Admiralty Order in Council No. 215.

11 August 1902.

K.

Whereas it was provided by an Order in Council of His late Majesty King William IV., dated the thirty-first day of July 1835. that no person should be appointed a Chaplain in the Royal Navy who had not been regularly ordained deacon and priest and fulfilled certain other conditions therein specified :

And whereas it is considered that Chaplains of the Royal Navy will greatly benefit, when not actually serving at sea in Your Majesty's Ships, by receiving an episcopal license similar to that which is granted by bishops to officiating clergy within their dioceses :

We beg leave to recommend to Your Majesty that we be empowered to require that all Chaplains appointed for service with Your Majesty's Navy shall, as a condition to such appointment, receive a special ecclesiastical license from the Archbishop of Canterbury and his successors, such license to be one capable of recognition by all Bishops and other authorities of the Church of England throughout the world during the period that Chaplains shall be on the Active List of the Royal Navy :

We also recommend that the Archbishop and his successors be empowered, on the Chaplain of the Fleet certifying to him that a licensed Chaplain has either ceased to be on the Active List of Naval Chaplains or that the Admiralty no longer require the services of such Chaplain, to require the Chaplain's license to be brought into the Registry of the Archbishop's Vicar General there to be endorsed as cancelled :

We would further recommend that the Chaplain of the Fleet, for the time being, during his tenure of Office, should be granted the ecclesiastical dignity of Archdeacon under the Archbishop of Canterbury, in order that he may be placed in official relations with the Archbishop on spiritual matters concerning the religious welfare of the Church in Your Majesty's Navy.

It is not proposed that these recommendations shall in any degree affect the powers hitherto exercised by us in connection with the administration of the Chaplains of the Royal Navy.

N. 1120 / 1902.

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