Their task was to ascertain which ecclesiastical assets the future Church in Wales should retain, and which should be transferred to local authorities, and to various Welsh national institutions.
[5] Parochial assets were vested in the incumbent – the rector or vicar of the parish – on the basis of his “parson's freehold” in the benefice.
In some parishes – chiefly where former monastic lands had been sold after the Dissolution of the Monasteries – tithe rentcharge was payable to a lay landowner.
[12] It was estimated that in 1914 the Church of England in Wales enjoyed an income from endowments of approximately £260,000 per year.
The Welsh Church Commissioners were required, under the terms of the 1914 act, to compensate individual clergymen who were entitled to receive income from tithe rentcharge,[c] by capitalising the value of future payments, based on their age and future life expectancy, and to pay that sum to the Representative Body.
[d] Due to economic conditions prevailing after the First World War, the interest rate that the Commissioners had to pay on borrowings to make the capitalised payments had risen to over 5%.
A few hard-line pro-disestablishment Nonconformist Liberals such as David Davies, MP, and journalist and former Member of Parliament W. Llewelyn Williams opposed this partial re-endowment.
[2]: 30 The political situation had changed, however: Liberal MPs who had favoured disendowment, and Conservatives who had formerly opposed it, were now all supporters of Lloyd George's Coalition Government.
[14]: 168 By the time that the distribution of residue took place the University College of Swansea (founded 1920) had been added to the list of educational beneficiaries under the terms of the Welsh Church (Amendment) Act 1938.
[e] The problems caused by the issue of the transfer of burial grounds also complicated the winding down and ultimate dissolution of the Welsh Church Commissioners.
Lloyd George had achieved a prominence for himself throughout Wales in 1888 when he, as a young solicitor, had taken the Llanfrothen Burial Case [cy] on appeal to the Divisional Court of the Queen’s Bench Division.
The case established the right of the family of a deceased nonconformist to have his body buried in Llanfrothen parish churchyard, by a Baptist minister, and without using the Anglican burial service.