Master of the Faculties

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Under English ecclesiastical law, the Court of Faculties is the tribunal of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and is attached to the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The principal officer of the Court is the Master of the Faculties (a position normally held by the Dean of Arches - the senior ecclesiastical judge) who is legal adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The court:

• creates rights as to pews, monuments, and rights of burial places;
• grants licenses such as marriage licenses, a faculty to erect an organ in a parish church, to level a churchyard, or to exhume bodies buried in a church cemetery. These rights are granted under the statute 25 Hen VII c. 21; and
• appoints notaries public, after the passage of the Ecclesiastical Licences Act 1533 (UK), which was a direct result of the Reformation in England. Notaries public in some Commonwealth jurisdictions such as Queensland, Australia (in all other Australian States and Territories they are appointed by the relevant Supreme Court) and New Zealand are still appointed through the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury by the Court of Faculties.
• issues faculties for the creation and conferment of Lambeth degrees.

[edit] List of Masters of the Faculties

• Miss Sheila Cameron, QC 2000-
• Hon Sir John Owen, QC 1980-2000
• Rev'd Kenneth Elphinstone, QC 1977-1980
• Sir Harold Kent, GCB QC 1972-1976
• Walter Wigglesworth, QC 1971-1972
• Rt Hon Sir Henry Willink, Bt QC 1955-1971
• Sir Philip Wilbraham-Baker, KBE 1934-1955
• Sir Lewis Dibdin, QC 1903-1934
• Sir Arthur Charles 1898-1903
• Rt Hon Lord Penzance 1875-1898
• Rt Hon Sir Robert Phillimore, Bt QC 1873-1875
• Rt Hon Stephen Lushington 1858-1873
• Sir John Dodson 1841-1857
• Sir William Scott, Lord Stowell 1790-
• Rt Rev'd Samuel Halifax 1770-1790
• Sir Charles Hodges 1689-1714
• Sir John Birkenhead
• Dr Robert Aylett 1642-
• Sir Charles Caesar 1638-1642