon which were otherwise within Kirby Lonsdale deanery, all a bit esoteric for this article.  David Underdown (talk) 13:09, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * There was something a bit like that (but not exactly the same as that) concerning one of the bits that went to St. Asaph: the peculiar of Hawarden.  DDStretch    (talk)  13:20, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

The Extent of the new Anglican Diocese of Manchester
My sources (given in the additions I made, and the maps I am still preparing versions of for this article) show that it was not all of the then county of Lancashire that went into the new Diocese of Manchester: The Warrington Deanery was only separated from Chester (to form the Anglican Diocese of Liverpool) in 1880, which was after the 1847 date for Manchester.) There may well have been small parts on the Cheshire and Lancashire border that also did not get transferred over. Can the sources be checked again to be more specific?  DDStretch    (talk)  11:06, 15 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I also know that the "detached" part of Lancashire in the Lake District (around Barrow in Furness) at that time was not included in Manchester. So, I believe even more strongly that the claim in the article need some slight modification.   DDStretch    (talk)  11:10, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Quite right, I misread what the Gazette said, all of the Diocese of Manchester was in Lancashire, not the whole of Lancashire was to form the Diocoese. Sorry.  However, provision to transfer what became the detached parts of the Diocese of Chester to Carlisle was actually made at the same time Manchester was created, however, it required the assent of the then Bishop of Carlisle, or the appointment of his successor, which is why it didn't actually happen until 1856.  I sit worth clarifying that, or is it uneccesary detail? David Underdown (talk) 11:19, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I think it is worth clarifying that. I may have the information somewhere in a part of the sources I haven't read in detail yet, but you obviously have it to hand more easily. I think it is worth writing about.  DDStretch    (talk)  11:22, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm never quite sure what status to accord the London Gazette as a source, technically it is a newspaper, which we'd normally call a secondary source, but essentially it just prints verbatim the things it is required to publish, so in that sense it's more of a primary source. David Underdown (talk) 11:28, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I've certainly seen it used as a source in other articles. Wnhy not put it in anyway, and if other more clearly secondary sources are found, they can be added later?  DDStretch    (talk)  11:35, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

The addition of maps
I've added two maps, and I hope they seem all right to other editors (someone on wikimedia, however, has placed a tag on one requesting that it be changed to a .svg file format, which I do not have the means to do, and I thought .png formats were quite acceptable anyway.) The question I'd like some feedback on is that I think it would be a good idea to have a map which shows the changes in boundaries that occurred in the nineteenth century. Now, I can do them all on one map, or I could produce a sequence of maps showing what was changed and the then boundaries of the diocese as a result of the change. That would mean being about six maps, which might be far too many, even if the size of them was reduced. What do people think? I also am thinking about producing a map of the internal divisions of the diocese as they are today, though I'm not sure of the extent of the detail that could be shown. I think this might be usefully done in conjunction with a section that describes the ecclesiastical parishes in the present-day diocese. My motivation for doing this is to have a parallel set of information for the ecclesiastical parishes to that of the civil parishes of Cheshire (though perhaps not routinely as separate articles for each ecclesiastical parish.) I'd welcome comments about this, particularly comments that relate what I want to do with what is done in other areas that fall within the Anglican project(s) on wikipedia.. DDStretch   (talk)  11:35, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The maps so far are good, though I notice that the deanery of Bangor is listed as Ba in the key, but seems to be simply B on the map itself. I think the main point about svg is that they scale better, with less risk of pixellation.  There aren't really (unfortunately) any standards for Diocesan articles - this is now in a lot better shape than most.  Remember that Archdeaconries (consisting of groups of deaneries) are also an important subdivision.  As the Gazettes show, the first stage in creating Manchester Diocese, was to create an Arcdeaconry.  Certainly the modern organisation ought to be described, and it's worth checking to what extent (if any) the suffragans are allocated specific territorial responsibility. David Underdown (talk) 11:57, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the feedback. The kinds of slip-ups you've spotted are exactly what I wanted to be found, and I'll amend the map accordingly sometime today. I am hoping to add to the article during the next two days so as to get it into sufficient shape to nominate it for a DYK. I think I'll put the boundary changes into a single map for now&mdash;unless the text is expanded a great deal more around that part of the history section, the sequence of maps I mentioned will end up being displaced quite far from the text to which they are relevant. I'm intending to put in a section about the prior history, as the seat for Coventry and Lichfield was moved around (inclusing to Chester) a few times, as was mentioned in a previous section on this page. I'm going to try to find out more about the archdeaconries myself as well, but any information you have now about these would be usefully added straight away, I think. I know that the present diocese, as I understand it, is divided into two of them, but there may well have been others, earlier (especially, as you note, when the whole diocese was larger).  DDStretch    (talk)  12:34, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I've now fixed the slight error in the map concerning the deanery of Bangor.  DDStretch    (talk)  13:14, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * A map of the current deaneries, together with a list of which fall into the two archdeaconries is on the Chester Diocesan website: http://www.chester.anglican.org/diocese/links/ As to previous archdeaconries, the three gazettes (now I've switched to a different, more detailed one for the creation of Ripon) given as references suggest that initially Chester retained the archdeaconries of Chester and Richmond at the creation of Ripon (in which the new Archdeaconry of Craven was formed), then the Archdeaconry of Manchester was formed from the remainder of Richmond (less those bits which would eventually go to Carlisle) in preparation for the creation of the Diocese, and when that diocese was created, the Chester Archdeaconry was split, forming the Archdeaonry of Liverpool from deaneries of Warrington (less those bits which went to Manchester) and "the Worrall" (presumably the Wirral). When the Diocese of Liverpool was created (haven't looked for the Gazettes yet), the Wirral presumably got shunted back into Chester Archdeaconry - and possibly that was also when the current Macclesfield Archdeaconry was formed too.  I haven't yet managed to track down the gazette which transferred the Deanery of Bangor to St Asaph - tryign to search for this is complicated by the fact that they were trying to merge the Dicoese of Bangor (which had nothing to do with the deanery) with the diocese of St Asaph at the same time (though I don't think that this actually ever came about).  Presumably when you mention Hawarden above that explains why the deanery of Hawarden is now that bit of St Asaph which borders Chester - again I haven't actually looked for the Gazettes which would show this happening.  David Underdown (talk) 13:36, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually re-reading the gazette for the creation of Ripon, it had two Archdeaconries, Richmond and the new Craven, so it's not entirely clear what happened to those parts of the archdeaconry of Richmond which remained in Chester, in some sort of limbo until the manchester Archdeaonry ws created, and the final transfer of the remnant to Carlisle. David Underdown (talk) 13:50, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, the two Bangors are different. The one noted in the map would be Bangor-on-Dee if its long form were used (and I don't know whether it was in the deanery name, from the sources I have), and the Diocese of Bangor is the one in my old university city of Bangor, Gwynedd next to Anglesey.  DDStretch    (talk)  14:18, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * In its current (St Asaph) form the deanery appears to be Bangor is y Coed (which is of course simply the Welsh name for Bangor-on-Dee. The parish is Bangor Monarchorum, and the Gazette search provides some currency for the form Bangor-issa-coed at the relevant time - but all the references I can find are to do with railways, rather than ecclesiastical matters.  Search page is here: http://www.gazettes-online.co.uk/AdvancedSearch.aspx?geotype=London if you fancy looking yourself.  David Underdown (talk) 15:15, 15 February 2008 (UTC)