The Halliday Pew Case

Victor S. Manley in his Regional Survey of the Warminster District, complied in the 1920s and 1930s, in Volume 7, noted:

THE CASE OF J.E. HALLIDAY, of East Street, Warminster, versus REV. SIR. J.E. PHILLIPS, Bart., and the Parish Church-warden.

The claim was for wrongfully interfering with, and pulling down a pew of the plaintiff’s in the south aisle of the Parish Church at Warminster, on or about 24th December 1887.

The defendant denied that the plaintiff was possessed of, or in occupation of the pew, but had been permitted to occupy it, and it was removed owing to the church restoration.

The question was whether he was entitled to the pew at common law as appurtenant to the dwelling house or as a freehold.

The title of the occupation of the house in the hands of the plaintiff’s family dated from 1644, and from that time down to the present uninterruptedly from father to son they had occupied the house.

In 1832 by deed, the plaintiff’s grandfather acquired by purchase the house, and in that conveyance it was expressed that the pew in question was conveyed. Pew rent had been paid since at least 1680 for the “ground”, sometimes called “seat”. In 1780 the parish first purported to regulate the sale and purchase of pews, all being bought for three lives. In 1833 all pews falling in were not to be renewed but were let for “rents”.

Judgement was that the plaintiff’s title was irregular though the pew had been used by the family for 200 years as it was not connected with the mansion house which was asked to be equivalent to a Bishop’s faculty. There was no lawful title to the pew, hence judgement was given for the defendants with costs.

Later Halliday won an appeal in the House of Lords and in 1897 replaced the pew, arousing such indignation locally that his effigy was burnt. One night it [the pew] was removed from the church and set alight in the Church Fields but little damage was done. Mr. Halliday patched it up and again replaced it. A donkey in spectacles was then led round the town to represent the gentleman.

After his death, his widow, whom he had married in his latter years, removed the pew to appease popular feeling, in 1913.

Manley adds the following footnotes:

J.E. Halliday, as a Nonconformist, did not use the pew, but insisted on it remaining after all other rented pews in the Minster had been removed.